MACBETH

by Shakespeare · Cluster: Guilt · Conscience · Fate and Free Will

Abstract

Shakespeare’s tragedy of overreaching ambition: spurred by witches’ prophecy and his wife, Macbeth murders the king to seize the crown and is consumed by guilt, tyranny and bloodshed; themes of ambition, fate, conscience and the supernatural.

Capitoli / Chapters

Connections

Topoi: Fortune’s Wheel, World Upside Down, Great Chain of Being, Sleeper Awakes Archetypes: Tyrant, Usurper, Tragic Hero, Witch Enchantress, Prophet, Ghost, Femme Fatale Motifs: Blood, Death, Supernatural, Ghosts, Sleep, Night, Light and Dark, Madness (2), Crown, Swords and Weapons, Clothing and Costume, Animals Themes & Concepts: Ambition, Power and Corruption, Kingship and Legitimacy, Guilt, Conscience, Fate and Free Will, Appearance vs Reality, Deception, Order vs Chaos, Natural Order, Madness, Mortality, Good vs Evil, Temptation Forms & Genres: Tragedy, Verse Drama, Blank Verse Settings: Scotland the Highlands, Castle, Court Characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, Duncan, Malcolm, Three Witches, Lady Macduff

Testo integrale / Full text

MACBETH BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ADAPTED BY THOMAS MIDDLETON) SHORTLY after James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne, in 1603, he gave his patronage to Shakespeare’s company; the Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the King’s Men, entering into a special relationship with their sovereign. Macbeth is the play of Shakespeare’s that most clearly reflects this relationship. James regarded the virtuous and noble Banquo, Macbeth’s comrade at the start of the action, as his direct ancestor; eight Stuart kings were said to have preceded James, just as, in the play, Banquo points to ‘a show of eight kings’ as his descendants (4.1.127.1-140); and in the play the English king (historically Edward the Confessor) is praised for the capacity, on which James also prided himself, to cure ’the king’s evil’ (scrofula). Macbeth is obviously a Jacobean play, composed probably in 1606. But the first printed text, in the 1623 Folio, shows signs of having been adapted at a later date. It is exceptionally short by comparison with Shakespeare’s other tragedies; and it includes episodes which there is good reason to believe are not by Shakespeare. Most conspicuous are Act 3, Scene 5 and parts of Act 4, Scene I: 38.I-60 and 141-8.1. These episodes feature Hecate, who does not appear elsewhere in the play; they are composed largely in octosyllabic couplets in a style conspicuously different from the rest of the play; and they call for the performance of two songs that are found in The Witch, a play of uncertain date by Thomas Middleton. Probably Middleton himself adapted Shakespeare’s play some years after its first performance, adding these and more localized details, and cutting the play elsewhere. We do not attempt to excise passages most clearly written by Middleton, because the adapter’s hand almost certainly affected the text at other, less determinable points. The Folio text of Macbeth cites only the opening words of the songs; drawing on The Witch, we attempt a reconstruction of their staging in Macbeth. Shakespeare took materials for his story from the account in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicle of the reigns of Duncan and Macbeth (AD 1034-57). Occasionally (especially in the English episodes of Act 4, Scene 2) he closely followed Holinshed’s wording, but essentially the play’s structure is his own. He invented the framework of the three witches who tempted both Macbeth and Banquo with prophecies of greatness. His Macbeth is both more introspective and more intensely evil than the competent warrior-king portrayed by Holinshed; conversely, Shakespeare made Duncan, the king whom Macbeth murders, far more venerable and saintly. Some of the play’s features, notably the character of Lady Macbeth, originate in Holinshed’s account of the murder of an earlier Scottish king, Duff; he was killed in his castle at Forres by Donwald, who had been ‘set on’ by his wife. Macbeth is an exciting story of witchcraft, murder, and retribution that can also be seen as a study in the philosophy and psychology of evil. The witches are not easily made credible in modern performances, and Shakespeare seems deliberately to have drained colour away from some parts of his composition in order to concentrate attention on Macbeth and his Lady. It is Macbeth’s neurotic self-absorption, his fear, his anger, and his despair, along with his wife’s steely determination, her invoking of the powers of evil, and her eventual revelation in sleep of her repressed humanity, that have given the play its long-proven power to fascinate readers and to challenge performers. THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY KING DUNCAN of Scotland A CAPTAIN in Duncan’s army MACBETH, Thane of Glamis, later Thane of Cawdor, then King of Scotland A PORTER at Macbeth’s castle Three MURDERERS attending on Macbeth SEYTON, servant of Macbeth LADY MACBETH, Macbeth’s wife BANQUO, a Scottish thane FLEANCE, his son MACDUFF, Thane of Fife LADY MACDUFF, his wife MACDUFF’S SON SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland YOUNG SIWARD, his son An English DOCTOR

HECATE, Queen of the Witches Six WITCHES Three APPARITIONS, one an armed head, one a bloody child, one a child crowned A SPIRIT LIKE A CAT Other SPIRITS

An OLD MAN A MESSENGER MURDERERS SERVANTS

A show of eight kings; Lords and Thanes, attendants, soldiers, drummers

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Atto 1, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches
FIRST WITCH	When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH	When the hurly-burly’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, Grimalkin.
SECOND WITCH	Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH	Anon.
ALL	Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air. Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Alarum within. Enter king Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain
KING 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.
CAPTAIN	Doubtful it stood, As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art. The merciless Macdonald— Worthy to be a rebel, for to that The multiplying villainies of nature Do swarm upon him—from the Western Isles Of kerns and galloglasses is supplied, And fortune on his damned quarry smiling Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak, For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name!— Disdaining fortune, with his brandished 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 unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements.
KING DUNCAN	O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
CAPTAIN	As whence the sun ’gins his reflection Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break, So from that spring whence comfort seemed to come Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark. No sooner justice had, with valour armed, Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels But the Norwegian lord, surveying vantage, With furbished arms and new supplies of men Began a fresh assault.
KING DUNCAN	Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
CAPTAIN	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 memorize another Golgotha, I cannot tell— But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.
KING DUNCAN	So well thy words become thee as thy wounds: They smack of honour both.—Go get him surgeons.
(didascalia)	Exit Captain with attendants
(didascalia)	Enter Ross and Angus
KING DUNCAN	Who comes here?
MALCOLM	The worthy Thane of Ross.
LENNOX	What haste looks through his eyes! So should he look That seems to speak things strange. Ross God save the King.
KING DUNCAN	Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane? Ross From Fife, great King, Where the Norwegian 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, lapped 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—
KING 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 Colum’s inch Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
KING 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.
KING DUNCAN	What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally

