CHILDREN'S VOICES: When shall we
three meet again
In thunder,
lightning,
or in rain?
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
That will be ere the set of sun.
Where the place? Upon the heath.
ALL: There to meet with...
Macbeth!
LIGHTNING ZAPS
ALL: # Fair is foul,
and foul is fair:
# Hover through the fog
and filthy air! #
CRASH!
What? My knees.
Wh-what bloody man is that?
This is the sergeant who, like
a good and hardy soldier,
fought 'gainst my captivity!
Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge
of the broil
as thou didst leave it.
Doubtful it stood.
The traitorous...
HE SPLUTTERS
..Macdonwald,
from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses
is supplied;
And fortune,
on his rebellion smiling,
Show'd like a traitor's whore.
But all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth
with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out
his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne'er shook hands,
nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd
him from the nave to the chops,
And fix'd his head upon
our battlements.
O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!
But from that spring whence comfort
seems to come
Discomfort swells.
Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice
had with valour arm'd
Compell'd these skipping
kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norwegian lord
surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms
and new supplies of men
Began a fresh assault.
Dismay'd not this our captains,
Macbeth and Banquo? Yes!
As sparrows eagles, ha-ha!
Or the hare the lion.
DUNCAN CHUCKLES
If I say sooth, I must report
they were
As cannons overcharged
with double cracks,
so they doubly redoubled strokes
upon the foe:
But I am faint,
my gashes cry for help.
So well thy words become thee
as thy wounds;
They smack of honour both!
Go get him surgeons!
But who comes here?
The worthy thane of Ross.
God save the king!
Whence camest thou, worthy king?
From Fife, great king;
Where the
Norwegian banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that
most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor,
began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom,
lapp'd in proof,
Confronted him
with self-comparisons,
Point against point,
rebellious arm against arm.
Curbing his lavish spirit: and,
to conclude...
..The victory fell on us!
Great happiness! Ah-ha-ha!
No more that Thane of Cawdor
shall deceive
Our bosom interest:
go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title
greet Macbeth!
EERIE RUMBLING
LIGHTNING ZAPS AND CRACKLES
THE THREE WITCHES: A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
So foul and fair a day
I have not seen.
How far is't call'd to Forres?
CRACKLING
The weird sisters!
Hand in hand
Posters of the sea and land
Thus do go about, about...
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again to make up nine.
What? Peace!
The charm's wound up.
What are these,
That look not like the inhabitants
of the earth,
And yet are on't?
Live you? Or are you aught
That man may question?
Speak, if you can. What are you?
All hail Macbeth.
Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.
All hail, Macbeth,
hail to thee,
Thane of...Cawdor!
All hail, Macbeth,
thou shalt be king hereafter!
Good sir, why do you start;
and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?
In the name of truth,
Are you fantastical,
or that indeed
Which outwardly you show?
My noble partner
You greet with
present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal:
to me you speak not.
If you can look
into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow
and which will not,
Speak then to me,
who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
Hail. Hail. Hail.
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Not so happy, yet much happier.
Thou shalt get kings,
though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail.
Stay, you imperfect speakers,
tell me more:
I know I am Thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor?
The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman;
and to be king
Stands not within
the prospect of belief,
No more than to be of Cawdor.
WITCHES GIGGLE
Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence?
And why upon this blasted heath
you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?
Speak, I charge you.
RUMBLING
The earth hath bubbles,
as the water has,
And these are of them.
Whither are they vanish'd?
Into the air;
and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind.
Would they had stay'd!
Hey.
Hallo!
Hail!
HE CHORTLES
Were such things
here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?
Your children shall be kings.
YOU shall be king!
And Thane of Cawdor
too: Went it not so?
To the selfsame tune and words.
Who's here?
The king hath happily received,
Macbeth,
The news of thy success;
and when he reads
Thy personal
venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises
do contend
Which should be thine or his:
As thick as hail
Came post with post;
and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's
great defence,
He bade me, from him,
call thee Thane of Cawdor.
What, can the Devil speak true?
The Thane of Cawdor lives:
why do you dress me
In borrow'd robes?
Who was the thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgment
bears that life
Which he deserves to lose.
But treasons capital,
confess'd and proved,
Have overthrown him.
(Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!)
(The greatest is behind.)
Thanks for your pains.
Do you not hope your children
shall be kings,
When those that
gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them?
That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you
unto the crown,
Besides the Thane of Cawdor.
But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes,
to win us to our harms,
The instruments of darkness
tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles,
to betray's
With deepest consequence.
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues
to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
This supernatural soliciting
cannot be ill, cannot be good.
If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest
of success,
Commencing in a truth?
I am Thane of Cawdor!
If good, why do I yield
to that suggestion
Whose horrid image
doth unfix my hair
And make
my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?
Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose...murder
yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single
state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise,
and nothing is
But what is not.
Look, how our partner's rapt.
If chance may have me king,
why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.
New honours come upon him,
Like our strange garments
cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs
through the roughest day.
Worthy Macbeth,
we stay upon your leisure.
Give me your favour:
my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten.
Let us toward the king.
Think upon what hath chanced,
and, at more time,
The interim having weigh'd it,
let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.
"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."
Is execution done on Cawdor?
My liege,
they are not yet come back.
But I have spoke with one
that saw him die,
who did report that
very frankly he confess'd
his treasons,
implored your highness' pardon
and set forth a deep repentance.
Nothing in his life became him
like the leaving it.
He died as one that had been
studied in his death.
To throw away
the dearest thing he owed,
as 'twere a careless trifle.
There's no art to find the mind's
construction in the face.
He was a gentleman
on whom I built an absolute trust.
APPLAUSE
O, worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude
even now weighs heavy on me.
Would thou hadst less deserved,
that the proportion both of thanks
and payment might have been mine!
Only I have left to say,
more is thy due
than more than all can pay.
The service and the loyalty I owe,
in doing it, pays itself.
