MACBETH

by William Shakespeare

1606

Act I

SCENE I - A desert place

    Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch

    When shall we three meet again
    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch

    When the hurlyburly's done,
    When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch

    That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch

    Where the place?

Second Witch

    Upon the heath.

Third Witch

    There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch

    I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch

    Paddock calls.

Third Witch

    Anon.

ALL

    Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
    Hover through the fog and filthy air.

    Exeunt


SCENE II - A camp near Forres

    Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant

DUNCAN

    What bloody man is that? He can report,
    As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
    The newest state.

MALCOLM

    This is the sergeant
    Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
    'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
    Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
    As thou didst leave it.

Sergeant

    Doubtful it stood;
    As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
    And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--
    Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
    The multiplying villanies of nature
    Do swarm upon him--from the western isles
    Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
    And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
    Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
    For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--
    Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
    Which smoked with bloody execution,
    Like valour's minion carved out his passage
    Till he faced the slave;
    Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
    Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
    And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

DUNCAN

    O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

Sergeant

    As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
    Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
    So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come
    Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
    No sooner justice had with valour arm'd
    Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
    But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
    With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men
    Began a fresh assault.

DUNCAN

    Dismay'd not this
    Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

Sergeant

    Yes;
    As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
    If I say sooth, I must report they were
    As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
    Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
    Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
    Or memorise another Golgotha,
    I cannot tell.
    But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

DUNCAN

    So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
    They smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.

    Exit Sergeant, attended
    Who comes here?

    Enter ROSS

MALCOLM

    The worthy thane of Ross.

LENNOX

    What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
    That seems to speak things strange.

ROSS

    God save the king!

DUNCAN

    Whence camest thou, worthy thane?

ROSS

    From Fife, great king;
    Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
    And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
    With terrible numbers,
    Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
    The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
    Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
    Confronted him with self-comparisons,
    Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm.
    Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
    The victory fell on us.

DUNCAN

    Great happiness!

ROSS

    That now
    Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition:
    Nor would we deign him burial of his men
    Till he disbursed at Saint Colme's inch
    Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUNCAN

    No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
    Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
    And with his former title greet Macbeth.

ROSS

    I'll see it done.

DUNCAN

    What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.

    Exeunt


SCENE III - A heath near Forres

    Thunder. Enter the three Witches

First Witch

    Where hast thou been, sister?

Second Witch

    Killing swine.

Third Witch

    Sister, where thou?

First Witch

    A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
    And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--
    'Give me,' quoth I:
    'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
    Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
    But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
    And, like a rat without a tail,
    I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

Second Witch

    I'll give thee a wind.

First Witch

    Thou'rt kind.

Third Witch

    And I another.

First Witch

    I myself have all the other,
    And the very ports they blow,
    All the quarters that they know
    I' the shipman's card.
    I will drain him dry as hay:
    Sleep shall neither night nor day
    Hang upon his pent-house lid;
    He shall live a man forbid:
    Weary se'nnights nine times nine
    Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
    Though his bark cannot be lost,
    Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
    Look what I have.

Second Witch

    Show me, show me.

First Witch

    Here I have a pilot's thumb,
    Wreck'd as homeward he did come.

    Drum within

Third Witch

    A drum, a drum!
    Macbeth doth come.

ALL

    The weird sisters, hand in hand,
    Posters of the sea and land,
    Thus do go about, about:
    Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
    And thrice again, to make up nine.
    Peace! the charm's wound up.

    Enter MACBETH and BANQUO

MACBETH

    So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO

    How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
    So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
    That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
    And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
    That man may question? You seem to understand me,
    By each at once her chappy finger laying
    Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
    And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
    That you are so.

MACBETH

    Speak, if you can: what are you?

First Witch

    All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

Second Witch

    All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch

    All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO

    Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
    Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
    Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
    Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
    You greet with present grace and great prediction
    Of noble having and of royal hope,
    That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
    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.

    Witches vanish

BANQUO

    The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
    And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?

MACBETH

    Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
    As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!

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 the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

    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' fight,
    His wonders and his praises do contend
    Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
    In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
    He finds thee in the stout Norweyan 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 pour'd them down before him.

ANGUS

    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 borrow'd robes?

ANGUS

    Who was the thane lives yet;
    But under heavy judgment 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 labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
    But treasons capital, confess'd 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.
    Cousins, a word, I pray you.

MACBETH

    [Aside] Two truths are told,
    As happy prologues to the swelling act
    Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.

    Aside
    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 smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
    But what is not.

BANQUO

    Look, how our partner's rapt.

MACBETH

    [Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
    Without my stir.

BANQUO

    New horrors 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. Kind gentlemen, your pains
    Are register'd where every day I turn
    The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
    Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
    The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
    Our free hearts each to other.

BANQUO

    Very gladly.

MACBETH

    Till then, enough. Come, friends.

    Exeunt


SCENE IV - Forres. The palace

    Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants

DUNCAN

    Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
    Those in commission yet return'd?

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 confess'd 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.

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.

    Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS
    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 every thing
    Safe toward your love and honour.

DUNCAN

    Welcome hither:
    I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
    To make thee full of growing. Noble 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.

DUNCAN

    My plenteous joys,
    Wanton in fulness, 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. 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.

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

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


SCENE V - Inverness. Macbeth's castle

    Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter

LADY MACBETH

    'They met me in the day of success: and I have
    learned by the perfectest 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' the 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'ldst 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 crown'd withal.

    Enter a Messenger
    What is your tidings?

Messenger

    The king comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH

    Thou'rt mad to say it:
    Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
    Would have inform'd for preparation.

Messenger

    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 Messenger
    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 the access and passage to remorse,
    That no compunctious visitings of nature
    Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
    And take my milk for gall, you murdering 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!'

    Enter 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 to-night.

LADY MACBETH

    And when goes hence?

MACBETH

    To-morrow, 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


SCENE VI - Before Macbeth's castle

    Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants

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 heaven's breath
    Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
    Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
    Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
    Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
    The air is delicate.

    Enter LADY MACBETH

DUNCAN

    See, see, our honour'd 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 'ild 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 heap'd up to them,
    We rest your hermits.

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 to-night.

LADY MACBETH

    Your servants ever
    Have theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt,
    To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
    Still to return your own.

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


SCENE VII - Macbeth's castle

    Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH

MACBETH

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly: if the 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'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
    We still have judgment here; that we but teach
    Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
    To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd 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 cherubim, 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 the other.

    Enter LADY MACBETH
    How now! what news?

LADY MACBETH

    He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?

MACBETH

    Hath he ask'd for me?

LADY MACBETH

    Know you not he has?

MACBETH

    We will proceed no further in this business:
    He hath honour'd 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 dress'd 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' the 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 pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
    And dash'd 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 lie as in a death,
    What cannot you and I perform upon
    The 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 mark'd with blood those sleepy two
    Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
    That they have done't?

LADY MACBETH

    Who dares receive it other,
    As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
    Upon his death?

MACBETH

    I am settled, and bend up
    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
    Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
    False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

    Exeunt

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