Atto 1, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	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 munched, and munched, and munched. ‘Give me,’ quoth I. ‘Aroint thee, witch,’ the rump-fed runnion cries. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ 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’th’ shipman’s card. I’ll drain him dry as hay. Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid. He shall live a man forbid. Weary sennights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his barque cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tossed. Look what I have.
SECOND WITCH	Show me, show me.
FIRST WITCH	Here I have a pilot’s thumb, Wrecked as homeward he did come.
(didascalia)	Drum within
THIRD WITCH	A drum, a drum— Macbeth doth come.
ALL	(dancing in a ring) 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth and Banquo
MACBETH	So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO	How far is’t called to Forres?—What are these, So withered, and so wild in their attire, That look not like th‘inhabitants o’th’ 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 choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips. You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.
MACBETH	(to the Witches) 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, that shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO	Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? (To the Witches) I’th’ 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. If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate.
FIRST WITCH	Hail!
SECOND WITCH	Hail!
THIRD WITCH	Hail!
FIRST WITCH	Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
SECOND WITCH	Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH	Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH	Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH	Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more. By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis, But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman, and to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence, or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you. The Witches vanish
BANQUO	The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?
MACBETH	Into the air, and what seemed corporal Melted as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed.
BANQUO	Were such things here as we do speak about, Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?
MACBETH	Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO	You shall be king.
MACBETH	And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?
BANQUO	To th’ self-same tune and words. Who’s here?
(didascalia)	Enter Ross and Angus
ROSS	The King hath happily received, Macbeth, The news of thy success, and when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels’ sight His wonders and his praises do contend Which should be thine or his; silenced with that, In viewing o‘er the rest o’th’ self-same day He finds thee in the stout Norwegian ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, Strange images of death. As thick as hail Came post with post, and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence, And poured them down before him.
ANGUS	(to Macbeth) We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks; Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee.
ROSS	And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me from him call thee Thane of Cawdor, In which addition, hail, most worthy thane, For it is thine.
BANQUO	What, can the devil speak true?
MACBETH	The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me In borrowed robes?
ANGUS	Who was the thane lives yet, But under heavy judgement bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined With those of Norway, or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage, or that with both He laboured in his country’s wrack, I know not; But treasons capital, confessed, and proved Have overthrown him.
MACBETH	(aside) Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor. The greatest is behind. (To Ross and Angus) Thanks for your pains. (To Banquo) Do you not hope your children shall be kings When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them?
BANQUO	That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Besides the thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange, And oftentimes to win us to our harm The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles to betray’s In deepest consequence. (To Ross and Angus) Cousins, a word, I pray you.
MACBETH	(aside) Two truths are told As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme. (To Ross and Angus) I thank you, gentlemen. (Aside) This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.
BANQUO	(to Ross and Angus) Look how our partner’s rapt. MACBETH(aside) If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir.
BANQUO	(to Ross and Angus) New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use.
MACBETH	(aside) Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
BANQUO	Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH	Give me your favour. My dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. (To Ross and Angus) Kind gentlemen, your pains Are registered where every day I turn The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King. (Aside to Banquo) Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time, The interim having weighed it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO	Very gladly.
MACBETH	Till then, enough. (To Ross and Angus) Come, friends.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Flourish. Enter King Duncan, Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain, and attendants
KING DUNCAN	Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet returned?
MALCOLM	My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that saw him die, who did report That very frankly he confessed his treasons, Implored your highness’ pardon, and set forth A deep repentance. Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it. He died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he owed As ’twere a careless trifle.
KING DUNCAN	There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus
KING DUNCAN	(To Macbeth) O worthiest cousin, The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me! Thou art so far before That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved, That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine. Only I have left to say, ‘More is thy due than more than all can pay’.
MACBETH	The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness’ part Is to receive our duties, and our duties Are to your throne and state children and servants Which do but what they should by doing everything Safe toward your love and honour.
KING DUNCAN	Welcome hither. I have begun to plant thee, and will labour To make thee full of growing.—NoHe Banquo, That hast no less deserved, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me enfold thee And hold thee to my heart.
BANQUO	There if I grow The harvest is your own.
KING DUNCAN	My plenteous joys, Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes, And you whose places are the nearest, know We will establish our estate upon Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must Not unaccompanied invest him only, But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine On all deservers. (To Macbeth) From hence to Inverness, And bind us further to you.
MACBETH	The rest is labour which is not used for you. I’ll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach; So humbly take my leave.
KING DUNCAN	My worthy Cawdor.
MACBETH	(aside) The Prince of Cumberland—that is a step On which I must fall down or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. Exit
KING DUNCAN	True, worthy Banquo, he is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed. It is a banquet to me. Let’s after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome. It is a peerless kinsman. Flourish. Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 5

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Macbeth, with a letter
LADY MACBETH	(reading) ‘They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st report they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it came missives from the King, who all-hailed me “Thane of Cawdor”, by which title before these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time with “Hail, King that shalt be!” This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.’ Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o‘th’ milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou’dst have, great Glamis, That which cries ‘Thus thou must do’ if thou have it, And that which rather thou dost fear to do Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal.
(didascalia)	Enter a Servant
LADY MACBETH	What is your tidings?
SERVANT	The King comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH	Thou’t mad to say it. Is not thy master with him, who, were’t so, Would have informed for preparation?
SERVANT	So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming, One of my fellows had the speed of him, Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH	Give him tending; He brings great news. Exit Servant The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, Stop up th‘access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd‘ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry ’Hold, hold!’
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
LADY MACBETH	Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter, Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.
MACBETH	My dearest love, Duncan comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH	And when goes hence?
MACBETH	Tomorrow, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH	O never Shall sun that morrow see. Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t. He that’s coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night’s great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
MACBETH	We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH	Only look up clear. To alter favour ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me. Exeunt
(didascalia)	1.6 Hautboys and torches. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and attendants
KING DUNCAN	This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUO	This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heavens’ breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage but this bird Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle; Where they most breed and haunt I have observed The air is delicate.
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Macbeth
KING DUNCAN	See, see, our honoured hostess! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you How you shall bid God ’ield us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH	All our service In every point twice done, and then done double, Were poor and single business to contend Against those honours deep and broad wherewith Your majesty loads our house. For those of old, And the late dignities heaped up to them, We rest your hermits.
KING DUNCAN	Where’s the Thane of Cawdor? We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose To be his purveyor; but he rides well, And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest tonight.
LADY MACBETH	Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in count To make their audit at your highness’ pleasure, Still to return your own.
KING DUNCAN	Give me your hand. Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly, And shall continue our graces towards him. By your leave, hostess. Exeunt

Atto 1, Scena 7

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Hautboys. Torches. Enter a sewer and divers servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth
MACBETH	If it were done when ‘tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly. If th‘assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success: that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all, here, But here upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions which, being taught, return To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th‘ingredience of our poisoned chalice 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Macbeth
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.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	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.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth, and a servant with a torch
BANQUO	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.
(didascalia)	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

Atto 2, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	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.
(didascalia)	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.
(didascalia)	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