Your highness' part
is to receive our duty,
and our duty is to your throne
and state children and servants,
which do but what they should,
by doing every thing safe
toward your love and honour.
Welcome hither.
I have begun to plant thee,
and will labour
to make thee full of growing.
Noble Banquo,
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.
APPLAUSE
There if I grow,
the harvest is your own.
My plenteous joys,
wanton in fulness,
seek to hide themselves
in drops of sorrow.
Children,
kinsmen,
thanes,
and you whose places
are the nearest,
know we will
establish
our estate upon...
..our eldest...
..Malcolm...
APPLAUSE
..whom we name hereafter
the Prince of Cumberland.
ALL: All hail!
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.
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.
"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."
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.
KNOCKING
What is your tidings?
The king comes here to-night.
Thou'rt mad to say it.
Is not thy master with him,
who, were't so,
would have inform'd for preparation?
So please you, it is true.
Our thane is coming. Oh!
One of my fellows
had the speed of him,
who, almost dead for breath,
had scarcely more than would make up
his message.
Give him tending!
He brings great news!
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!"
DEEP RUMBLING
Great Glamis!
Worthy Cawdor!
SHE CHUCKLES
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.
Duncan comes here to-night.
And when goes hence?
To-morrow, as he purposes.
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.
KNOCKING
We will speak further.
Only look up clear,
to alter favour ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me.
This castle hath a pleasant seat.
The air nimbly and sweetly
recommends itself
unto our gentle senses.
This guest of summer,
the temple-haunting martlet, does
approve, by his loved mansionry,
that the heaven's breath
smells wooingly here.
THEY LAUGH
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.
See, see, our honour'd hostess!
HE GRUNTS
The love that follows us
sometime is our trouble,
which still we thank as love.
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 Your Majesty loads our
house.
Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
We coursed him at the heels,
but he rides well,
and his great love,
sharp as his spur... Oh!
..hath holp him
to his home before us.
Fair and noble hostess, we are
your guest tonight.
Your servants ever have theirs,
themselves, and what is theirs
in count to make their audit
at your Highness' pleasure,
still to return your home.
HE BELCHES
BOTH: Be bloody, bold and resolute!
If it were done when 'tis done, then
'twere well it were done quickly.
If the assassination could trammel
up the consequence,
and catch with his surcease success.
That but this blow might be the be
all and end all, here,
but here, upon this bank and shoal
of time, we'd jump the life to come.
But in these cases, we still have
judgment here,
that we but teach bloody
instruction, which being taught,
returns to plague the inventor.
This even-handed justice commends
the ingredients of our poisoned
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 is host, who should
against his murderers shut the door,
not bear the knife myself.
Besides...
..this Duncan has 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, newborn 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, only vaulting ambition...
..which o'erleaps itself and falls
on the other.
He has almost supped!
Why have you left the chamber?
Hath he asked for me?
Know you not he hath?
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.
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 afeared to be
the same in thine own act
and valour as thou art in desire?
Wouldst thou have that which thou
esteems to the ornament of life,
and live a coward
in thine own esteem,
letting "I dare not" wait upon "I
would"
like the poor cat in the
adage? Prithee, peace!
I dare do all that may become a man.
Oh! Who dares do more is not.
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.
If we should fail?
We fail.
But screw your courage to the
sticking place, and we'll not fail.
When Duncan is asleep,
where to 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 his spongy
officers,
who shall bear
the guilt of our great quell?
Bring forth men-children only,
for thy undaunted mettle should
compose nothing but males.
SHE SOBS
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?
Who dares receive it other,
as we shall make our griefs
and clamour roar upon his death?
I am settled,
and bend up each corporal agent
to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest
show.
THEY LAUGH
False face must hide
what the false heart doth know.
How goes the night, boy? The moon
is down. I have not heard the clock.
She goes down at 12.
I take't 'tis later, sir.
Hold.
Take my sword.
HE CHUCKLES
There's husbandry in heaven.
Their candles are all out.
A heavy summons lies like lead
upon me, and yet, I would not sleep.
HE CHUCKLES
Merciful powers, restrain in me
the cursed thoughts that nature
gives way to in repose.
Who's there? A friend.
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.
Being unprepared, our will became
the servant to defect,
which else should free
have wrought. All's well.
I dreamt last night of the
three weird sisters.
THEY LAUGH
To you, they have showed some...
I think not of them.
But when we can entreat an hour to
serve, we would spend
it in some words upon that business,
if you would grant the time.
At your kindest leisure. If you
would cleave to my consent
when 'tis, it should make honour
for you.
So I lose none in seeking
to augment it,
but still keep my bosom franchised
and allegiance clear.
I shall be counselled.
Good repose the while. Thanks, sir.
The like to you. Come.
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink
is ready, she strike upon the bell.
Get thee to bed.
Is this a dagger which
I see before me?
The handle towards my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, 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 still...
..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
of the other senses,
else are worth all the rest.
I see thee yet,
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.
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.
That which hath made them drunk...
..hath made me bold.
What hath quench'd them
hath given me fire.
BANG
Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd,
the fatal bellman,
which gives the stern'st goodnight.
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.
Who's there? What, ho!
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
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! I have done the deed.
Didst thou not hear a noise?
I heard the owl scream
and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak? When?
Now. As I descended? Ay.
Who lies i' the second chamber?
Donalbain.
This is a sorry sight. A foolish
thought, to say a sorry sight.
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.
There are two lodged together.
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!"
Consider it not so deeply.
But wherefore could not I
say "Amen"?
I had most need of blessing, and
"Amen" stuck in my throat.
These deeds must not be thought
after these ways; so, it
will make us mad.
Methought I heard a voice
cry, "Sleep no more!
"Macbeth does murder sleep,"
the innocent sleep,
sleep that knits up the ravell'd
sleeve 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!
What do you mean? Still it cried,
"Sleep no more!
"Glamis hath murder'd sleep,
"therefore Cawdor shall sleep
no more;
"therefore Macbeth shall
sleep no more."
