SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in
the Castle.
[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 it, 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 any one; having
no witness to confirm my
speech. Lo you, here she comes!
[Enter Lady Macbeth, with a
taper.]
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 is 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. Oh, oh, oh!
DOCTOR.
What a sigh is there! 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.
[Exit.]
DOCTOR.
Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEWOMAN.
Directly.
DOCTOR.
Foul whisperings 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 amaz'd
my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Good-night, good doctor.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.
[Enter. with drum and colours,
Menteith, Caithness, Angus,
Lennox, and Soldiers.]
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
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 distemper'd
cause
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 pester'd 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 ow'd:
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.
[Exeunt, marching.]
SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room
in the Castle.
[Enter Macbeth, Doctor, 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
pronounc'd 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.
[Enter a Servant.]
The devil damn thee black, thou
cream-fac'd loon!
Where gott'st thou that goose
look?
SERVANT.
There is ten thousand--
MACBETH.
Geese, villain?
SERVANT.
Soldiers, sir.
MACBETH.
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?
SERVANT.
The English force, so please
you.
MACBETH.
Take thy face hence.
[Exit Servant.]
Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
When I behold--Seyton, I say!-
This push
Will chair me ever or disseat
me now.
I have liv'd 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!--
[Enter Seyton.]
SEYTON.
What's your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH.
What news more?
SEYTON.
All is confirm'd, my lord, which
was reported.
MACBETH.
I'll fight till from my bones
my flesh be hack'd.
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 diseas'd;
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?
DOCTOR.
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
MACBETH.
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, despatch.--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, senna, 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.
Bring it after me.--
I will not be afraid of death
and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
[Exeunt all except Doctor.]
DOCTOR.
Were I from Dunsinane away and
clear,
Profit again should hardly draw
me here.
[Exit.]
SCENE IV. Country nearDunsinane:
a Wood in view.
[Enter, with drum and colours,
Malcolm, old Siward and his Son,
Macduff, Menteith, Caithness,
Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers,
marching.]
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.
SOLDIERS.
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 given,
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.]
SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the
castle.
[Enter with drum and colours,
Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers.]
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 forc'd with those
that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful,
beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.
[A cry of women within.]
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 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 slaught'rous
thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
[Re-enter Seyton.]
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.--
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,
And then is heard no more: it
is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury,
Signifying nothing.
[Enter a Messenger.]
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 it.
MACBETH.
Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER.
As I did stand my watch upon
the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon,
methought,
The wood began to move.
MACBETH.
Liar, and slave!
[Strikimg him.]
MESSENGER.
Let me endure your wrath, if't
be not so.
Within this three mile may you
see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH.
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!--
If this which he avouches does
appear,
There is nor flying hence nor
tarrying here.
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world
were now undone.--
Ring the alarum bell!--Blow,
wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness
on our back.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VI. The same. A Plain
before the Castle.
[Enter, with
drum and colours, Malcolm,
old Siward, Macduff, &c.,
and their Army, with boughs.]
MALCOLM.
Now near enough; your leafy screens
throw down,
And show like those you are.--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
to-night,
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VII. The same. Another
part of the Plain.
[Alarums. 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.
[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 Seward
is slain.]
MACBETH.
Thou wast born of woman.--
But swords I smile at, weapons
laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd by man that's of a
woman born.
[Exit.]
[Alarums. Enter Macduff.]
MACDUFF.
That way the noise is.--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.
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. There
thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter, one of
greatest note
Seems bruited. Let me find him,
fortune!
And more I beg not.
[Exit. Alarums.]
[Enter Malcolm and old Siward.]
SIWARD.
This way, my lord;--the castle's
gently render'd:
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.
SIWARD.
Enter, sir, the castle.
[Exeunt. Alarums.]
SCENE VIII. The same. Another
part of the field.
[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.
[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 charg'd
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.]
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 serv'd
Tell thee, Macduff was from his
mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
MACBETH.
Accursed be that tongue that
tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part
of man!
And be these juggling fiends
no more believ'd,
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' the 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 oppos'd, being of no
woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before
my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay
on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first
cries, "Hold, enough!"
[Exeunt fighting.]
[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with
drum and colours, Malcolm, old
Siward, Ross, Lennox, Angus,
Caithness, Menteith, and Soldiers.
MALCOLM.
I would the friends we miss were
safe arriv'd.
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.
Your son, my lord, has paid a
soldier's debt:
He only liv'd but till he was
a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess
confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where
he fought,
But like a man he died.
SIWARD.
Then he is dead?
FLEANCE.
Ay, and brought off the field:
your cause of sorrow
Must not be measur'd 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 knoll'd.
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.
[Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's
head.]
MACDUFF.
Hail, king, for so thou art:
behold, where stands
The usurper's cursed head: the
time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy
kingdom's pearl
That speak my salutation in their
minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with
mine,--
Hail, King of Scotland!
ALL.
Hail, King of Scotland!
[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 nam'd. What's
more to do,
Which would be planted newly
with the time,--
As calling home our exil'd 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 crown'd
at Scone.
[Flourish. Exeunt.]
End of Project Gutenberg Etext
of Macbeth by Shakespeare
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