Atto 2, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	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.
(didascalia)	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?
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
MACDUFF	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.
(didascalia)	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 With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak. See, and then speak yourselves.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox
MACDUFF	Awake, awake! Ring the alarum bell. Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain, Malcolm, awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit, 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 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 murder as it fell.
(didascalia)	Enter Banquo
MACDUFF	O Banquo, Banquo, Our royal master’s murdered!
LADY MACBETH	Woe, alas— What, in our house?
BANQUO	Too cruel anywhere. Dear Duff, I prithee contradict thyself, And say it is not so.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth, Lennox, [and Ross]
MACBETH	Had I but died an hour before this chance I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant 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.
(didascalia)	Enter Malcolm and Donalbain
DONALBAIN	What is amiss?
MACBETH	You are, and do not know’t. The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Is stopped, the very source of it is stopped.
MACDUFF	Your royal father’s murdered.
MALCOLM	O, by whom?
LENNOX	Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done’t. Their hands and faces were all badged with blood, So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found Upon their pillows. They stared 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?
MACBETH	Who can be wise, amazed, temp‘rate and furious, Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man. Th’expedition of my violent love Outran the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood, And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers, Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart 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 here, where our fate, Hid in an auger-hole, may rush and seize us? Let’s away. Our tears are not yet brewed.
MALCOLM	(aside to Donalbain) Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO	Look to the lady; Exit Lady Macbeth, attended 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 Against the undivulged pretence I fight Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF	And SO do I.
SO	all.
MACBETH	Let’s briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i’th’ hall together.
ALL	Well contented.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain
MALCOLM	What will you do? Let’s not consort with them. 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 nea’er in blood, The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM	This murderous 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 Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left. Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Ross with an Old Man
OLD MAN	Threescore and ten I can remember well,
(didascalia)	Within the volume of which time I have seen
OLD MAN	Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night Hath trifled former knowings. Ross Ha, good father, Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, 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, Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.
ROSS	And Duncan’s horses—a thing most strange and certain— Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would Make war with mankind.
OLD MAN	’Tis said they ate each other.
ROSS	They did so, to th’amazement of mine eyes That looked upon’t.
(didascalia)	Enter Macduff
ROSS	Here comes the good Macduff. How goes the world, sir, now?
MACDUFF	Why, see you not?
ROSS	Is’t known who did this more than bloody deed?
MACDUFF	Those that Macbeth hath slain. Ross Alas the day, What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF	They were suborned. Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons, Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them Suspicion of the deed. Ross ’Gainst nature still. Thriftless ambition, that will raven up Thine own life’s means! Then ’tis most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
MACDUFF	He is already named and gone to Scone To be invested. Ross Where is Duncan’s body?
MACDUFF	Carried to Colmekill, The sacred storehouse of his predecessors, And guardian of their bones. Ross Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF	No, cousin, I’ll to Fife.
ROSS	Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF	Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu, Lest our old robes sit easier than our new. Ross Farewell, father.
OLD MAN	God’s benison go with you, and with those That would make good of bad, and friends of foes.
(didascalia)	Exeunt severally

Atto 3, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Banquo
BANQUO	Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all As the weird women promised; and I fear Thou played’st most foully for’t. Yet it was said It should not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from them— As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine- Why by the verities on thee made good May they not be my oracles as well, And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.
(didascalia)	Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth
BANQUO	as Queen, Lennox, Ross, lords, and attendants
MACBETH	Here’s our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH	If he had been forgotten It had been as a gap in our great feast, And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH	(to Banquo) Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir, And I’ll request your presence.
BANQUO	Let your highness Command upon me, to the which my duties Are with a most indissoluble tie For ever knit.
MACBETH	Ride you this afternoon?
BANQUO	Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH	We should have else desired your good advice, Which still hath been both grave and prosperous, In this day’s council; but we’ll talk tomorrow. Is’t far you ride?
BANQUO	As far, my lord, as will fill up the time ’Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better, I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain.
MACBETH	Fail not our feast.
BANQUO	My lord, I will not.
MACBETH	We hear our bloody cousins are bestowed In England and in Ireland, not confessing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention. But of that tomorrow, When therewithal we shall have cause of state Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse. Adieu, Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
BANQUO	Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon ’s.
MACBETH	I wish your horses swift and sure of foot, And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell. Exit Banquo Let every man be master of his time Till seven at night. To make society The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself Till supper-time alone. While then, God be with you.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Macbeth and a Servant
MACBETH	Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men Our pleasure?
SERVANT	They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
MACBETH	Bring them before us. Exit Servant To be thus is nothing But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature Reigns that which would be feared. ‘Tis much he dares, And to that dauntless temper of his mind He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety. There is none but he Whose being I do fear, and under him My genius is rebuked as, it is said, Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters When first they put the name of king upon me, And bade them speak to him. Then, prophet-like, They hailed him father to a line of kings. Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my grip, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If’t be so, For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind, For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered, Put rancours in the vessel of my peace Only for them, and mine eternal jewel Given to the common enemy of man To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings. Rather than so, come fate into the list And champion me to th’utterance. Who’s there?
(didascalia)	Enter Servant and two Murderers
MACBETH	(To the Servant) Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
(didascalia)	Exit Servant
MACBETH	Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
MURDERERS	It was, so please your highness.
MACBETH	Well then, now Have you considered of my speeches? Know That it was he in the times past which held you So under fortune, which you thought had been Our innocent self. This I made good to you In our last conference, passed in probation with you How you were borne in hand, how crossed, the instruments, Who wrought with them, and all things else that might To half a soul, and to a notion crazed, Say ‘Thus did Banquo’.
FIRST MURDERER	You made it known to us.
MACBETH	I did so, and went further, which is now Our point of second meeting. Do you find Your patience so predominant in your nature That you can let this go? Are you so gospelled To pray for this good man and for his issue, Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave And beggared yours for ever?
FIRST MURDERER	We are men, my liege.
MACBETH	Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men, As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept All by the name of dogs. The valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive Particular addition from the bill That writes them all alike. And so of men. Now, if you have a station in the file, Not i‘th’ worst rank of manhood, say’t, And I will put that business in your bosoms Whose execution takes your enemy off, Grapples you to the heart and love of us, Who wear our health but sickly in his life, Which in his death were perfect.
SECOND MURDERER	I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Hath so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.
FIRST MURDERER	And I another, So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance To mend it or be rid on’t.
MACBETH	Both of you Know Banquo was your enemy.
MURDERERS	True, my lord.
MACBETH	So is he mine, and in such bloody distance That every minute of his being thrusts Against my near’st of life; and though I could With barefaced power sweep him from my sight And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not, For certain friends that are both his and mine, Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall Who I myself struck down. And thence it is That I to your assistance do make love, Masking the business from the common eye For sundry weighty reasons.
SECOND MURDERER	We shall, my lord, Perform what you command us.
FIRST MURDERER	Though our lives—
MACBETH	Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most I will advise you where to plant yourselves, Acquaint you with the perfect spy o‘th’ time, The moment on’t; for’t must be done tonight, And something from the palace; always thought That I require a clearness; and with him, To leave no rubs nor botches in the work, Fleance, his son, that keeps him company— Whose absence is no less material to me Than is his father’s—must embrace the fate Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart. I’ll come to you anon.
MURDERERS	We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH	I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Murderers
MACBETH	It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight, If it find heaven, must find it out tonight. Exit 3.2 Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant
LADY MACBETH	Is Banquo gone from court?
SERVANT	Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
LADY MACBETH	Say to the King I would attend his leisure For a few words.
SERVANT	Madam, I will.
(didascalia)	Exit
LADY MACBETH	Naught’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content. ’Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
LADY MACBETH	How now, my lord, why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making, Using those thoughts which should indeed have died With them they think on? Things without all remedy Should be without regard. What’s done is done.
MACBETH	We have scorched the snake, not killed it. She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead, Whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace, Than on the torture of the mind to lie In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave. After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH	Come on, gentle my lord, Sleek o’er your rugged looks, be bright and jovial Among your guests tonight.
MACBETH	So shall I, love, And so I pray be you. Let your remembrance Apply to Banquo. Present him eminence Both with eye and tongue; unsafe the while that we Must lave our honours in these flattering streams And make our faces visors to our hearts, Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH	You must leave this.
MACBETH	O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.
LADY MACBETH	But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.
MACBETH	There’s comfort yet, they are assailable. Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH	What’s to be done?
MACBETH	Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed.—Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th’ rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. Thou marvell’st at my words; but hold thee still. Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. So prithee go with me. Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter three Murderers
FIRST MURDERER	(to Third Murderer) But who did bid thee join with us?
THIRD MURDERER	Macbeth.
SECOND MURDERER	(to First Murderer) He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers Our offices and what we have to do To the direction just.
FIRST MURDERER	(to Third Murderer) Then stand with us. The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day. Now spurs the lated traveller apace To gain the timely inn, and near approaches The subject of our watch.
THIRD MURDERER	Hark, I hear horses.
BANQUO	(within) Give us a light there, ho!
SECOND MURDERER	Then ’tis he. The rest That are within the note of expectation Already are i’th’ court.
FIRST MURDERER	His horses go about.
THIRD MURDERER	Almost a mile; but he does usually, So all men do, from hence to th’ palace gate Make it their walk.
(didascalia)	Enter Banquo and Fleance with a torch
SECOND MURDERER	(aside) A light, a light.
THIRD MURDERER	(aside) ’Tis he.
FIRST MURDERER	(aside) Stand to’t.
BANQUO	It will be rain tonight.
FIRST MURDERER	Let it come down. First Murderer strikes out the torch. The others attack Banquo
BANQUO	O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge.—O slave! He dies. Exit Fleance
THIRD MURDERER	Who did strike out the light?
FIRST MURDERER	Was’t not the way?
THIRD MURDERER	There’s but one down. The son is fled.
SECOND MURDERER	We have lost best half of our affair.
FIRST MURDERER	Well, let’s away and say how much is done.
(didascalia)	Exeunt with Banquo’s body