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. I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have
done; look on't again I dare not.
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.
KNOCKING
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 hands?
No,
this my hand will rather the
multitudinous seas incarnadine,
making the green one red.
My hands are of your colour; but I
shame to wear a heart so white.
KNOCKING
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.
KNOCKING
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.
To know my deed, 'twere best
not know myself.
KNOCKING
Wake Duncan with thy knocking!
I would thou couldst!
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...
..hmm...Beelzebub?
HE LAUGHS
Here's a farmer,
that will hang himself
on the expectation of plenty.
TUTTING
Come in time, come in time,
come in time.
KNOCKING
Knock, knock! Who's there,
in the other devil's name?
Faith, here's an equivocator,
that swears in both the scales
against either scale;
who commits treason enough for
God's sake,
yet can not equivocate to heaven.
HE LAUGHS
O, come in, equivocator.
Come in time, come in time,
come in time.
KNOCKING
Knock, knock, knock! Who's there?
KNOCKING
Knock, knock; never at quiet!
Y...
HE SNIFFS
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.
Was it so late, friend, ere you went
to bed, that you do lie so late?
Faith sir, we were carousing
till the second cock:
and drink, sir, is a great
provoker of three things.
Is... Nose-painting, sleep,
and urine.
Is... Lechery, sir, it provokes,
and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it
takes away the performance:
therefore, therefore, 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...
Listen... Ah-ah!
..leaves him. I believe drink gave
thee the lie last night.
Is thy master stirring? Our knocking
has awaked him; here he comes.
Good morrow, noble sir.
Good morrow, both.
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Not yet. He did command me to call
timely on him:
I have almost slipp'd the hour.
I'll bring you to him.
I know this is a joyful trouble
to you, and yet 'tis one.
The labour we delight in
physics pain.
THEY LAUGH
AUDIENCE LAUGH
This is the door.
I'll make so bold to call,
for 'tis my limited service.
Goes the king hence to-day?
He does: He did appoint so.
The night has been unruly:
where we lay, our chimneys
were blown down.
HE CHUCKLES
And, as they say, lamentings
heard i' the air;
strange screams of death.
And prophesying with accents
terrible of dire combustion
and confused events new hatch'd to
the woeful time:
the obscure bird clamour'd the
livelong night:
some say, the earth was
feverous and did shake.
Twas a rough night.
O horror...
..horror...
..horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive
or name thee!
MACBETH AND LENNOX:
What's the matter?
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!
What is 't you say? The life?
Mean you his majesty?
Enter the chamber, and destroy your
sight with a new Gorgon:
do not bid me speak;
see and speak yourselves.
Awake!
Shake off this downy sleep,
death's counterfeit,
and look on death itself! Banquo!
Donalbain, Malcolm, ring the bell.
BELL RINGS
What's the business, that such
a hideous trumpet
calls to parley the sleepers
of the house?
Speak.
Speak!
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.
O Banquo, Banquo,
our royal master 's murder'd!
Woe, alas! What, in our house?
Too cruel anywhere. Dear Duff,
I prithee, contradict thyself,
and say it is not so.
Had I but died an hour before
this chance,
I had lived 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.
What is amiss?
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.
Your royal father's murder'd.
O, by whom? Those of his chamber,
as it seem'd, had done 't.
Their hands and faces were all
badged with blood;
so were their daggers, which unwiped
we found upon their pillows.
They stared, and were distracted;
no man's life was to be
trusted with them.
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
that I did kill them.
Wherefore did you so?
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate,
loyal and furious
in a moment? No man.
The expedition my violent love
outrun the pauser, reason.
Here lay Duncan, his silver skin
laced 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
in gore:
who could refrain, that had a heart
to love,
and in that heart courage
to make love known?
Help me hence, ho!
Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand;
and thence against the
undivulged pretence
I fight of treasonous
malice. And so do I.
Look to the lady. 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.
Why do we hold our tongues,
that most may claim this
argument for ours?
What should be spoken here,
where our fate, hid in an
auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
What will you do?
Let's not consort with them.
To show an unfelt sorrow is
an office the false man does easy.
I'll to England.
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.
This murderous shaft that's shot
hath not yet lighted,
and our safest way
is to avoid the aim.
Then 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.
I have known, I'm sure,
more years than thee.
Within the volume of which time
I have seen hours dreadful
and things strange.
But this sore night hath trifled
former knowings.
Ah, good father, now seest the
heavens as troubled with man's act
threatens 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?
'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.
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.
'Tis said they eat each other.
Here comes the good Macduffs.
How goes the world, sir, now?
Why, see you not?
Is't known who did this
more than bloody deed?
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend?
They were suborn'd.
Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's
two heirs, are stol'n away and fled,
which puts upon them
suspicion of the deed.
Against nature still!
Then 'tis most like the sovereignty
will fall upon Macbeth.
He is already named,
and gone to Scone to be anointed.
Will you to Scone?
No, cousin. We'll to Fife.
THEY CHUCKLE
Well, may you see things
well done there.
Adieu!
Lest our old robes
sit easier than our new!
CHORUS SINGS
Thou hast it now -
king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
as the weird sisters promised,
and, I fear,
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.
If there come truth from them,
as upon thee, Macbeth,
their speeches shine.
Why, by the verities
on thee made good,
may they not be my oracles as well,
and set me up in hope?
Here's our chief guest.
But hush! No more.
MACBETH CHUCKLES
If he had been forgotten,
it had been as a gap in our great
feast, and all-thing unbecoming.
Tonight, sir,
we hold a solemn supper,
and I'll request your presence.
Let your highness command upon me
to the which my duties
are with a most indissoluble tie
forever knit.
Ride you this afternoon?
Aye, my good lord.
We had else required
your good advice,
which still hath been both grave
and prosperous,
in this day's council -
but we'll take tomorrow.
THEY CHUCKLE
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.
