The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

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The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 314

by William Shakespeare


  To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:

  First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

  Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

  Who should against his murderer shut the door,

  Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

  Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

  So clear in his great office, that his virtues

  Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against

  The deep damnation of his taking-off,

  And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

  Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed

  Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

  Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye

  That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

  To prick the sides of my intent, but only

  Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself

  And falls on th’other.

  Enter Lady Macbeth

  How now? What news?

  LADY MACBETH

  He has almost supped. Why have you left the

  chamber?

  MACBETH

  Hath he asked for me?

  LADY MACBETH

  Know you not he has?

  MACBETH

  We will proceed no further in this business.

  He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought

  Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

  Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,

  Not cast aside so soon.

  LADY MACBETH

  Was the hope drunk

  Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?

  And wakes it now to look so green and pale

  At what it did so freely? From this time

  Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard

  To be the same in thine own act and valour

  As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

  Which thou esteem‘st the ornament of life,

  And live a coward in thine own esteem,

  Letting ’I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’,

  Like the poor cat i’th’ adage?

  MACBETH

  Prithee, peace.

  I dare do all that may become a man;

  Who dares do more is none.

  LADY MACBETH

  What beast was’t then

  That made you break this enterprise to me?

  When you durst do it, then you were a man;

  And to be more than what you were, you would

  Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

  Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.

  They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

  Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know

  How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.

  I would, while it was smiling in my face,

  Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums

  And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn

  As you have done to this.

  MACBETH

  If we should fail?

  LADY MACBETH

  We fail!

  But screw your courage to the sticking-place

  And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep—

  Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey

  Soundly invite him—his two chamberlains

  Will I with wine and wassail so convince

  That memory, the warder of the brain,

  Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

  A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep

  Their drenched natures lies as in a death,

  What cannot you and I perform upon

  Th’unguarded Duncan? What not put upon

  His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

  Of our great quell?

  MACBETH

  Bring forth men-children only,

  For thy undaunted mettle should compose

  Nothing but males. Will it not be received,

  When we have marked with blood those sleepy two

  Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,

  That they have done’t?

  LADY MACBETH

  Who dares receive it other,

  As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar

  Upon his death?

  MACBETH

  I am settled, and bend up

  Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

  Away, and mock the time with fairest show.

  False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

  Exeunt

  2.1 Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch before him

  BANQUO How goes the night, boy?

  FLEANCE

  The moon is down. I have not heard the clock.

  BANQUO

  And she goes down at twelve.

  FLEANCE

  I take’t ’tis later, sir.

  BANQUO (giving Fleance his sword)

  Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heaven,

  Their candles are all out. Take thee that, too.

  A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

  And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,

  Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature

  Gives way to in repose.

  Enter Macbeth, and a servant with a torch

  Give me my sword. Who’s there?

  MACBETH A friend.

  BANQUO

  What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s a-bed.

  He hath been in unusual pleasure, and

  Sent forth great largesse to your offices.

  This diamond he greets your wife withal

  By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up

  In measureless content.

  MACBETH

  Being unprepared

  Our will became the servant to defect,

  Which else should free have wrought.

  BANQUO

  All’s well.

  I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters.

  To you they have showed some truth.

  MACBETH

  I think not of them;

  Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,

  We would spend it in some words upon that business

  If you would grant the time.

  BANQUO

  At your kind’st leisure.

  MACBETH

  If you shall cleave to my consent when ’tis,

  It shall make honour for you.

  BANQUO

  So I lose none

  In seeking to augment it, but still keep

  My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,

  I shall be counselled.

  MACBETH Good repose the while.

  BANQUO Thanks, sir. The like to you.

  Exeunt Banquo and Fleance

  MACBETH (to the Servant)

  Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

  She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Exit Servant

  Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

  I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

  Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

  To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

  A dagger of the mind, a false creation

  Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

  I see thee yet, in form as palpable

  As this which now I draw.

  Thou marshall‘st me the way that I was going,

  And such an instrument I was to use.

  Mine eyes are made the fools o’th’ other senses,

  Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,

  And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

  Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.

  It is the bloody business which informs

  Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-world

  Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

  The curtained
sleep. Witchcraft celebrates

  Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder,

  Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf,

  Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

  With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

  Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,

  Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear

  Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

  And take the present horror from the time,

  Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.

  Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

  A bell rings

  I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.

  Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

  That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Exit

  2.2 Enter Lady Macbeth

  LADY MACBETH

  That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.

  What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark,

  peace!—

  It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman

  Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it.

  The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms

  Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged

  their possets

  That death and nature do contend about them

  Whether they live or die.

  Enter Macbeth [above]

  MACBETH Who’s there?

