Macbeth

MACBETH

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;

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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MACBETH

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

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.

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MACBETH

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

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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MACBETH

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

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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?

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MACBETH

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.

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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