We hear our bloody cousins
are bestow'd in England
and in Ireland, not confessing
their cruel parricide,
filling their hearers
with strange invention -
but of that more tomorrow,
when therewithal we shall have
cause of state craving us jointly.
Hie you to horse!
Adieu, till you return at night.
Goes Fleance with you?
THEY LAUGH
Our time does call upon 's.
I wish your horses swift
and sure of foot,
and so I commend you
to their backs. Farewell.
Let every man be master of his time
till seven at night,
to make society the sweeter welcome,
we will keep ourself
till supper-time alone.
Till then, God be with you.
Attend those men our pleasure?
They are, my lord,
without the palace gate.
Bring them before us.
To be thus is nothing.
But to be safely thus...
Our fears in Banquo stick deep,
and in his royalty of nature
reigns that which would be fear'd.
'Tis much he dares!
And, to that dauntless temper
of his mind,
he hath a wisdom that doth guide
his valour to act in safety.
There's none
but he whose being I do fear.
And, under him,
my genius is rebuked,
as it is said Mark Antony's
was by Caesar.
He chid the sisters when first
they put the name of king upon me,
and bade them speak to him -
then, prophet-like, they hail'd him
father to a line of kings.
Upon my head,
they put a fruitless crown,
and a barren sceptre in my grasp,
thence to be wrench'd
with an unlineal hand -
no son of mine succeeding.
If it be so, for Banquo's issue
have I filed my mind.
For them have I
the gracious Duncan murder'd.
Put rancours in the vessel
of my peace,
and mine eternal jewel
given to the common enemy of man,
to make them kings.
The seed of Banquo - kings!
Or rather than so,
come fate into the list.
And champion me to the utterance!
How now!
Was it not yesterday
that we spoke together?
It was, so please your highness.
Well then, now, have you
consider'd of our speeches?
Know that it was he in times past
who have held you so under fortune,
which you thought had been
our innocent self.
This I made good to you.
How you were borne in hand,
how cross'd, the instruments,
who wrought them, and all things
else which might to half a soul
and to a notion crazed say,
"Thus did Banquo."
You made it known to us.
Do you find your patience
so predominant in your nature
that you can let this go?
We are men, my liege.
Aye, in the catalogue ye go for men.
As hounds, greyhounds, spaniels,
mongrels, curs, water-rugs,
Shoughs, and demi-wolves
are clept all by the name of dogs -
the distinguished file values
the swift, the slow, the subtle,
the housekeeper, the hunter.
And so of men.
Now, if you have a station
in the file,
not in the worst rank of manhood,
say it...
..and I'll put that business
into your bosoms,
whose execution
takes your enemy off,
grapples you to the heart
and love of us,
who wears his health
but sickly in his life,
which in his death were perfect.
I am one, my liege, whom the vile
blows and buffets of the world
have so incensed that I am reckless
what I do to spite the world.
And I another, so weary with
disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
I'd set my life on any chance
to mend it, or be rid on't.
Both of you
know Banquo was your enemy.
So is he mine.
And in such bloody distance,
that every minute of his being
thrusts against my nearness of life.
And though I could with barefaced
power sweep him from my sight
and bid my will avouch it,
yet I must not,
for certain friends,
both his and mine,
whose loves I must not drop,
but wail his fall
who I myself struck down.
And thus it is that I
to your assistance do make love...
..masking the business
from the common eye
for sundry weighty reasons.
We shall, my lord,
perform what you command us.
Though our lives depend on...
Your spirits shine through you.
Within this hour at most,
I will advise you
where to plant yourselves,
acquaint you with
the perfect spy of the time,
the hour on't -
for it must be done tonight.
And...
..to leave no rub nor botch
in the work -
his son, Fleance,
that does accompany him,
whose absence is no less material
to me than is his father's,
must embrace the fate
of that dark hour.
Resolve yourselves apart,
I'll come to you anon.
We are resolved, my lord.
Abide within.
I'll come to you straight.
It is concluded.
Banquo, thy soul's flight,
if it find heaven,
find it out tonight.
Is Banquo gone from court?
Aye, madam,
but returns again tonight.
Nought's had...
..all's spent...
..where our desire
is got without content.
'Tis safer to be that
which we destroy
than by destruction
dwell in doubtful joy.
How now, my lord!
Why do you keep alone?
Of sorriest
fancies your companions making,
using those thoughts
which should indeed have died
with them they think on?
Things without all remedy
should be without regard.
What's done is done.
We hath scorch'd the snake,
not kill'd it.
She'll close and be herself,
whilst our poor malice remains
in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things
disjoint,
both the worlds suffer, ere we will
eat our meal in fear and sleep
in the affliction of these terrible
dreams which shake us nightly.
Better be with the dead,
whom we, to gain our peace,
have sent to peace,
than on the torture of the mind
to lie in restless ecstasy.
Duncan is in his grave!
After life's fitful fever,
he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst.
Nor steel, nor poison,
malice domestic, foreign levy,
nothing can touch him further.
Come on. Gentle, my lord.
Sleek o'er your rugged looks.
Be bright and jovial
among your guests tonight.
So shall I, love.
And so, I pray, be you.
Let your remembrance
apply to Banquo.
Present him eminence,
both with eye and tongue.
Unsafe the while,
that we must lave our honours
in these flattering streams,
and make our faces vizards to our
hearts, disguising what they are.
You must leave this.
O, full of scorpions is my mind,
dear wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo,
and his Fleance, live.
But in them nature's copy's
not eterne.
There's comfort yet -
they are assailable!
Then be thou jocund,
ere the bat hath flown
his cloister'd flight,
ere to black Hecate's summons
the shard-borne beetle
with his drowsy hums
hath rung night's yawning peal,
there shall be done
a deed of dreadful note.
What's to be done?
Be innocent of the knowledge,
dearest chuck,
till thou applaud the deed.
What's to be done?!
Come, seeling night, scarf up
the tender eye of pitiful day,
and with thy bloody
and invisible hand
vancel and tear to pieces
that great bond which keeps me pale!
