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. /Hark!
Then 'tis he. /Stand to't.
It will be rain to-night.
Let it come down.
Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly!
The son is fled.
We have lost best half of our affair.
Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
There's blood on thy face.
'Tis Banquo's then.
Is he dispatch'd?
My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
Thou art the best o' the cut-throats:
yet he's good that did the like for Fleance
Most royal sir, Fleance is 'scaped.
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 cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears.
But Banquo's safe?
Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenched gashes on his head,
the least a death to nature.
Thanks for that.
Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all; all,
as the weird women promised.
And, I fear, thou play'dst most foully for't.
Thou play'dst 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.
Is't far you ride?
As far, my lord, as will fill up the time 'twixt this and supper
Fail not our feast.
My lord, I will not.
I will not.
I will not fail your feast.
You know your own degrees
Sit down.
And first and last the hearty welcome.
Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
His absence, sir, lays blame upon his promise.
My royal lord, you do not give the cheer.
Sweet remembrancer!
I drink to our good friend Banquo whom we miss!
Would he were here!
Which of you have done this?
What is't that moves your highness?
Thou canst not say I did it; Never shake thy gory locks at me.
Gentlemen, rise. His highness is not well.
Sit, worthy friends.
My lord is often thus, and hath been from his youth.
Look!
Lo!
How say you?
Think of this, good peers, but as a thing of custom:
'tis no other.
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces?
When all's done, you look but on a stool.
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!
The fit is momentary; upon a thought he will again be well.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, the arm'd rhinoceros, or the 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!
This is the very painting of your fear.
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, led you to Duncan.
Duncan!
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.
Fie, for shame!
Blood hath been shed ere now,
i' the olden time, ere human statute purged the gentle weal
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd too terrible for the ear.
The times have 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.
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.
What sights, my lord?
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse.
Question enrages him. At once, good night.
Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once.
Good night; and better health attend his majesty!
A kind good night to all!
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 magot-pies and choughs and rooks
brought forth the secret'st man of blood.
What is the night?
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person at our great bidding?
Did you send to him, sir?
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.
More shall they speak;
for now I am bent to know, by the worst means, the worst.
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
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 yesty 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!
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;
Macduff, beware Macduff!
He's fled to England.
But I'll reach him still; give to the edge o' the 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.
Macbeth! be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man;
for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill.
shall come against him.
That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root?
Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?
Beware Macduff! Beware Macduff!
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.
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be til Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
Sweet bodements! good!
Rebellion's head, rise never till the wood of Birnam rise,
and our high-placed Macbeth shall live the lease of nature,
pay his breath to time and mortal custom.
What, is it so?
Ay, sir, all this is so.
Your father's dead, my child; And what will you do now?
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
Thou speak'st with all thy wit: and yet, i' faith, with wit enough for thee.
Was my father a traitor, mother?
Ay, that he was.
What is a traitor?
Why, one that swears and lies.
And be all traitors that do so?
Every one that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
Every one. /Who must hang them?
Why, the honest men.
Then the liars and swearers are fools,
for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
How wilt thou do for a father?
If he were dead, you'ld weep for him;
if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!
Bless you, fair dame!
I doubt some danger does approach you nearly. 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!
Whither should I fly?
I must abide no longer.
I have done no harm.
Where is your husband?
I hope, in no place so unsanctified where such as thou mayst find him.
He's a traitor.
Thou liest!
He has kill'd me, mother!
Nought's had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content.
I am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
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 yell'd out like syllable of dolour.
I am not treacherous, but Macbeth is.
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.
See who comes here.
Good God, betimes remove the means that makes us strangers!
Sirs, amen.
Stands Scotland where it did?
Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself.
It cannot be call'd 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 mark'd;
where violent sorrow seems a modern ecstasy;
the dead man's knell is there scarce ask'd for who;
and good men's lives expire before the flowers in their caps,
dying or ere they sicken.
How does my wife?
Why, well.
And all my children?
Well too.
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland would create soldiers,
make our women fight, to doff their dire distresses.
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.
Would I could answer this comfort with the like!
But I have words that would be howl'd out in the desert air,
where hearing should not latch them.
What concern they?
The general cause?
No mind that's honest but in it shares some woe;
though the main part pertains to you alone.
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
that shall possess them with the heaviest sound that ever yet they heard.
I guess at it.
Your castle is surprised. /No!
Your wife and babes savagely slaughter'd.
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
My children too?
Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.
And I must be from thence!
My wife kill'd too?
Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, to cure this deadly grief.
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?
Dispute it like a man.
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?
Be this the whetstone of your sword.
Let grief convert to anger! Blunt not the heart, enrage it!
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;
Within my sword's length set him
if he 'scape, heaven forgive him too!
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.
What does the tyrant?
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 distemper'd cause within the belt of rule.
Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands;
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.
Lord!
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 devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look?
There is ten thousand--/Geese, villain!/ --soldiers, sir.
Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, thou lily-liver'd boy.
What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine are counsellors to fear.
What soldiers, whey-face?
The English force, so please you.
Take thy face hence.
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 sear, 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!
What is your gracious pleasure?
What news more?
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
Give me mine armour.
Send out more horses.
Skirr the country round.
Hang those that talk of fear.
Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?
Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
that keep her from her rest.
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 stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
which weighs upon the heart?
Therein the patient must minister to himself.
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out.
Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
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.
Pull't off, I say.
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug, would scour these English hence?
I will not be afraid of death and bane, till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
What wood is this before us?
The wood of Birnam.
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.
It shall be done.
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report.
Doctor, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown 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.
what, at any time, have you heard her say?
That, doctor, which I will not report after her.
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Lo you, here she comes! And, upon my life, fast asleep.
How came she by that light?
She has light by her continually; 'tis her command.
You see, her eyes are open. /Ay, but their sense is shut.
Yet here's a spot.
Look, how she rubs her hands.
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!
One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.
Hell is murky!
Fie, my lord, fie!
Do you mark that?
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
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.
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.
Here's the smell of the blood still.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
The heart is sorely charged.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
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.
There's knocking at the gate:
To bed, to bed!
Come, come, come, come, give me your hand.
What's done cannot be undone.
To bed, to bed!
God forgive us all!
What is that noise?
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 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 supp'd full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts cannot once start me.
Wherefore was that cry?
The queen, my lord, is dead.
She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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
then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Gracious my lord!
I should report that which I say I saw, but know not how to do it.
Well, say, sir.
As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
the wood began to move.
If thou speak'st false, upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
till famine cling thee.
if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin to doubt the 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! There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
and wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell!
Seyton!
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms are hired to bear their staves
Either thou, Macbeth, or else my sword with an unbatter'd edge
I sheathe again undeeded.
Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn.
Here let you lie till famine and the ague eat you up.
Were you not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met you dareful, beard to beard, and beat you backward home.
This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.
We have met with foes that strike beside us.
What's he that was not born of woman?
Such a one am I to fear, or none.
Poor a child(?)
Thou wast born of woman; but swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.
Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
my wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
Turn, hell-hound, turn!
Of all men else I have avoided thee; but get thee back.
My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.
I have no words; my voice is in my sword.
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield, to one of woman born.
Despair thy charm.
And let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee,
Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd.
Untimely ripp'd!
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
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.
Then yield thee, coward, and live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'
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.
Lay on, Macduff.
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Hail, king! for so thou art.
Behold, where stands the usurper's cursed head.
The time is free.
Hail, Malcolm, king of Scotland!
Hail!
Peace! the charm's wound up.