Atto 3, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth as Queen, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and attendants. Lady
(didascalia)	Macbeth sits
MACBETH	You know your own degrees; sit down. At first and last The hearty welcome.
LORDS	Thanks to your majesty. They sit
MACBETH	Ourself will mingle with society And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state, But in best time we will require her welcome.
LADY MACBETH	Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends, For my heart speaks they are welcome.
(didascalia)	Enter First Murderer [to the door]
MACBETH	See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks. Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit, i’th’ midst. Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure The table round. (To First Murderer) There’s blood upon thy face.
FIRST MURDERER	(aside to Macbeth) ‘Tis Banquo’s, then.
MACBETH	’Tis better thee without than he within. Is he dispatched?
FIRST MURDERER	My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him.
MACBETH	Thou art the best o’th’ cut-throats. Yet he’s good That did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it, Thou art the nonpareil.
FIRST MURDERER	Most royal sir, Fleance is scaped.
MACBETH	Then comes my fit again; I had else been perfect, Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, As broad and general as the casing air, But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo’s safe?
FIRST MURDERER	Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenched gashes on his head, The least a death to nature.
MACBETH	Thanks for that. There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow We’ll hear ourselves again. Exit First Murderer
LADY MACBETH	My royal lord, You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold That is not often vouched, while ‘tis a-making, ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home. From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony, Meeting were bare without it.
(didascalia)	Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s
LADY MACBETH	place
MACBETH	Sweet remembrancer. Now good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both.
LENNOX	May’t please your highness sit?
MACBETH	Here had we now our country’s honour roofed Were the graced person of our Banquo present, Who may I rather challenge for unkindness Than pity for mischance.
ROSS	His absence, sir, Lays blame upon his promise. Please’t your highness To grace us with your royal company?
MACBETH	The table’s full.
LENNOX	Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH	Where?
LENNOX	Here, my good lord. What is’t that moves your highness?
MACBETH	Which of you have done this?
LORDS	What, my good lord?
MACBETH	(to the Ghost) Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake Thy gory locks at me.
ROSS	(rising) Gentlemen, rise. His highness is not well.
LADY MACBETH	(rising) Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat. The fit is momentary. Upon a thought He will again be well. If much you note him You shall offend him, and extend his passion. Feed, and regard him not. She speaks apart with Macbeth Are you a man?
MACBETH	Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil.
LADY MACBETH	O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear; This is the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself, Why do you make such faces? When all’s done You look but on a stool.
MACBETH	Prithee see there. Behold, look, lo-how say you? Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak, too! If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites.
(didascalia)	Exit Ghost
LADY MACBETH	What, quite unmanned in folly?
MACBETH	If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH	Fie, for shame!
MACBETH	Blood hath been shed ere now, i’th’ olden time, Ere human statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since, too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear. The time has been That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end. But now they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools. This is more strange Than such a murder is.
LADY MACBETH	(aloud) My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you.
MACBETH	I do forget. Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends. I have a strange infirmity which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all, Then I’ll sit down. (To an attendant) Give me some wine. Fill full.
(didascalia)	Enter Ghost
MACBETH	I drink to th’ general joy of th’whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss. Would he were here. To all and him we thirst, And all to all.
LORDS	Our duties, and the pledge. They drink
MACBETH	(seeing the Ghost) Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold. Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with.
LADY MACBETH	Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other; Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
MACBETH	What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or th‘Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble. Or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword. If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow, Unreal mock’ry, hence!
(didascalia)	Exit Ghost
MACBETH	Why so, being gone, I am a man again. Pray you sit still.
LADY MACBETH	You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admired disorder.
MACBETH	Can such things be And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks When mine is blanched with fear. Ross What sights, my lord?
LADY MACBETH	I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse. 116 Question enrages him. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once.
LENNOX	Good night, and better health Attend his majesty.
LADY MACBETH	A kind good-night to all.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lords
MACBETH	It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak, Augurs and understood relations have By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?
LADY MACBETH	Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
MACBETH	How sayst thou that Macduff denies his person At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH	Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH	I hear it by the way, but I will send. There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow, And betimes I will, to the weird sisters. More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know By the worst means the worst. For mine own good All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. Strange things I have in head that will to hand, Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.
LADY MACBETH	You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
MACBETH	Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use. We are yet but young in deed. Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 5

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting Hecate
FIRST WITCH	Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.
HECATE	Have I not reason, beldams as you are? Saucy and over-bold, how did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death, And I, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, Was never called to bear my part Or show the glory of our art?— And, which is worse, all you have done 10 Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now. Get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i‘th’ morning. Thither he Will come to know his destiny. Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms and everything beside. I am for th’air. This night I’ll spend Unto a dismal and a fatal end. Great business must be wrought ere noon. Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vap‘rous drop profound. I’ll catch it ere it come to ground, And that, distilled by magic sleights, Shall raise such artificial sprites As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion. He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear; And you all know security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.
SPIRITS	(singing dispersedly within) Come away, come away. Hecate, Hecate, come away.
HECATE	Hark, I am called! My little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me. The Song
(didascalia)	SPIRITS within
HECATE	Come away, come away, Hecate, Hecate, come away.
HECATE	I come, I come, I come, I come, With all the speed I may, With all the speed I may. Where’s Stadlin?
(didascalia)	SPIRIT within
HECATE	Here.
HECATE	Where’s Puckle?
(didascalia)	ANOTHER SPIRIT within
HECATE	Here.
(didascalia)	OTHER SPIRITS within
HECATE	And Hoppo, too, and Hellwain, too, We lack but you, we lack but you. Come away, make up the count.
HECATE	I will but ’noint, and then I mount.
(didascalia)	Spirits appear above. A Spirit like a Cat descends
(didascalia)	SPIRITS above
HECATE	There’s one comes down to fetch his dues, A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood, And why thou stay’st so long I muse, I muse, Since the air’s so sweet and good.
HECATE	O, art thou come? What news, what news?
SPIRIT LIKE	A CAT All goes still to our delight. Either come, or else refuse, refuse.
HECATE	Now I am furnished for the flight. She ascends with the spirit and sings Now I go, now I fly, Malkin my sweet spirit and I.
(didascalia)	SPIRITS and HECATE
HECATE	O what a dainty pleasure ‘tis To ride in the air When the moon shines fair, And sing, and dance, and toy, and kiss. Over woods, high rocks and mountains, Over seas and misty fountains, Over steeples, towers and turrets, We fly by night ’mongst troops of spirits. No ring of bells to our ears sounds, No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds. No, not the noise of waters-breach Or cannons’ throat our height can reach.
(didascalia)	SPIRITS abovel
HECATE	No ring of bells to our ears sounds, No howls of wolves, no yelps of hounds. No, not the noise of waters-breach Or cannons’ throat our height can reach.
(didascalia)	Exeunt into the heavens the
HECATE	Spirit like a Cat and Hecate
FIRST WITCH	Come, let’s make haste. She’ll soon be back again.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 6