Light thickens, and the crow
makes wing to the rooky wood.
HE LAUGHS
Good things of day
begin to droop and drowse,
whilst night's black agents
to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words,
but hold thee still!
Things bad begun
make strong themselves by ill.
Who did bid thee join with us?
Macbeth.
He needs not our mistrust.
Then stand with us.
PACKET CRINKLES
PACKET CRINKLES
LAUGHTER
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!
THUMPING
I hear horses!
Give us a light, ho!
It'll be rain tonight.
FLEANCE: Let it come down.
BANQUO CHUCKLES
LAUGHTER
Come.
DRAMATIC, DISCORDANT MUSIC
MUSIC STOPS
Who did turn out the light?!
Wast not the way?
There's but one down -
the son is fled.
We have lost
the best half of our affair!
You know your own degrees -
sit down.
At first and last a hearty welcome.
ALL: Thanks to your majesty.
Ourselves will mingle with society,
and play the humble host.
Our hostess keeps her state... Oh!
..but in best time
we will require her welcome.
Pronounce it for me, sir,
to all our friends,
for my heart speaks
they are welcome.
See, they encounter thee
with their hearts' thanks.
Be large in mirth, anon we'll drink
a measure the table round.
There's blood upon thy face.
'Tis Banquo's then.
Is he dispatch'd?
My lord, I did for him.
Thou art the best
of the cut-throats.
Yet he's good that did
the like for Fleance -
if thou didst it,
thou art the nonpareil.
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'm cabin'd,
cribb'd, confined.
Bound in to saucy doubts and fears.
But Banquo's safe?
Aye, my good lord -
safe in a ditch he bides,
with 20 trenched gashes on his head,
the least a death to nature.
Thanks for that.
There the grown serpent lies,
the worm that's fled
hath nature that in time
will venom breed,
no teeth for the present.
Get thee gone.
Tomorrow we'll hear ourselves again.
My royal lord,
you do not give the cheer.
The feast is sold that is not often
vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,
'tis given with welcome.
MACBETH CHUCKLES
To feed were best at home.
From thence the sauce
to meat is ceremony,
meeting were bare without it.
THEY ALL CHUCKLE
Sweet remembrancer!
Now, good digestion wait
on appetite, and health on both!
May't please your highness, sit.
Here had we now
our country's honour roof'd,
were the graced person
of our Banquo present,
who may I rather challenge for
unkindness than pity for mischance!
His absence, sir,
lays blame upon his promise.
Please't your highness to grace us
with your royal company.
Ah!
What is't that moves your highness?
Which of you have done this?
What, my good lord?
Thou canst not say I did it!
Never shake thy gory locks at me!
Er... Er, gentlemen, rise -
his highness is not well.
Sit, worthy friends.
My lord is often thus,
and hath been from his youth.
Pray you, keep seat.
The fit is momentary - upon
a thought he will again be well.
If much you note him, you shall
offend him and extend his passion.
Feed, and regard him not.
Are you a man?
Aye, and a bold one, that dare look
on that which might appal the devil.
O proper stuff!
This is the very painting
of your fear.
This is the air-drawn dagger
which, you said, led you to Duncan.
Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces?
When all's done,
you look but on a stool.
I pray you, see there!
Behold! Look! Lo!
How say you? Why, what care I?
If thou canst nod, speak too.
LADY MACBETH LAUGHS
If charnel-houses and our graves
shall send those we bury back,
our monuments shall be
the maws of kites.
What, quite unmann'd in folly?
If I stand here, I saw him.
Fie, for shame!
Blood hath been shed ere now,
i' the olden time,
ere human statute
purged the gentle weal.
Aye, and since too,
murders have been committed
too terrible for the ear.
The times has been that,
when the brains were out,
the man would die, and there an end.
But now they rise again,
with 20 mortal murders on their
crowns, and push us from our stools.
This is more strange
than such a murder is.
My worthy lord,
your noble friends do lack you.
I do forget.
Do not muse at me,
my most worthy friends,
I have a strange infirmity, that is
nothing to those that know me.
Come, love and health to all.
Then I'll sit down.
Give me some wine - fill full.
I drink to the general joy
of the whole table,
and to our dear friend, Banquo,
whom we miss. Would he were here!
To all, and him, we thirst,
and all to all.
ALL: Our duties, and the pledge!
Avaunt, and quit my sight!
Let the earth hide thee!
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Thy bones are marrowless,
thy blood is cold!
Thou hast no speculation in those
eyes which thou dost glare with!
Think of this, good peers,
but as a thing of custom.
'Tis no other, only it spoils
the pleasure of the time.
BANQUO ROARS
Approach thou like
the rugged Russian bear,
the arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan
tiger - take any shape but that,
and my firm nerves
will never tremble.
Or be alive again, and dare me
to the desert with thy sword.
If trembling I inhabit then,
pronounce me the baby of a girl.
Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
Why so, being gone, I am a man
again. I pray you, sit down.
You have displaced the mirth...
..broke the good meeting,
with most admired disorder.
Can such things be, and overcome us
like a summer's cloud,
without our special wonder?
Ha!
You make me strange
even to the disposition which I owe,
when first I think
you can behold such sights,
and keep the natural ruby
of your cheeks,
when mine are blanched with fear.
What sights, my lord?
I pray you, speak not!
He grows worse and worse -
question enrages him.
At once, goodnight.
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, choughs and rooks
brought forth
the secret'st man of blood.
What's the night?
Almost at odds with morning,
which is which.
How say you, 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 but in his
house I keep a servant fee'd.
I will tomorrow, and betimes I will,
to the weird sisters -
more shall they speak.
For now I am bent to know,
by the worst means, the worst.
For mine own good,
all causes shall give way!
I am in blood stepp'd in so far
that, should I wade no more,
returning were as tedious
as go o'er.
Strange things I have in head,
that will to hand,
which must be acted ere
they may be scann'd.
