Complete Plays, The
Page 109
Edmund
I was contracted to them both: all three
Now marry in an instant.
Edgar
Here comes Kent.
Albany
Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead:
This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble,
Touches us not with pity.
Exit Gentleman
Enter Kent
O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.
Kent
I am come
To bid my king and master aye good night:
Is he not here?
Albany
Great thing of us forgot!
Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? and where’s Cordelia?
See’st thou this object, Kent?
The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in
Kent
Alack, why thus?
Edmund
Yet Edmund was beloved:
The one the other poison’d for my sake,
And after slew herself.
Albany
Even so. Cover their faces.
Edmund
I pant for life: some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,
Be brief in it, to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia:
Nay, send in time.
Albany
Run, run, O, run!
Edgar
To who, my lord? Who hath the office? send
Thy token of reprieve.
Edmund
Well thought on: take my sword,
Give it the captain.
Albany
Haste thee, for thy life.
Exit Edgar
Edmund
He hath commission from thy wife and me
To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.
Albany
The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.
Edmund is borne off
Re-enter King Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Captain, and others following
King Lear
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
Kent
Is this the promised end
Edgar
Or image of that horror?
Albany
Fall, and cease!
King Lear
This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.
Kent
[Kneeling] O my good master!
King Lear
Prithee, away.
Edgar
’Tis noble Kent, your friend.
King Lear
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her; now she’s gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Captain
’Tis true, my lords, he did.
King Lear
Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip: I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o’ the best: I’ll tell you straight.
Kent
If fortune brag of two she loved and hated,
One of them we behold.
King Lear
This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?
Kent
The same,
Your servant Kent: Where is your servant Caius?
King Lear
He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that;
He’ll strike, and quickly too: he’s dead and rotten.
Kent
No, my good lord; I am the very man,—
King Lear
I’ll see that straight.
Kent
That, from your first of difference and decay,
Have follow’d your sad steps.
King Lear
You are welcome hither.
Kent
Nor no man else: all’s cheerless, dark, and deadly.
Your eldest daughters have fordone them selves,
And desperately are dead.
King Lear
Ay, so I think.
Albany
He knows not what he says: and vain it is
That we present us to him.
Edgar
Very bootless.
Enter a Captain
Captain
Edmund is dead, my lord.
Albany
That’s but a trifle here.
You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come
Shall be applied: for us we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,
To him our absolute power:
To Edgar and Kent
you, to your rights:
With boot, and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue, and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!
King Lear
And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!
Dies
Edgar
He faints! My lord, my lord!
Kent
Break, heart; I prithee, break!
Edgar
Look up, my lord.
Kent
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
Edgar
He is gone, indeed.
Kent
The wonder is, he hath endured so long:
He but usurp’d his life.
Albany
Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is general woe.
To Kent and Edgar
Friends of my soul, you twain
Rule in this realm, and the gored state sustain.
Kent
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.
Albany
The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
Exeunt, with a dead march
The Tragedy of Macbeth
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
ACT I
SCENE I. A DESERT PLACE.
SCENE II. A CAMP NEAR FORRES.
SCENE III. A HEATH NEAR FORRES.
SCENE IV. FORRES. THE PALACE.
SCENE V. INVERNESS. MACBETH’S CASTLE.
SCENE VI. BEFORE MACBETH’S CASTLE.
SCENE VII. MACBETH’S CASTLE.
ACT II
SCENE I. COURT OF MACBETH’S CASTLE.
/> SCENE II. THE SAME.
SCENE III. THE SAME.
SCENE IV. OUTSIDE MACBETH’S CASTLE.
ACT III
SCENE I. FORRES. THE PALACE.
SCENE II. THE PALACE.
SCENE III. A PARK NEAR THE PALACE.
SCENE IV. THE SAME. HALL IN THE PALACE.
SCENE V. A HEATH.
SCENE VI. FORRES. THE PALACE.
ACT IV
SCENE I. A CAVERN. IN THE MIDDLE, A BOILING CAULDRON.
SCENE II. FIFE. MACDUFF’S CASTLE.
SCENE III. ENGLAND. BEFORE THE KING’S PALACE.
ACT V
SCENE I. DUNSINANE. ANTE-ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
SCENE II. THE COUNTRY NEAR DUNSINANE.
SCENE III. DUNSINANE. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
SCENE IV. COUNTRY NEAR BIRNAM WOOD.
SCENE V. DUNSINANE. WITHIN THE CASTLE.
SCENE VI. DUNSINANE. BEFORE THE CASTLE.
SCENE VII. ANOTHER PART OF THE FIELD.
SCENE VIII. ANOTHER PART OF THE FIELD.
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Duncan, King of Scotland.
Macbeth, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army.
Lady Macbeth, his wife.
Macduff, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland.
Lady Macduff, his wife.
Malcolm, elder son of Duncan.
Donalbain, younger son of Duncan.
Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army.
Fleance, his son.
Lennox, Ross, Menteith, Angus, Caithness, noblemen of Scotland.
Siward, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces.
Young Siward, his son.
Seyton, attendant to Macbeth.
Hecate, Queen of the Witches.
Witches.
Boy, Son of Macduff.
Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
An English Doctor.
A Scottish Doctor.
A Sergeant.
A Porter.
An Old Man.
The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions.
Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murtherers, Attendants, and Messengers.
Scene: Scotland and England.
ACT I
SCENE I. A DESERT PLACE.
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches
First Witch
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch
When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
Third Witch
That will be ere the set of sun.
First Witch
Where the place?
Second Witch
Upon the heath.
Third Witch
There to meet with Macbeth.
First Witch
I come, Graymalkin!
Second Witch
Paddock calls.
Third Witch
Anon.
All
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A CAMP NEAR FORRES.
Alarum within. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant
Duncan
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
Malcolm
This is the sergeant
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
’Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
Sergeant
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald —
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him — from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show’d like a rebel’s whore: but all’s too weak:
For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name —
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix’d his head upon our battlements.
Duncan
O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
Sergeant
As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seem’d to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had with valour arm’d
Compell’d these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
With furbish’d arms and new supplies of men
Began a fresh assault.
Duncan
Dismay’d not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
Sergeant
Yes;
As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorise another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.
Duncan
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.
Exit Sergeant, attended
Who comes here?
Enter Ross
Malcolm
The worthy thane of Ross.
Lennox
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.
Ross
God save the king!
Duncan
Whence camest thou, worthy thane?
Ross
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm ’gainst arm.
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
Duncan
Great happiness!
Ross
That now
Sweno, the Norways’ king, craves composition:
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colme’s inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
Duncan
No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
Ross
I’ll see it done.
Duncan
What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.
Exeunt
SCENE III. A HEATH NEAR FORRES.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches
First Witch
Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch
Killing swine.
Third Witch
Sister, where thou?
First Witch
A sailor’
s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d:—
‘Give me,’ quoth I:
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.
Second Witch
I’ll give thee a wind.
First Witch
Thou’rt kind.
Third Witch
And I another.
First Witch
I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I’ the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.
Second Witch
Show me, show me.
First Witch
Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wreck’d as homeward he did come.
Drum within
Third Witch
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
All
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm’s wound up.
Enter Macbeth and Banquo
Macbeth
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Banquo
How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these
So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
Macbeth
Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
Banquo
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I’ the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.