#kills filthy swine

[rosellabascomacapinlac]

Oh Jesus Christ, Today I am so pissy.

I am never be happy, everyone hates me even I am sick mental disability. I was being hated and they want to be a fucking mommy sex toy and I was forced to get fucked by the horny rubbish filthy ogre. Buwisit! Why people wants to marry then wants to accept the shit pest men and give birth horrible looking babies.

Don’t dominate my life, Pedophile Xenophile parasite asshole, you are a filthy pig! I am not your fucking breedable trophy wife

[strawberrywoman]

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Kokichi is obviously pescatarian and if you disagree-

wait it autocorrected to proletarian thats MUCH funnier

Anyways Kokichi is OBVIOUSLY the leader of the proletarian as he rejects the filthy community and works as a dictator in service to the people in the name of equality. We must all help COMRADE KOKICHI SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION FROM TEAM DANGANRONPA as Shuichi realizes in the final chapter by rejecting the bougie lies of never escaping the killing game, and thus capitalism, to try and make put back on his yoke of oppression and is only foiled by the rejection of the independent self over the needs of the state.

The entire game is just communist propaganda and if you failed to realize that Kokichi is actually just in universe karl marx telling the cast of danganronpa and the audience to cast off their chains and seize the means of the killing game to instead serve the masses instead of the bourgeois, we must free our common man from the killing gulag, and end team danganronpa's swine capitalist game show.

[ryin-silverfish]

Chapter 19: Pearls before Swine

-Pigsy started off the chapter with a long poem about his backstory, full of internal alchemy jargons that were mostly explained in the footnotes. So, instead of going into details, I'm just gonna talk about the general idea of "Reversal" in internal alchemy, namely, the reversal from Houtian("Post-Heaven") to Xiantian("Pre-Heaven").

-The trigram on the left of this picture is the Xiantian Trigram, aka Fuxi's Trigram, while the one on the right, the Houtian Trigram, aka King Wen's Trigram. Notice how in the former, the north and south position is occupied by Qian and Kun (Heaven and Earth), while in the latter, it's Li and Kan (Fire and Water)?

-Well, according to internal alchemy theory, the "Qian" of the Xiantian Trigram represents the primodial state of human existence, where the Spiritual Mind(元神) and Vital Energy(元气, or Qi) are one. Separated after birth, they morph into the "Li" and "Kan" of the Houtian Trigram, after the middle "⚊" in "☰", representing Vital Energy, switches place with the middle "⚋" in "☷" and causes the Spiritual Mind to become Yin-aligned.

-Cultivation is supposed to reverse the Li-Kan of Houtian back to the Qian-Kun of Xiantian through the fusing of the Spiritual Mind and Vital Energy, granting practitioners immortality in the process. Thus, the allusion to the "Li-dragon" and "Kan-tiger" in the poem.

-On a tangentially related note, according to the Book of Changes(周易), the Kan trigram is represented by the pig, which is but another example of the long-lasting tradition of associating pigs with the Water element in ancient Chinese culture.

-Fast forward to Pigsy officially joining the group: his religious name, Zhu Eight Rules, could be a reference to the 8 Buddhist prohibitions against killing, lying, stealing, sexual debauchery, indulgence in luxury, drinking, dancing and music, and eating out of regular hours.

-However, if we look at the sentence before that, Tripitaka states that Pigsy had "not eaten the five forbidden viands and the three undesirable foods"(五荤三厌). The first 5 refers to the Buddhist dietry restriction against five sorts of pungent vegetables, while the 3 undesirable foods are Daoist prohibitions against the consumption of wild geese, dogs, and fish/turtle.

-Personal story—I first read the full JTTW novel while hospitalized, and still vividly remembered how the book I borrowed from the nurse happened to be missing several pages in the Crow's Nest Master section. Anyways, who is this guy that popped out of nowhere just to give Tripitaka the Heart Sutra and make digs at his disciples?