You lack the season
of all natures. Sleep!
Come, we'll to sleep.
My strange and self-abuse is the
initiate fear which wants hard use.
We are yet but young in deed.
My former speeches have
but hit your thoughts,
which can interpret further.
Only, I say,
things have been strangely borne.
The gracious Duncan was pitied
of Macbeth - marry, he was dead.
Who cannot want the thought
how monstrous it was for Malcolm
and for Donalbain
to kill their gracious father?
Damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth!
Did he not straight in pious rage
the two delinquents tear,
that were the slaves of drink
and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done?
Aye, and wisely too;
For 'twould have anger'd any heart
alive to hear the men deny it.
For that he fail'd his presence
at the tyrant's feast,
I hear Macduff lives in disgrace.
Can you tell
where he bestows himself?
'Tis said that Malcolm,
son of Duncan,
from whom this tyrant
holds the due of birth
lives in the English court,
and thither Macduff is gone
to pray the holy king,
upon his aid to wake Northumberland
and warlike Siward.
That, by the help of these,
some swift blessing
may soon return to this,
our suffering country
under a hand accursed!
They say the valiant Banquo
walked too late.
HE SCOFFS
From whom, you may say,
if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
for Fleance fled.
THEY LAUGH
What say'st thou?
Men must not walk too late.
I'll send my prayers with him.
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.
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Though the treasure of nature's
germens tumble all together,
even till destruction sicken.
Answer me to what I ask you.
WITCHES: By the pricking
of my thumbs,
something wicked this way comes.
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Speak. Demand.
We'll answer.
Say, if thou'dst rather hear it
from our mouths,
or from our masters?
Call 'em, let me see 'em.
# Double, double toil and trouble
# Fire burn and cauldron bubble. #
Come, high or low -
thyself and office deftly show!
What is't you do?
A deed without a name.
KNOCKING
Open, locks, whoever knocks!
Macbeth! Macbeth!
Mac...beth!
Tell me, thou unknown power...
He knows thy thought.
Hear his speech,
but say thou nought.
Beware...
..Macduff.
Beware the thane of Fife!
Whate'er thou art,
for thy good caution, thanks -
thou hast harp'd my fear aright.
But one word more...
He will not be commanded.
Here's another,
more potent than the first.
KNOCKING
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
Be bloody, bold, and resolute!
Laugh to scorn the power of man.
For none of woman born
shall harm Macbeth.
Then live, Macduff -
what need I fear of thee?
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.
KNOCKING
What's this?
WITCHES: Listen, but speak not to't.
APPARITION LAUGHS
Be lion-mettled, proud.
Take no care who chafes,
who frets, or where conspirers are -
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be
until Great Birnam Wood
to high Dunsinane Hill
shall come against him.
That shall never be!
Who can impress the forest,
bid the tree
unfix his earth-bound root?
Sweet bodements! Good!
Rebellion's head, rise never
till Birnam Wood rise,
and our high-placed Macbeth
shall live the lease of nature,
pay his breath
to time and mortal custom.
Yet my heart throbs
to know one thing more -
tell me, if your art
can tell so much,
shall Banquo's issue ever
reign in this kingdom?
ALL: Seek to know no more.
I will be satisfied!
Deny me this, and an eternal curse
fall on you!
ALL: Ooh!
DERISIVE LAUGHTER
Let me know.
BOOM
What noise is this?
# Double, double
# Toil and trouble
# Fire burn and cauldron bubble. #
Show! Show! Show!
ALL: Show his eyes,
and grieve his heart.
Come like shadows, so depart!
Thou art too like
the spirit of Banquo!
Down!
Why do you show me this?
What, will the line stretch out
to the crack of doom?
Horrible sight!
Why, now I know, 'tis true -
for the blood-bolter'd Banquo
smiles upon me,
and points at them for his.
RUMBLING ECHOES TO SILENCE
Where are they?
Gone?
Let this pernicious hour
stand aye accursed in the calendar!
Saw you the weird sisters?
No, my lord.
Came they not by you?
No, indeed, my lord.
Infected be the air
whereon they ride -
and damn'd all those
that trust them!
Macduff is fled to England.
Fled to England?! Ay, my good lord.
Time...
..thou anticipatest
my dread exploits.
The flighty purpose
never is o'ertook
unless the deed go with it.
From this very moment
the firstlings of my heart
shall be the firstlings of my hand.
And even now,
to crown my thoughts with acts,
be it thought and done.
The castle of Macduff
I will surprise,
seize upon Fife...
..give to the edge o'
the sword his wife, his babes,
and all unfortunate souls
that trace him in his line.
No more boasting like a fool.
These deeds I'll do
before this purpose cool.
WITCH'S WHISPER ECHOES
What had he done,
to make him fly the land?
You must have patience, madam.
He had none!
His flight was madness -
when our actions do not,
our fears do make us traitors.
You know not whether it
was his wisdom or his fear.
Wisdom?!
To leave his wife,
to leave his babes,
his mansion and his titles in a
place from whence himself does fly?
He loves us not.
He wants the natural touch.
For the poor wren,
the most diminutive of birds,
will fight, her young ones
in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear
and nothing is the love.
As little is the wisdom,
where the flight
so runs against all reason.
My dearest coz,
I pray you, school yourself -
but for your husband,
he is noble, wise, judicious,
and best knows
the fits o' the season.
I dare not speak much further,
but cruel are the times,
when we are traitors
and do not know ourselves,
when we hold rumour from what
we fear, yet know not what we fear,
but float upon a wild
and violent sea each way and move.
I take my leave of you.
Shall not be
long but I'll be here again.
Things at the worst will cease,
or else climb upward
to what they were before.
My pretty cousin!
Blessing upon you.
Father'd he is,
and yet he's fatherless.
I am so much a fool,
should I stay longer,
it would be my
disgrace and your discomfort.
I take my leave at once.
Sirrah, your father's dead.