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Lennox and another Lord
LENNOX	My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, Which can interpret farther. Only I say Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead; And the right valiant Banquo walked too late, Whom you may say, if’t please you, Fleance killed, For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late. Who cannot want the thought how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain To kill their gracious father? Damned fact, How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight In pious rage the two delinquents tear, That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep? Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too, For ‘twould have angered any heart alive To hear the men deny’t. So that I say He has borne all things well, and I do think That had he Duncan’s sons under his key— As, an’t please heaven, he shall not—they should find What ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance. But peace, for from broad words, and ’cause he failed His presence at the tyrant’s feast, I hear Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell Where he bestows himself?
LORD	The son of Duncan From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth Lives in the English court, and is received Of the most pious Edward with such grace That the malevolence of fortune nothing Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff Is gone to pray the holy King upon his aid To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward, That by the help of these—with Him above To ratify the work—we may again Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights, Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives, Do faithful homage, and receive free honours, All which we pine for now. And this report Hath so exasperate their king that he Prepares for some attempt of war.
LENNOX	Sent he to Macduff?
LORD	He did, and with an absolute ‘Sir, not I,’ The cloudy messenger turns me his back And hums, as who should say ‘You’ll rue the time That clogs me with this answer.’
LENNOX	And that well might Advise him to a caution t’hold what,distance His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel Fly to the court of England and unfold His message ere he come, that a swift blessing May soon return to this our suffering country Under a hand accursed.
LORD	I’ll send my prayers with him. Exeunt

Atto 4, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	A Cauldron. Thunder. Enter the three Witches
FIRST WITCH	Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.
SECOND WITCH	Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined.
THIRD WITCH	Harpier cries “Tis time, ‘tis time.’
FIRST WITCH	Round about the cauldron go, In the poisoned entrails throw. Toad that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Sweltered venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’th’ charmed pot.
ALL	Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH	Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake. Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL	Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
THIRD WITCH	Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravined salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digged i‘th’ dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Slivered in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-delivered by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab. Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron For th’ingredience of our cauldron.
ALL	Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH	Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.
(didascalia)	Enter Hecate and the other three Witches
HECATE	O, well done! I commend your pains, And everyone shall share i’th’ gains. And now about the cauldron sing Like elves and fairies in a ring, Enchanting all that you put in.
(didascalia)	Music and a song
HECATE	Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey, Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
FOURTH WITCH	Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in; Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky; Liard, Robin, you must bob in.
ALL	Round, around, around, about, about, All ill come running in, all good keep out.
FOURTH WITCH	Here’s the blood of a bat.
HECATE	Put in that, O put in that!
FIFTH WITCH	Here’s leopard’s bane.
HECATE	Put in a grain.
FOURTH WITCH	The juice of toad, the oil of adder.
FIFTH WITCH	Those will make the younker madder.
HECATE	Put in, there’s all, and rid the stench. A WITCH Nay, here’s three ounces of a red-haired wench.
ALL	Round, around, around, about, about, All ill come running in, all good keep out.
SECOND WITCH	By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.
(didascalia)	Knock within
SECOND WITCH	Open, locks, whoever knocks.
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
MACBETH	How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags, What is’t you do?
ALL THE WITCHES	A deed without a name.
MACBETH	I conjure you by that which you profess, Howe’er you come to know it, answer me. Though you untie the winds and let them fight Against the churches, though the yeasty waves Confound and swallow navigation up, Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, Though castles topple on their warders’ heads, Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure Of nature’s germens tumble all together Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask you.
FIRST WITCH	Speak.
SECOND WITCH	Demand.
THIRD WITCH	We’ll answer.
FIRST WITCH	Say if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths Or from our masters.
MACBETH	Call ‘em, let me see ’em.
FIRST WITCH	Pour in sow’s blood that hath eaten 80 Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten From the murderer’s gibbet throw Into the flame.
ALL THE WITCHES	Come high or low, Thyself and office deftly show.
(didascalia)	Thunder. First Apparition: an armed head
MACBETH	Tell me, thou unknown power—
FIRST WITCH	He knows thy thought. Hear his speech, but say thou naught.
FIRST APPARITION	Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth, beware Macduff, Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough. Apparition descends
MACBETH	Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution thanks. Thou hast harped my fear aright. But one word more—
FIRST WITCH	He will not be commanded. Here’s another, More potent than the first.
(didascalia)	Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody child
SECOND APPARITION	Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth.
MACBETH	Had I three ears I’d hear thee.
SECOND APPARITION	Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth. Apparition descends
MACBETH	Then live, Macduff—what need I fear of thee? But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of fate thou shalt not live, That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder.
(didascalia)	Thunder. Third Apparition: a child crowned, with a
MACBETH	tree in his hand What is this That rises like the issue of a king, And wears upon his baby-brow the round And top of sovereignty?
ALL THE WITCHES	Listen, but speak not to’t.
THIRD APPARITION	Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him. Apparition descends
MACBETH	That will never be. Who can impress the forest, bid the tree Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good! Rebellious dead, rise never till the wood Of Birnam rise, and on’s high place Macbeth Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart Throbs to know one thing. Tell me, if your art Can tell so much, shall Banquo’s issue ever Reign in this kingdom?
ALL THE WITCHES	Seek to know no more.
MACBETH	I will be satisfied. Deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know. The cauldron sinks. Hautboys Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this?
FIRST WITCH	Show.
SECOND WITCH	Show.
THIRD WITCH	Show.
ALL THE WITCHES	Show his eyes and grieve his heart, Come like shadows, so depart. A show of eight kings, the last with a glass in his hand; and Banquo
MACBETH	Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair, Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. A third is like the former. Filthy hags, Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes! What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom? Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more— And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass Which shows me many more; and some I see That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry. Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true, For the blood-baltered Banquo smiles upon me, And points at them for his.
(didascalia)	Exeunt kings and Banquo
MACBETH	What, is this so?
(didascalia)	HECATE
MACBETH	Ay, sir, all this is so. But why Stands Macbeth thus amazedly? Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, And show the best of our delights. I’ll charm the air to give a sound While you perform your antic round, That this great king may kindly say Our duties did his welcome pay.
(didascalia)	Music. The Witches dance, and vanish
MACBETH	Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursed in the calendar. Come in, without there.
(didascalia)	Enter Lennox
LENNOX	What’s your grace’s will?
MACBETH	Saw you the weird sisters?
LENNOX	No, my lord.
MACBETH	Came they not by you?
LENNOX	No, indeed, my lord.
MACBETH	Infected be the air whereon they ride, And damned all those that trust them. I did hear The galloping of horse. Who was’t came by?
LENNOX	’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH	Fled to England?
LENNOX	Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH	(aside) Time, thou anticipat‘st my dread exploits. The flighty purpose never is o’ertook Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: 165 The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to th‘edge o’th’ sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool. But no more sights! (To Lennox) Where are these gentlemen? Come bring me where they are.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 4, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Macduff’s Wife, her Son, and Ross
LADY MACDUFF	What had he done to make him fly the land?
ROSS	You must have patience, madam.
LADY MACDUFF	He had none. His flight was madness. When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors. Ross You know not Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
LADY MACDUFF	Wisdom—to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not, He wants the natural touch, for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear and nothing is the love; As little is the wisdom, where the flight So runs against all reason. Ross My dearest coz, I pray you school yourself. But for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o’th’ season. I dare not speak much further, But cruel are the times when we are traitors And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way and none. I take my leave of you; Shall not be long but I’ll be here again. Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before. My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you!
LADY MACDUFF	Fathered he is, and yet he’s fatherless.
ROSS	I am so much a fool, should I stay longer It would be my disgrace and your discomfort. I take my leave at once.
(didascalia)	Exit
LADY MACDUFF	Sirrah, your father’s dead, And what will you do now? How will you live?
MACDUFF’S SON	As birds do, mother.
LADY MACDUFF	What, with worms and flies?
MACDUFF’S SON	With what I get, I mean, and so do they.
LADY MACDUFF	Poor bird, thou’dst never fear the net nor lime, The pitfall nor the gin.
MACDUFF’S SON	Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying.
LADY MACDUFF	Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father?
MACDUFF’S SON	Nay, how will you do for a husband?
LADY MACDUFF	Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
MACDUFF’S SON	Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.
LADY MACDUFF	Thou speak‘st with all thy wit, and yet, i’faith, with wit enough for thee.
MACDUFF’S SON	Was my father a traitor, mother?
LADY MACDUFF	Ay, that he was.
MACDUFF’S SON	What is a traitor?
LADY MACDUFF	Why, one that swears and lies.
MACDUFF’S SON	And be all traitors that do so?
LADY MACDUFF	Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
MACDUFF’S SON	And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
LADY MACDUFF	Every one.
MACDUFF’S SON	Who must hang them?
LADY MACDUFF	Why, the honest men.
MACDUFF’S SON	Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.
LADY MACDUFF	Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?
MACDUFF’S SON	If he were dead you’d weep for him. If you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
LADY MACDUFF	Poor prattler, how thou talk’st!
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger
MESSENGER	Bless you, fair dame. I am not to you known, Though in your state of honour I am perfect. I doubt some danger does approach you nearly. If you will take a homely man’s advice, Be not found here. Hence with your little ones! To fright you thus methinks I am too savage, To do worse to you were fell cruelty, Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you. I dare abide no longer.
(didascalia)	Exit Messenger
LADY MACDUFF	Whither should I fly? I have done no harm. But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable, to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas, Do I put up that womanly defence To say I have done no harm?
(didascalia)	Enter Murderers
LADY MACDUFF	What are these faces? A MURDERER Where is your husband?
LADY MACDUFF	I hope in no place so unsanctified Where such as thou mayst find him. A MURDERER He’s a traitor.
MACDUFF’S SON	Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain. A MURDERER (stabbing him) What, you egg! Young fry of treachery!
MACDUFF’S SON	He has killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you.
(didascalia)	He dies. Exit Macduff’s Wife crying ‘Murder!’
(didascalia)	followed by Murderers with the Son’s body