  What ho? Exit

  LADY MACBETH

  Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,

  And ‘tis not done. Th’attempt and not the deed

  Confounds us. Hark!—I laid their daggers ready;

  He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled

  My father as he slept, I had done’t.

  [Enter Macbeth below]

  My husband!

  MACBETH

  I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

  LADY MACBETH

  I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

  Did not you speak?

  MACBETH When?

  LADY MACBETH Now.

  MACBETH As I descended?

  LADY MACBETH

  Ay.

  MACBETH Hark!—Who lies i’th’ second chamber?

  LADY MACBETH

  Donalbain.

  MACBETH (looking at his hands) This is a sorry sight.

  LADY MACBETH

  A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

  MACBETH

  There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’

  That they did wake each other. I stood and heard

  them.

  But they did say their prayers and addressed them

  Again to sleep.

  LADY MACBETH There are two lodged together.

  MACBETH

  One cried ‘God bless us’ and ‘Amen’ the other,

  As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.

  List‘ning their fear I could not say ‘Amen’

  When they did say ‘God bless us.’

  LADY MACBETH

  Consider it not so deeply.

  MACBETH

  But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’?

  I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’

  Stuck in my throat.

  LADY MACBETH These deeds must not be thought

  After these ways. So, it will make us mad.

  MACBETH

  Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more,

  Macbeth does murder sleep’—the innocent sleep,

  Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,

  The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,

  Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

  Chief nourisher in life’s feast—

  LADY MACBETH

  What do you mean?

  MACBETH

  Still it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house,

  ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor

  Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’

  LADY MACBETH

  Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,

  You do unbend your noble strength to think

  So brain-sickly of things. Go get some water

  And wash this filthy witness from your hand.

  Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

  They must lie there. Go, carry them, and smear

  The sleepy grooms with blood.

  MACBETH

  I’ll go no more.

  I am afraid to think what I have done,

  Look on’t again I dare not.

  LADY MACBETH

  Infirm of purpose!

  Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead

  Are but as pictures. ’Tis the eye of childhood

  That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed

  I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,

  For it must seem their guilt. Exit

  Knock within

  MACBETH

  Whence is that knocking?—

  How is’t with me when every noise appals me?

  What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.

  Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

  Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

  The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

  Making the green one red.

  Enter Lady Macbeth

  LADY MACBETH

  My hands are of your colour, but I shame

  To wear a heart so white.

  Knock within

  I hear a knocking

  At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.

  A little water clears us of this deed.

  How easy is it then! Your constancy

  Hath left you unattended.

  Knock within

  Hark, more knocking.

  Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us

  And show us to be watchers. Be not lost

  So poorly in your thoughts.

  MACBETH

  To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.

  Knock within

  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.

  Knock within

  Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i‘th’ name of

  Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on

  th’expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins

  enough about you; here you’ll sweat for’t.

  Knock within

  Knock, knock. Who’s there, in 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 could not equivocate to

  heaven. O, come in, equivocator.

  Knock within

  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.

  Knock within

  Knock, knock. Never 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.

  Knock within

  Anon, anon!

  He opens the gate

  I pray you remember the porter.

  Enter Macduff and Lennox

  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.


  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. 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, 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 made a shift to cast him.

  MACDUFF Is thy master stirring?

  Enter Macbeth

  Our knocking has awaked him: here he comes. [Exit Porter]

  LENNOX (to Macbeth)

  Good morrow, noble sir.

  MACBETH

  Good morrow, both.

  MACDUFF

  Is the King stirring, worthy thane?

  MACBETH

  Not yet.

  MACDUFF

  He did command me to call timely on him.

  I have almost slipped 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.

  This is the door.

  MACDUFF

  I’ll make so bold to call,

  For ’tis my limited service. Exit Macduff

  LENNOX

  Goes the King hence today?

  MACBETH

  He does; he did appoint so.

  LENNOX

  The night has been unruly. Where we lay

  Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,

  Lamentings heard i’th’ air, strange screams of death,

  And prophesying with accents terrible

  Of dire combustion and confused events

  New-hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird

  Clamoured the livelong night. Some say the earth

  Was feverous and did shake.

  MACBETH

  ’Twas a rough night.

  LENNOX

  My young remembrance cannot parallel

  A fellow to it.

  Enter Macduff

  MACDUFF O horror, horror, horror!

  Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee.

  MACBETH and LENNOX What’s the matter?

  MACDUFF

  Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.

  Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

  The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence

  The life o’th’ building.

  MACBETH What is’t you say—the life?

  LENNOX Mean you his majesty?

  MACDUFF

  Approach the chamber and destroy your sight

 

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