And what will you do now, hm?
How will you live?
As birds do, mother.
What, with worms and flies?
With what I get, I mean -
so do they.
Poor bird!
Thou'ldst never fear the net
nor lime, the pitfall nor the gin.
Why should I, mother?
Poor birds they are not set for.
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... 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.
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 enough
to beat the honest men
and hang up them.
SHE LAUGHS
Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
But 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!
Where is your husband?
What are these faces?
Where is your husband?
I hope, in no place
so unsanctified
where such as thou mayst find him.
He's a traitor.
Thou liest,
thou shag-hair'd villain!
THEY CHUCKLE
What, you egg?!
Young fry of treachery!
Get him!
Oh!
SHE SOBS
BOTH SOB AND WHIMPER
No, no, no!
SCREAMING AND SOBBING
BABY CRIES
He has kill'd me, mother!
RECORDING: He has kill'd me, mother!
TAPE REWINDS
He has kill'd me, mother!
TAPE REWINDS
..kill'd me, mother!
TAPE REWINDS
..kill'd me, mother!
..kill'd me... ..kill'd me...
..kill'd me...
Let us seek out some desolate shade,
and there weep our sad bosoms empty.
Let us rather hold fast
the mortal sword,
and like good men
bestride our down-fall'n birthdom.
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.
What I believe, I'll wail...
..what know, believe,
and what I can redress,
as I shall find the time to friend,
I will.
What you have spoke,
it may be so perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name
blisters our tongues,
was once thought honest.
You have loved him well.
He hath not touch'd you yet.
I am not treacherous.
But Macbeth is.
A good and virtuous nature may
recoil in an imperial charge.
I have lost my hopes.
Perchance even there where
I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness
left you wife and child,
those precious motives,
those strong knots of love,
without leave-taking?
I pray you, let not my jealousies
be your dishonours,
but mine own safeties.
You may be rightly just,
whatever I shall think.
Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny,
lay thou thy basis sure,
for goodness dare not check thee.
Wear thou thy wrongs -
the title is affeer'd.
Fare thee well, lord.
I would not be the villain
that thou think'st
for the whole space
that's in the tyrant's grasp,
and the rich East to boot.
Be not offended.
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 -
but, for all this, when I shall
tread upon the tyrant's head,
or wear it on my sword,
yet my poor country shall have more
vices than it had before,
more suffer and more sundry ways
than ever,
by him that shall succeed.
What should he be?
It is myself I mean.
In whom I know all the particulars
of vice so grafted
that, when they shall be open'd,
black Macbeth will seem
as pure as snow,
and the poor state esteem him
as a lamb,
being compared
with my confineless harms.
Not in the legions of horrid hell
can come a devil more damn'd
in evils to top Macbeth.
I grant him bloody,
luxurious, avaricious, false,
deceitful, sudden, malicious,
smacking of every sin
that has a name -
but there's no bottom, none,
in my voluptuousness.
Your wives, your daughters,
your matrons and your maids
could not fill up the cistern
of my lust.
Better Macbeth
than such an one to reign.
Boundless intemperance
in nature is a tyranny.
It hath been the untimely emptying
of the happy throne
and fall of many kings -
but fear not yet to take upon
you what is yours.
You may convey your pleasures
in a spacious plenty,
and yet seem cold.
With this there grows
such stanchless avarice
that, were I king, I should cut off
the nobles for their lands -
and my more-having would be
as a sauce to make me hunger more,
that I should forge quarrels
unjust against the good and loyal,
destroying them for wealth.
This avarice sticks deeper,
grows with more pernicious root
than summer-seeming lust -
but do not fear.
Scotland hath foisons
to fill up your will
of your mere own - all these are
portable, with other graces weigh'd.
I have none.
The king-becoming graces,
as justice, verity, temperance,
stableness, bounty, perseverance,
mercy, lowliness, devotion,
patience, courage, fortitude -
I have no relish of them,
but abound in the division of each
several crime, acting it many ways.
Nay, had I power, I should pour
the sweet milk of concord into hell,
uproar the universal peace,
confound all unity on earth.
O, Scotland, Scotland!
If such a one be fit
to govern, speak -
I am as I have spoken.
Fit to govern?! No, not to live.
O, nation miserable,
since that the truest issue of thy
throne by his own interdiction
stands accursed,
and does blaspheme his breed?
Thy royal father
was a most sainted king.
The queen that bore thee,
oftener upon her knees
than on her feet,
died every day she lived.
Fare thee well!
These evils thou repeat'st
upon thyself
have banish'd me from Scotland.
O, my breast, thy hope ends here!
Macduff!
This noble passion,
child of integrity,
hath from my soul
wiped the black scruples,
reconciled my thoughts
to thy good truth and honour.
But God above deal
between thee and me,
for even now I put myself
to thy direction,
and unspeak mine own detraction.
I am yet unknown to woman,
never was forsworn,
scarcely have coveted
what was mine own,
at no time broke my faith, would not
betray the devil to his fellow -
my first false speaking
was this upon myself.
What I am, truly, is thine
and my poor country's to command.
Old Siward,
with ten thousand warlike men,
already at a point,
is setting forth.
Now we'll together.
Why are you silent?
Such welcome and unwelcome things
at once 'tis hard to reconcile.
My ever-gentle cousin!
Welcome hither.
My worthiest cousin!
And my most royal sir.
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 whom,
and good men's lives expire
before the flowers in their caps,
dying or ere they sicken.
What's the newest grief?
That of an hour's age doth
hiss the speaker.
Each minute teems a new one.
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.
Be not a miser of your speech -
how goes't?
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?
Or...is it a fee-grief due
to some single breast?
No mind that's honest
but in it shares some woe -
though the main part
pertains to you alone.
If it be mine, keep it not from me -
quickly let me have it.
Let not your ears despise
my tongue forever,
which shall possess them
with the heaviest sound
that ever yet they heard.
I guess at it.
Your castle is surprised.
