Macbeth
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. 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; and delight
No less in truth than life: my first false speaking
Was this upon myself. What I am truly,
Is thine and my poor country’s to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting forth.
Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?
MACDUFF.
Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
’Tis hard to reconcile.
Enter a Doctor.
MALCOLM.
Well; more anon.—Comes the King forth, I pray you?
DOCTOR.
Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.
MALCOLM.
I thank you, doctor.
[_Exit Doctor._]
MACDUFF.
What’s the disease he means?
MALCOLM.
’Tis call’d the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows, but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.
Enter Ross.
MACDUFF.
See, who comes here?
MALCOLM.
My countryman; but yet I know him not.
MACDUFF.
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
MALCOLM.
I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
The means that makes us strangers!
ROSS.
Sir, amen.
MACDUFF.
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSS.
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 rent 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 who; and good men’s lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF.
O, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLM.
What’s the newest grief?
ROSS.
That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;
Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF.
How does my wife?
ROSS.
Why, well.
MACDUFF.
And all my children?
ROSS.
Well too.
MACDUFF.
The tyrant has not batter’d at their peace?
ROSS.
No; they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.
MACDUFF.
Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes’t?
ROSS.
When I came hither to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witness’d the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.
Now is the time of help. Your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.
MALCOLM.
Be’t their comfort
We are coming thither. Gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
An older and a better soldier none
That Christendom gives out.
ROSS.
Would I could answer
This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howl’d out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF.
What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
Due to some single breast?
ROSS.
No mind that’s honest
But in it shares some woe, though the main part
Pertains to you alone.
MACDUFF.
If it be mine,
Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSS.
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF.
Humh! I guess at it.
ROSS.
Your castle is surpris’d; 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.
MALCOLM.
Merciful heaven!—
What, man! ne’er pull your hat upon your brows.
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
MACDUFF.
My children too?
ROSS.
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
MACDUFF.
And I must be from thence!
My wife kill’d too?
ROSS.
I have said.
MALCOLM.
Be comforted:
Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF.
He has no children.—All my pretty ones?
Did you say all?—O hell-kite!—All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM.
Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF.
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
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: heaven rest them now!
MALCOLM.
Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
MACDUFF.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And 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; if he ’scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
MALCOLM.
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;
The night is long that never finds the day.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT V
SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.
Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.
DOCTOR.
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your
report. When was it she last walked?
GENTLEWOMAN.
Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her
bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper,
fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to
bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
DOCTOR.
A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of
sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation,
besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time,
have you heard her say?
GENTLEWOMAN.
That, sir, which I will not report after her.
DOCTOR.
You may to me; and ’tis most meet you should.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Neither to you nor anyone; having no witness to confirm my speech.
Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast
asleep. Observe her; stand close.
DOCTOR.
How came she by that light?
GENTLEWOMAN.
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her
command.
DOCTOR.
You see, her eyes are open.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Ay, but their sense are shut.
DOCTOR.
What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN.
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I
have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH.
Yet here’s a spot.
DOCTOR.
Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my
remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH.
Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two. Why, then ’tis time to do’t.
Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who
would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR.
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH.
The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands
ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all
with this starting.
DOCTOR.
Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN.
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what
she has known.
LADY MACBETH.
Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will
not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
DOCTOR.
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
GENTLEWOMAN.
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole
body.
DOCTOR.
Well, well, well.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Pray God it be, sir.
DOCTOR.
This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have
walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH.
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you
yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
DOCTOR.
Even so?
LADY MACBETH.
To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come,
give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to
bed.
[_Exit._]
DOCTOR.
Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEWOMAN.
Directly.
DOCTOR.
Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician.—
God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN.
Good night, good doctor.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.
Enter, with drum and colours Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox and
Soldiers.
MENTEITH.
The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.
ANGUS.
Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them. That way are they coming.
CAITHNESS.
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LENNOX.
For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file
Of all the gentry: there is Siward’s son
And many unrough youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.
MENTEITH.
What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS.
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
Some say he’s mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause
Within the belt of rule.
ANGUS.
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
MENTEITH.
Who, then, shall blame
His pester’d senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?
CAITHNESS.
Well, march we on,
To give obedience where ’tis truly ow’d:
Meet we the med’cine of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country’s purge,
Each drop of us.
LENNOX.
Or so much as it needs
To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.
[_Exeunt, marching._]
SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.
Enter Macbeth, Doctor and Attendants.
MACBETH.
Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane
I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounc’d me thus:
“Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman
Shall e’er have power upon thee.”—Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
Enter a Servant.
The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d loon!
Where gott’st thou that goose look?
SERVANT.
There is ten thousand—
MACBETH.