Atto 4, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Malcolm and Macduff
MALCOLM	Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty.
MACDUFF	Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows Strike heaven on the face that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out Like syllable of dolour.
MALCOLM	What I believe I’ll wail, What know believe; and what I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will. What you have spoke it may be so, perchance. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, Was once thought honest. You have loved him well. He hath not touched you yet. I am young, but something You may discern of him through me: and wisdom To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb T’appease an angry god.
MACDUFF	I am not treacherous.
MALCOLM	But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon. That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose. Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so.
MACDUFF	I have lost my hopes.
MALCOLM	Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, Without leave-taking? I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think.
MACDUFF	Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs; The title is affeered. Fare thee well, lord. I would not be the villain that thou think’st For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp, And the rich east to boot.
MALCOLM	Be not offended. I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. I think withal There would be hands uplifted in my right, And here from gracious England have I offer Of goodly thousands. But for all this, When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head, Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices than it had before, More suffer, and more sundry ways, than ever, By him that shall succeed.
MACDUFF	What should he be?
MALCOLM	It is myself I mean, in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted That when they shall be opened black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compared With my confineless harms.
MACDUFF	Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLM	I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name. But there’s no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up The cistern of my lust, and my desire All continent impediments would o’erbear That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth Than such an one to reign.
MACDUFF	Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny. It hath been Th’untimely emptying of the happy throne, And fall of many kings. But fear not yet To take upon you what is yours. You may Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty And yet seem cold. The time you may so hoodwink. We have willing dames enough. There cannot be That vulture in you to devour so many As will to greatness dedicate themselves, Finding it so inclined.
MALCOLM	With this there grows In my most ill-composed affection such A staunchless avarice that were I king I should cut off the nobles for their lands, Desire his jewels and this other’s house, And my more having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more, that I should forge Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, Destroying them for wealth.
MACDUFF	This avarice Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear. Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will Of your mere own. All these are portable, With other graces weighed.
MALCOLM	But I have none. The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them, but abound In the division of each several crime, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.
MACDUFF	O Scotland, Scotland!
MALCOLM	If such a one be fit to govern, speak. I am as I have spoken.
MACDUFF	Fit to govern? No, not to live. O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accursed And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father Was a most sainted king. The Queen that bore thee, Oft‘ner upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived. Fare thee well. These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself Hath banished me from Scotland. O, my breast— Thy hope ends here!
MALCOLM	Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth By many of these trains hath sought to win me Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me From over-credulous haste; but God above Deal between thee and me, for even now I put myself to thy direction and Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself For strangers to my nature. I am yet Unknown to woman, never was forsworn, Scarcely have coveted what was mine own, At no time broke my faith, would not betray The devil to his fellow, and delight No less in truth than life. My first false-speaking Was this upon myself. What I am truly Is thine and my poor country’s to command, Whither indeed, before thy here-approach, Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men, Already at a point, was setting forth. Now we’ll together; and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel!—Why are you silent?
MACDUFF	Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ’is hard to reconcile.
(didascalia)	Enter a Doctor
MALCOLM	Well, more anon. (To the Doctor) Comes the King forth, I pray you?
DOCTOR	Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure. Their malady convinces The great essay of art, but at his touch, Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, They presently amend.
MALCOLM	I thank you, doctor. Exit Doctor
MACDUFF	What’s the disease he means?
MALCOLM	’is called the evil— A most miraculous work in this good King, Which often since my here-remain in England I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven Himself best knows, but strangely visited people, All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures, Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers; and ’is spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne That speak him full of grace.
(didascalia)	Enter Ross
MACDUFF	See who comes here.
MALCOLM	My countryman, but yet I know him not.
MACDUFF	My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.
MALCOLM	I know him now. Good God betimes remove The means that makes us strangers! Ross Sir, amen.
MACDUFF	Stands Scotland where it did? Ross Alas, poor country, Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing But who knows nothing is once seen to smile; Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF	O relation Too nice and yet too true!
MALCOLM	What’s the newest grief?
ROSS	That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF	How does my wife?
ROSS	Why, well.
MACDUFF	And all my children? Ross Well, too.
MACDUFF	The tyrant has not battered at their peace?
ROSS	No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.
MACDUFF	Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes’t?
ROSS	When I came hither to transport the tidings Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Of many worthy fellows that were out, Which was to my belief witnessed the rather For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot. Now is the time of help. (To Malcolm) Your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight To doff their dire distresses.
MALCOLM	Be’t their comfort We are coming thither. Gracious England hath Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out. Ross Would I could answer This comfort with the like. But I have words That would be howled out in the desert air Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF	What concern they— The general cause, or is it a fee-grief Due to some single breast? Ross No mind that’s honest But in it shares some woe, though the main part Pertains to you alone.
MACDUFF	If it be mine, Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.
ROSS	Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF	H’m, I guess at it.
ROSS	Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner Were on the quarry of these murdered deer To add the death of you.
MALCOLM	Merciful heaven! (To Macduff) What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows. Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.
MACDUFF	My children too? Ross Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.
MACDUFF	And I must be from thence! My wife killed too?
ROSS	I have said.
MALCOLM	Be comforted. Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF	He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM	Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF	I shall do so, But I must also feel it as a man. I cannot but remember such things were That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am, Not for their own demerits but for mine Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now.
MALCOLM	Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief Convert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it.
MACDUFF	O, I could play the woman with mine eyes And braggart with my tongue! But gentle heavens Cut short all intermission. Front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself.
(didascalia)	Within my sword’s length set him. If he scape,
MACDUFF	Heaven forgive him too.
MALCOLM	This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may: The night is long that never finds the day. Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 1