Your wife and babes
savagely slaughter'd.
To relate the manner were, on the
quarry of these murder'd deer,
to add the death of you.
Merciful heaven!
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?
I have said.
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?
All?
All?
What, all...?
All...?
O, hell-kite! All?
All... All...
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, I...
I cannot but remember
such things were,
that were most precious to me.
Did heaven look on,
and would not take their part?
Sinful Macduff...
..they were all struck for thee.
Naught that I am,
not for their own demerits,
but for mine,
fell slaughter on their souls.
But heaven rest them now.
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 the 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,
and if he 'scape...
..heaven forgive him too.
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to Siward.
Our power is ready,
our lack is nothing but our leave.
Macbeth is ripe for shaking,
and the powers above
put on your instruments.
Receive what cheer you may.
The night is long
that never finds the day.
When was it she last walked?
For two nights together,
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.
Besides her walking
and other actual performances,
what, at any time,
have you heard her say?
That which I will not
report after her.
You may to me -
and 'tis most meet you should.
Neither to you nor anyone,
having no witness
to confirm my speech.
Lo, you, here she comes.
This is her very guise -
and, upon my life, fast asleep.
Observe her and stand close.
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.
What is it she does now?
It is an accustomed
action with her.
Yet here's a spot.
Hark!
Out, damned spot!
Out, I say!
One...two...
Why, then, 'tis time to do it.
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?
Do you mark that?
# 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.
Oh, oh, oh!
What a sigh is there!
The heart is sorely charged.
I would not have such
a heart in my bosom
for the dignity of the whole body.
This disease
is beyond my practice.
Yet I have known those
which have walked in their sleep
who have died holily in their beds.
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.
Even so?
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.
Oh...
To bed.
To bed!
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, goodnight. My mind she has
mated, and amazed my sight.
I think...but dare not speak.
Goodnight, good doctor.
The English power is near,
led on by Malcolm, his uncle Siward
and the good Macduff.
Bring me no more reports -
let them fly, all.
Till Birnam wood come to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear.
What's the boy, Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman?
HE LAUGHS
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 mind I sway by
and the heart I bear
shall never sag with doubt
nor taint with fear.
The devil damn thee,
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 would 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.
I'll fight till from my bones
my flesh be hack'd.
Give me my armour.
'Tis not needed yet.
I'll put it on.
Send out more horses -
scour 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
purge 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.
Put mine armour on.
Give me my sword!
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 her
to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee
to the very echo,
which would applaud again.
Pull't off, I say.
What rhubarb, senna,
or what purgative drug,
would scour these English hence?
Hear'st thou of them?
Ay, my good lord - your royal
preparation makes us hear something.
Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid
of death and bane,
till Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.
Were I from Dunsinane
away and clear,
profit again should
hardly draw me here.
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.
MACBETH ON TANNOY: Hang out our
banners on the outward walls.
The cry is still, "They come:"
our castle's strength
will laugh a siege to scorn.
There let them lie till famine
and the ague eat them up.
Were they not forced with those
that should be ours,
we might have met them dareful,
beard to beard,
and beat them backward home.
What was that noise?
It is the cry of women,
my good lord.
I have almost forgotten
the taste of fears.
The time has been that 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 dusty way to 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.
FOOTSTEPS
Thou comest to use thy tongue -
thy story quickly.
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.
Liar and slave!
Let me endure your wrath,
if't be not so -
within this three mile
may you see it coming.
I say, a moving grove.
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
whether for me thou dost as much.
I pull in resolution,
and begin to doubt the equivocation
of the fiend which lies like truth.
"Fear not, till Birnam wood
come to Dunsinane,"
and now a wood
comes toward Dunsinane.
Arm, arm, and on!
If this which he avouches
does appear,
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.
DISCORDANT CRESCENDO
DISCORDANT CRESCENDO
DISCORDANT CRESCENDO
DISCORDANT CRESCENDO
BABY CRIES
DISCORDANT CRESCENDO
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die
with harness on our back.
This way, my lord -
the castle's gently render'd.
The tyrant's people
on our side will fight.
The day almost itself professes
yours, and little is to do.
We have met with foes
that stand beside us.
Enter, sir, the castle.
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.
What is thy name?
Thou'lt be afeard to hear it.
No, though thou call'st
thyself a hotter name
than any is in hell.
My name's Macbeth.
Agh!
The devil himself could
not pronounce a title
more hateful to mine ear.
No, nor more fearful.
Thou liest, abhorred tyrant -
with my sword I'll
prove the lie thou speak'st.
Thou wast born of woman.
This way the noise was.
Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be'st slain
and with no sword of mine,
my wife and children's ghosts
will haunt me still.
Let me find him, fortune!
More I beg not.
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
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,
thou bloodier villain
than terms can give thee out!
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.
Despair thy charms
and let the angel whom thou still
hast served tell thee,
Macduff was from his mother's womb
untimely ripp'd.
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 believed,
that palter with us
in a double sense,
that keep the lie of hope
to our ears,
and break it to our hearts.
I'll...not fight with thee.
Then yield thee, coward,
and live to be the show
and gaze of 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 be baited by rabble's curse.
Though Birnam Wood
be come to Dunsinane,
and thou opposed, of no woman born,
yet I will try the last.
Lay on, Macduff,
and damn'd be he
who first cries, "Hold!"
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
MACDUFF LAUGHS
HE COUGHS
THEY PANT
Enough.
The time is free.
Hail, King of Scotland.
ALL: Hail, King of Scotland!
Your sister, sir...
..has paid a soldier's debt.
Then she is dead?
Ay.
Your cause of sorrow must not be
measured by her worth,
for then it hath no end.
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 Scotland
in ever such an honour named.
What's more to do,
as would be planted newly
with the time,
as calling home
our exiled friends abroad
who 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.
All hail!
WITCHES: By the
pricking of my thumbs
something wicked this way comes.
When shall we three meet again?
APPLAUSE
AUDIENCE CHEERS
