MACBETH
To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.
[knock]
Wake Duncan with thy knocking: I would thou
couldst! Exeunt.
2.3 Enter a Porter.
[knocking within]
PORTER Here’s a knocking, indeed! If a man were Porter
of Hell Gate, he should have old turning the key.
[knocking] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i’th’
name of Belzebub? – Here’s a farmer, that hang’d
himself on th’ expectation of plenty: come in, time-
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pleaser; have napkins enow about you; here you’ll
sweat for’t. [knocking] Knock, knock. Who’s there,
i’th’ other devil’s name? – Faith, here’s an equivocator,
that could swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet
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could not equivocate to heaven: O! come in,
equivocator. [knocking] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s
there? – Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for
stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you
may roast your goose. [knocking] Knock, knock. Never
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at quiet! What are you? – But this place is too cold for
Hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to
have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose
way to th’everlasting bonfire. [knocking] Anon, anon:
I pray you, remember the Porter. [Opens the gate.]
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Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.
MACDUFF Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
PORTER Faith, Sir, we were carousing till the second
cock; and drink, Sir, is a great provoker of three
things.
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MACDUFF What three things does drink especially
provoke?
PORTER Marry, Sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, Sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes
the desire, but it takes away the performance.
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Therefore, much drink may be said to be an
equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars
him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades
him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not
stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep,
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and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF I believe, drink gave thee the lie last night.
PORTER That it did, Sir, i’the very throat on me: but I
requited him for his lie; and (I think) being too strong
for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I
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made a shift to cast him.
MACDUFF Is thy master stirring?
Enter MACBETH.
Our knocking has awak’d him; here he comes.
LENOX Good morrow, noble Sir!
MACBETH Good morrow, both!
MACDUFF Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?
MACBETH Not yet.
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MACDUFF He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipp’d the hour.
MACBETH I’ll bring you to him.
MACDUFF I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet ’tis one.
MACBETH The labour we delight in physics pain.
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This is the door.
MACDUFF I’ll make so bold to call,
For ’tis my limited service. Exit.
LENOX Goes the King hence to-day?
MACBETH He does: – he did appoint so.
LENOX The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
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Lamentings heard i’th’ air; strange screams of death,
And, prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confus’d events,
New hatch’d to th’ woeful time, the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth
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Was feverous, and did shake.
MACBETH ’Twas a rough night.
LENOX My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it.
Re-enter MACDUFF.
MACDUFF O horror! horror! horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee!
MACBETH, LENOX What’s the matter?
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MACDUFF Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious Murther hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed Temple, and stole thence
The life o’th’ building!
MACBETH What is’t you say? the life?
LENOX Mean you his Majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
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With a new Gorgon. – Do not bid me speak:
See, and then speak yourselves. –
Exeunt Macbeth and Lenox.
Awake! awake! –
Ring the alarum-bell. – Murther, and treason!
Banquo, and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
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And look on death itself! – up, up, and see
The great doom’s image! – Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror! [Bell rings.]
Enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACBETH What’s the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
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The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
MACDUFF O gentle lady,
’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman’s ear,
Would murther as it fell.
Enter BANQUO.
O Banquo! Banquo!
Our royal master’s murther’d!
LADY MACBETH Woe, alas!
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What! in our house?
BANQUO Too cruel, anywhere.
Dear Duff, I pr’ythee, contradict thyself,
And say, it is not so.
Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.
MACBETH Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv’d a blessed time; for, from this instant,
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There’s nothing serious in mortality;
All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.
DONALBAIN What is amiss?
MACBETH You are, and do not know’t:
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The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp’d; the very source of it is stopp’d.
MACDUFF Your royal father’s murther’d.
MALCOLM O! by whom?
LENOX Those of his chamber, as it seem’d, had done’t:
Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood;
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So were their daggers, which, unwip’d, we found
Upon their pillows: they star’d, and were distracted;
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH O! yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF Wherefore did you so?
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MACBETH
Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
Th’expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. – Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac’d with his golden blood;
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And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature
For ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers.
Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech’d with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
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Courage, to make’s love known?
LADY MACBETH Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF Look to the Lady.
MALCOLM [aside to Donalbain]
Why do we hold our tongues, that most may claim
This argument for ours?
DONALBAIN [aside to Malcolm] What should be spoken
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Here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,
May rush, and seize us? Let’s away:
Our tears are not yet brew’d.
MALCOLM [aside to Donalbain] Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO Look to the Lady: –
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Lady Macbeth is carried out.
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
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Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF And so do I.
ALL So all.
MACBETH Let’s briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i’th’ hall together.
ALL Well contented.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.
MALCOLM
What will you do? Let’s not consort with them:
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To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.
DONALBAIN To Ireland, I: our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer; where we are,
There’s daggers in men’s smiles: the near in blood,
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The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM This murtherous shaft that’s shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim: therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away. There’s warrant in that theft
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Which steals itself, when there’s no mercy left.
Exeunt.
2.4 Enter ROSSE and an Old Man.
OLD MAN Threescore and ten I can remember well;
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange, but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.
ROSSE Ha, good Father,
Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
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Threatens his bloody stage: by th’ clock ’tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?
OLD MAN ’Tis unnatural,
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Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at, and kill’d.
ROSSE
And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain)
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
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Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.
OLD MAN ’Tis said, they eat each other.
ROSSE They did so; to th’amazement of mine eyes,
That look’d upon’t.
Enter MACDUFF.
Here comes the good Macduff.
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How goes the world, Sir, now?
MACDUFF Why, see you not?
ROSSE
Is’t known, who did this more than bloody deed?
MACDUFF Those that Macbeth hath slain.
ROSSE Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF They were suborn’d.
Malcolm, and Donalbain, the King’s two sons,
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Are stol’n away and fled; which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.
ROSSE ‘Gainst nature still:
Thriftless Ambition, that will ravin up
Thine own life’s means! – Then ’tis most like
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 341