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman
DOCTOR	I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
GENTLEWOMAN	Since his majesty went into the field I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed, yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
DOCTOR	A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation besides her walking and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say?
GENTLEWOMAN	That, sir, which I will not report after her.
DOCTOR	You may to me; and ’tis most meet you should.
GENTLEWOMAN	Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to confirm my speech.
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper
GENTLEWOMAN	Lo you, here she comes. This is her very guise, and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her. Stand close.
DOCTOR	How came she by that light?
GENTLEWOMAN	Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually. ’Tis her command.
DOCTOR	You see her eyes are open.
GENTLEWOMAN	Ay, but their sense are shut.
DOCTOR	What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN	It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH	Yet here’s a spot.
DOCTOR	Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH	Out, damned spot; out, I say. One, two,—why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR	Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH	The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting.
DOCTOR	Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN	She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH	Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!
DOCTOR	What a sigh is therel The heart is sorely charged.
GENTLEWOMAN	I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
DOCTOR	Well, well, well.
GENTLEWOMAN	Pray God it be, sir.
DOCTOR	This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH	Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried. He cannot come out on’s grave.
DOCTOR	Even so?
LADY MACBETH	To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.
(didascalia)	Exit
DOCTOR	Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEWOMAN	Directly.
DOCTOR	Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all! Look after her. Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night. My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight. I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN	Good night, good doctor.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 2

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, soldiers, with a drummer and colours
MENTEITH	The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm Excite the mortified man.
ANGUS	Near Birnam Wood Shall we well meet them. That way are they coming.
CAITHNESS	Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LENNOX	For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file Of all the gentry. There is Siward’s son, And many unrough youths that even now 10 Protest their first of manhood.
MENTEITH	What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS	Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies. Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him Do call it valiant fury; but for certain He cannot buckle his distempered cause
(didascalia)	Within the belt of rule.
ANGUS	Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands. Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach. Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.
MENTEITH	Who then shall blame His pestered senses to recoil and start When all that is within him does condemn Itself for being there?
CAITHNESS	Well, march we on To give obedience where ’tis truly owed. Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, And with him pour we in our country’s purge, Each drop of us.
LENNOX	Or so much as it needs To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam.
(didascalia)	Exeunt, marching

Atto 5, Scena 3

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth, the Doctor of Physic, and attendants
MACBETH	Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all. Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus: ‘Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman Shall e’er have power upon thee.’ Then fly, false thanes, And mingle with the English epicures. The mind I sway by and the heart I bear Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
(didascalia)	Enter Servant
MACBETH	The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott’st thou that goose look?
SERVANT	There is ten thousand-
MACBETH	Geese, villain?
SERVANT	Soldiers, sir. 15
MACBETH	Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul, those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
SERVANT	The English force, so please you.
MACBETH	Take thy face hence.
(didascalia)	Exit Servant
MACBETH	Seyton!-I am sick at heart When I behold-Seyton, I say!—This push Will cheer me ever or disseat me now. I have lived long enough. My way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf, And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have, but in their stead Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. Seyton!
(didascalia)	Enter Seyton
SEYTON	What’s your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH	What news more?
SEYTON	All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH	I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked. Give me my armour.
SEYTON	’Tis not needed yet.
MACBETH	I’ll put it on. Send out more horses. Skirr the country round. Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour. How does your patient, doctor?
DOCTOR	Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies That keep her from her rest.
MACBETH	Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR	Therein the patient Must minister to himself.
MACBETH	Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it. (To an attendant) Come, put mine armour on. Give me my staff. Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me. (To an attendant) Come, sir, dispatch.—If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again. (To an attendant) Pull’t off, I say. (To the Doctor) What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?
DOCTOR	Ay, my good lord. Your royal preparation Makes us hear something.
MACBETH	(To an attendant) Bring it after me. I will not be afraid of death and bane Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.
DOCTOR	(aside) Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 4

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, and soldiers, marching, with a drummer and colours
MALCOLM	Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand That chambers will be safe.
MENTEITH	We doubt it nothing.
SIWARD	What wood is this before us?
MENTEITH	The wood of Birnam.
MALCOLM	Let every soldier hew him down a bough And bear’t before him. Thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us. A SOLDIER It shall be done.
SIWARD	We learn no other but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure Our setting down before’t.
MALCOLM	’Tis his main hope, For where there is advantage to be gone, Both more and less have given him the revolt, And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too.
MACDUFF	Let our just censures Attend the true event, and put we on Industrious soldiership.
SIWARD	The time approaches That will with due decision make us know What we shall say we have, and what we owe. Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate, But certain issue strokes must arbitrate; Towards which, advance the war. Exeunt, marching

Atto 5, Scena 5

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and soldiers, with a drummer and colours
MACBETH	Hang out our banners on the outward walls. The cry is still ‘They come.’ Our castle’s strength Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forced with those that should be ours We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. A cry within of women What is that noise?
SEYTON	It is the cry of women, my good lord. [Exit]
MACBETH	I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been my senses would have cooled To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors. Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.
(didascalia)	Enter Seyton
MACBETH	Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON	The Queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH	She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger
MACBETH	Thou com’st to use Thy tongue: thy story quickly.
MESSENGER	Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do’t.
MACBETH	Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER	As I did stand my watch upon the hill I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought The wood began to move.
MACBETH	Liar and slave!
MESSENGER	Let me endure your wrath if’t be not so.
(didascalia)	Within this three mile may you see it coming.
MESSENGER	I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH	If thou speak’st false Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive Till famine cling thee. If thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much. I pall in resolution, and begin To doubt th‘equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth. ’Fear not till Birnam Wood Do come to Dunsinane‘—and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out. If this which he avouches does appear There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I ’gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish th‘estate o’th’ world were now undone. Ring the alarum bell. Alarums Blow wind, come wrack, At least we’ll die with harness on our back. Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 6

