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.
Enter Lady 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.
Exeunt
2.1 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.
Enter Macbeth, and a servant with a torch
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.
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
2.2 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.
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.
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
2.3 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.
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?
Enter Macbeth
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.
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
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 314
