Macbeth/Source/Act II

SCENE I. Inverness. Court within the castle.
[Enter Banquo, preceded by Fleance with a torch.]

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.
 * 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!—Give me my sword.
 * Who's there?

[Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.]

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 largess to your officers:
 * This diamond he greets your wife withal,
 * By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
 * In measureless content.

MACBETH.
 * Being unprepar'd,
 * 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 show'd 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 franchis'd, and allegiance clear,
 * I shall be counsell'd.

MACBETH.
 * Good repose the while!

BANQUO.
 * Thanks, sir: the like to you!

[Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.]

MACBETH.
 * 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' the 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 curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
 * Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder,
 * Alarum'd 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.]

SCENE II. The same.
[Enter Lady Macbeth.]

LADY MACBETH.
 * That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold:
 * What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.—Hark!—
 * Peace!
 * It was the owl that shriek'd, 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 drugg'd their possets
 * That death and nature do contend about them,
 * Whether they live or die.

MACBETH.
 * [Within.] Who's there?—what, ho!

LADY MACBETH.
 * Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
 * And 'tis not done: the 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.—My husband!

[Re-enter Macbeth.]

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' the second chamber?

LADY MACBETH.
 * Donalbain.

MACBETH.
 * This is a sorry sight.

[Looking on his hands.]

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 address'd them
 * Again to sleep.

LADY MACBETH.
 * There are two lodg'd together.

MACBETH.
 * One cried, "God bless us!" and, "Amen," the other;
 * As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
 * Listening 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 ravell'd 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 murder'd 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 brainsickly 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. Knocking 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.

[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]

LADY MACBETH.
 * My hands are of your colour, but I shame
 * To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear 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.—[Knocking 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. [Knocking within.]
 * Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. The same.
[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. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock.
 * Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged
 * himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins
 * enow about you; here you'll sweat for't.—[Knocking.] Knock,
 * knock! Who's there, in the 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. [Knocking.] 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.— [Knocking.] 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 the
 * everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember
 * the porter.

[Opens the gate.]

[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 o' 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?—
 * Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.

[Enter Macbeth.]

LENNOX.
 * 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 slipp'd 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 to-day?

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' the air, strange screams of death;
 * And prophesying, with accents terrible,
 * Of dire combustion and confus'd events,
 * New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
 * Clamour'd the live-long 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.

[Re-enter Macduff.]

MACDUFF.
 * O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
 * Cannot conceive nor name thee!

MACBETH, 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' the building.

MACBETH.
 * What is't you say? the life?

LENNOX.
 * Mean you his majesty?

MACDUFF.
 * Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
 * With a new Gorgon:—do not bid me speak;
 * See, and then speak yourselves.

[Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.]

Awake, awake!—
 * Ring the alarum bell:—murder and treason!
 * Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
 * Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
 * And look on death itself! up, up, and see
 * The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
 * As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
 * To countenance this horror!

[Alarum-bell rings.]

[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]

LADY MACBETH.
 * What's the business,
 * That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
 * The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!

MACDUFF.
 * O gentle lady,
 * 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
 * The repetition, in a woman's ear,
 * Would murder as it fell.

[Re-enter Banquo.]

O Banquo, Banquo!
 * Our royal master's murder'd!

LADY MACBETH.
 * Woe, alas!
 * What, in our house?

BANQUO.
 * Too cruel any where.—
 * Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
 * And say it is not so.

[Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.]

MACBETH.
 * Had I but died an hour before this chance,
 * I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant
 * There's nothing serious in mortality:
 * All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
 * The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
 * Is left this vault to brag of.

[Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.]

DONALBAIN.
 * What is amiss?

MACBETH.
 * You are, and do not know't:
 * The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
 * Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.

MACDUFF.
 * Your royal father's murder'd.

MALCOLM.
 * O, by whom?

LENNOX.
 * Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't:
 * Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood;
 * So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found
 * Upon their pillows:
 * They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life
 * Was to be trusted with them.

MACBETH.
 * O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
 * That I did kill them.

MACDUFF.
 * Wherefore did you so?

MACBETH.
 * Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious,
 * Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
 * The expedition of my violent love
 * Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
 * His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;
 * And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
 * For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
 * Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
 * Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
 * That had a heart to love, and in that heart
 * Courage to make's love known?

LADY MACBETH.
 * Help me hence, ho!

MACDUFF.
 * Look to the lady.

MALCOLM.
 * Why do we hold our tongues,
 * That most may claim this argument for ours?

DONALBAIN.
 * What should be spoken here, where our fate,
 * Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us?
 * Let's away;
 * Our tears are not yet brew'd.

MALCOLM.
 * Nor our strong sorrow
 * Upon the foot of motion.

BANQUO.
 * Look to the lady:—

[Lady Macbeth is carried out.]

And when we have our naked frailties hid,
 * That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
 * And question this most bloody piece of work
 * To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
 * In the great hand of God I stand; and thence,
 * Against the undivulg'd pretense I fight
 * Of treasonous malice.

MACDUFF.
 * And so do I.

ALL.
 * So all.

MACBETH.
 * Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
 * And meet i' the hall together.

ALL.
 * Well contented.

[Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.]

MALCOLM.
 * What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
 * To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
 * Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.

DONALBAIN.
 * To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
 * Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
 * There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
 * The nearer bloody.

MALCOLM.
 * This murderous shaft that's shot
 * Hath not yet lighted; and our safest way
 * Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;
 * And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
 * But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
 * Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle.
[Enter Ross and an old Man.]

OLD MAN.
 * Threescore and ten I can remember well:
 * Within the volume of which time I have seen
 * Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
 * Hath trifled former knowings.

ROSS.
 * Ah, good father,
 * Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
 * Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock 'tis day,
 * And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp;
 * Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
 * That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
 * When living light should kiss it?

OLD MAN.
 * 'Tis unnatural,
 * Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
 * A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
 * Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

ROSS.
 * And Duncan's horses,—a thing most strange and certain,—
 * Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
 * Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
 * Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
 * War with mankind.

OLD MAN.
 * 'Tis said they eat each other.

ROSS.
 * They did so; to the amazement of mine eyes,
 * That look'd upon't.
 * Here comes the good Macduff.

[Enter Macduff.]


 * How goes the world, sir, now?

MACDUFF.
 * Why, see you not?

ROSS.
 * Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?

MACDUFF.
 * Those that Macbeth hath slain.

ROSS.
 * Alas, the day!
 * What good could they pretend?

MACDUFF.
 * They were suborn'd:
 * Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons,
 * Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them
 * Suspicion of the deed.

ROSS.
 * 'Gainst nature still:
 * Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
 * Thine own life's means!—Then 'tis most like,
 * The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

MACDUFF.
 * He is already nam'd; and gone to Scone
 * To be invested.

ROSS.
 * Where is Duncan's body?

MACDUFF.
 * Carried to Colme-kill,
 * The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
 * And guardian of their bones.

ROSS.
 * Will you to Scone?

MACDUFF.
 * No, cousin, I'll to Fife.

ROSS.
 * Well, I will thither.

MACDUFF.
 * Well, may you see things well done there,—adieu!—
 * Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

ROSS.
 * Farewell, father.

OLD MAN.
 * God's benison go with you; and with those
 * That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

[Exeunt.]