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and their army with boughs, with a drummer and colours
MALCOLM	Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down, And show like those you are. They throw down the boughs You, worthy uncle, Shall with my cousin, your right noble son, Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we Shall take upon’s what else remains to do According to our order.
SIWARD	Fare you well. Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight, Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF	Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
(didascalia)	Exeunt. Alarums continued

Atto 5, Scena 7

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
MACBETH	They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight the course. What’s he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.
(didascalia)	Enter Young Siward
YOUNG SIWARD	What is thy name?
MACBETH	Thou’lt be afraid to hear it.
YOUNG SIWARD	No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.
MACBETH	My name’s Macbeth.
YOUNG SIWARD	The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.
MACBETH	No, nor more fearful.
YOUNG SIWARD	Thou liest, abhorred tyrant. With my sword I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st. They fight, and Young Siward is slain
MACBETH	Thou wast born of woman, But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.
(didascalia)	Exit with the body

Atto 5, Scena 8

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Alarums. Enter Macduff
MACDUFF	That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face! If thou beest slain and with no stroke of mine, My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth, 5 Or else my sword with an unbattered edge I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; By this great clatter one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune, And more I beg not.
(didascalia)	Exit. Alarums

Atto 5, Scena 9

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Malcolm and Siward
SIWARD	This way, my lord. The castle’s gently rendered. The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight. The noble thanes do bravely in the war. The day almost itself professes yours, And little is to do.
MALCOLM	We have met with foes That strike beside us.
(didascalia)	Enter, sir, the castle.
(didascalia)	Exeunt. Alarum

Atto 5, Scena 10

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Enter Macbeth
MACBETH	Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them.
(didascalia)	Enter Macduff
MACDUFF	Turn, hell-hound, turn.
MACBETH	Of all men else I have avoided thee. But get thee back. My soul is too much charged With blood of thine already.
MACDUFF	I have no words; My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out. They fight; alarum
MACBETH	Thou losest labour. As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born.
MACDUFF	Despair thy charm, And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb 15 Untimely ripped.
MACBETH	Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cowed my better part of man; And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense, That keep the word of promise to our ear And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF	Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o‘th’ time. We’ll have thee as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit ‘Here may you see the tyrant.’
MACBETH	I will not yield To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, And to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou opposed being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’
(didascalia)	Exeunt fighting. Alarums
MACBETH	They enter fighting, and Macbeth is slain. Exit Macduff with Macbeth’s body

Atto 5, Scena 11

Chi parla	Battuta
(didascalia)	Retreat and flourish. Enter with a drummer and colours Malcolm, Siward, Ross, thanes, and soldiers
MALCOLM	I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
SIWARD	Some must go off; and yet by these I see So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM	Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
ROSS	(to Siward) Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt. He only lived but till he was a man, The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died.
SIWARD	Then he is dead?
ROSS	Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow Must not be measured by his worth, for then It hath no end.
SIWARD	Had he his hurts before?
ROSS	Ay, on the front.
SIWARD	Why then, God’s soldier be he. Had I as many sons as I have hairs I would not wish them to a fairer death; And so his knell is knolled.
MALCOLM	He’s worth more sorrow, And that I’ll spend for him.
SIWARD	He’s worth no more. They say he parted well and paid his score, And so God be with him. Here comes newer comfort.
(didascalia)	Enter Macduff with Macbeth’s head
MACDUFF	(to Malcolm) Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold where stands Th’usurper’s cursed head. The time is free. I see thee compassed with thy kingdom’s pearl, That speak my salutation in their minds, Whose voices I desire aloud with mine: Hail, King of Scotland!
ALL BUT MALCOLM	Hail, King of Scotland!
(didascalia)	Flourish
MALCOLM	We shall not spend a large expense of time Before we reckon with your several loves And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland In such an honour named. What’s more to do Which would be planted newly with the time, As calling home our exiled friends abroad, That fled the snares of watchful tyranny, Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen- Who, as ‘tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life—this and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of grace We will perform in measure, time, and place. So thanks to all at once, and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.
(didascalia)	Flourish. Exeunt Omnes
FIRST	printed in the 1623 Folio, Antony and Cleopatra had been entered on the Stationers’ Register on 20 May 1608. Echoes of it in Barnabe Barnes’s tragedy The Devil’s Charter, acted by Shakespeare’s company in February 1607, suggest that Shakespeare wrote his play no later than 1606, and stylistic evidence supports that date. The Life of Marcus Antonius in Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579) was one of the sources for Julius Caesar; it also provided Shakespeare with most of his material for Antony and Cleopatra, in which he draws upon its language to a remarkable extent even in some of the play’s most poetic passages. For example, Enobarbus’ famous description of Cleopatra in her barge (2.2.197-225) incorporates phrase after phrase of North’s prose. And the play’s action stays close to North’s account, though with significant adjustments, particularly compressions of the time-scheme. It opens in 40 BC, two years after the end of Julius Caesar, and portrays events that took place over a period of ten years. Mark Antony has become an older man, though Octavius is still ‘scarce-bearded’. Plutarch, who was a connoisseur of human behaviour, also afforded many hints for the characterization; but some characters, particularly Antony’s comrade Domitius Enobarbus and Cleopatra’s women, Charmian and Iras, are largely created by Shakespeare. In the earlier play, Mark Antony had formed a triumvirate with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus. In Antony and Cleopatra the triumvirate is in a state of disintegration, partly because Mark Antony—married at the play’s opening to Fulvia, who is rebelling against Octavius Caesar—is infatuated with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (and the former mistress of Julius Caesar). The play’s action swings between Rome and Alexandria as Antony is torn between the claims of Rome—strengthened for a while by his marriage, after Fulvia’s death, to Octavius Caesar’s sister Octavia—and the temptations of Egypt. Gradually opposition between Antony and Octavius increases, until they engage in a sea-fight near Actium (in Greece), in which Antony follows Cleopatra’s navy in ignominious retreat. The closing stages of the double tragedy portray Antony’s shame, humiliation, and suicide after Cleopatra falsely causes him to believe that she has killed herself; faced with the threat that Caesar will take her captive to Rome, Cleopatra too commits suicide. According to Plutarch, she was thirty-eight years old; as for Antony, ‘some say that he lived three-and-fifty years, and others say, six-and-fifty’. In Antony and Cleopatra the classical restraint of Julius Caesar gives way to a fine excess of language, of dramatic action, and of individual behaviour. The style is hyperbolical, overflowing the measure of the iambic pentameter. The action is amazingly fluid, shifting with an ease and rapidity that caused bewilderment to ages unfamiliar with the conventions of Shakespeare’s theatre. And the characterization is correspondingly extravagant, delighting in the quirks of individual behaviour, above all in the paradoxes and inconsistencies of the Egyptian queen who contains within herself the capacity for every extreme of human behaviour, from vanity, meanness, and frivolity to the sublime self-transcendence with which she faces and embraces death.
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY

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