Complete Plays, The (140 page)

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

S
CENE
II. T
HE
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 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.

Enter Macbeth

My husband!

Macbeth

I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

Lady Macbeth

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?

Macbeth

 
When?

Lady Macbeth

Now.

Macbeth

As I descended?

Lady Macbeth

Ay.

Macbeth

Hark!
Who lies i’ 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 lodged 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 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,—

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 in 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 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 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

S
CENE
III. T
HE
SAME
.

Knocking within. Enter a Porter

Porter

Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.

Knocking within

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ the name of Beelzebub? 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 within

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 within

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose.

Knocking within

Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.

Knocking within

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 on me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.

Macduff

Is thy master stirring?

Enter Macbeth

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

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

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 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.

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! Ring the bell.

Bell rings

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.

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 prithee, 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 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.

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 an 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.

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, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, 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 with gore: who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make ’s love kno wn?

Lady Macbeth

Help me hence, ho!

Macduff

Look to the lady.

Malcolm

[Aside to Donalbain]
 
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?

Donalbain

[Aside to Malcolm]
 
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

[Aside to Donalbain]
 
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 undivulged pretence 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.