-He appeared to be an amalgation of two figures:

1) The "Bird's Nest Master" recorded in the Buddhist history compendium 五灯会元, who lived atop a pine tree in Hang Zhou and was visited by the famous poet Bai Juyi. After Bai voiced some rather reasonable safety concerns about the whole "living on a tree" thing, he retorted that the poet was in an even more dangerous situation, sth sth being an official of the court is like amidst flames sth.

2) The filthy, sickly man who appeared in Xuanzang's biography, 大慈恩寺三藏法师传, and taught him the Heart Sutra in return for the monk's kindness, which would later ward him from demons and ghosts during the crossing of the desert.

-It's kinda fun to imagine him as an actual cultivated crow, working to attain Buddhahood, tho.

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

[corrunuptia]

@yellowfingcr

♚;  

                                           footsteps hurried behind great wooden doors. the crackling of the flames along the stone walls. the wind howling fiercely, biting cold at this time of year. all of these sounds clear like ice over a pointless cacophony of speech.

‘ we need act swiftly, commander francis. ‘tis well known now that unrest in yharnam is building. the bridge to cainhurst should be closed with all due haste, to avoid insurgents stoking the lower classes. ’

‘ and leave us without the grain and foodstuffs that sustain us through winter? let us not act foolishly and mobilize precious troops in fear of mere rabble- ’

‘ then are we to wait for a revolution, like crabs in a boiling pot? ’

the argument goes on and on around the long table. annalise sits at one end, head resting on her hand, her attention entirely elsewhere. her ministers quabble ceaselessly - why, if she does not stop them, she fears they could continue going until they both died of old age. she then reconsiders this fact: if they keep her locked in this parley hall one more hour, she will have them both killed.

of course, there would be unrest in yharnam. mere mortals, partaking of a holiness they do not deserve, playing house with the children of gods. they are fools to the one - even the creature that brought to her the delightful blood that awakened the great powers of her line. for what devil or witch was ever so great as the first queen herself, whose burning ichor flowed in these veins, the great mother of phtumeru? to think it was that filthy betrayer who brought it before her.

annalise’s disinterest begets the attention of the young lord annenkov, son of the present lieutenant of the same name. 

‘ your highness, far from me the thought of ordering you, but your thoughts on this matter would be appreciated. i simply wish to make certain your silence is not interpreted as permission to go on forever by our eloquent debaters. i am certain we all have better things to do today, yourself chiefest of all, ’ he smiles. 

proud little swine, she thinks to herself. a good looking young boy, all too ambitious for his own good in a nation where indulgence is one's right and one's death. she remembers the young lord asking her for a dance at the grand ball where he made his début, drunk with blood and the elation of her attention. she thought she had crushed his confidence under her heel sufficiently that night, but it appears it wasn’t enough. she sighs, redressing in her chair and dismissing the boy’s comment with a wave.

‘ thou wouldst do well to teach thy son some manners if he is to be welcome at our inner court, lieutenant annenkov. thy loyal service has afforded you many rights, but our patience comes at too high a price for even thee.’

a delicate hand comes to rest on her forehead, ruffling ash blonde hair.

‘ though impertinently, the young lord brings a fair point. we do not wish to spend overlong in circular discussions with no end in sight. ministers, we ask that thou maketh thy point more efficiently, should this issue arise again. how long ago hath either of thee visited the city, we must ask? the one whose thoughts we should hear on the matter is not ye, nor ourself this time. ’

annalise turns to her left. in the corner of the parley hall, nearby the great stained glass window that bathed it in green and blue, an outsider had been allowed to sit. ministers and officers alike had voiced much discontent, surely leading to the guest's silence, but annalise would not hear their complaints. this was her court, after all, and if she wished for a dog to sit on her council, so it would be - a cur would at the very least have no eyes for the throne; better than some of the rats that already spoke at the table, hungry for scraps of her power.

‘ lady heysel, thou hath sought asylum here from yharnam not too long ago, yes? if there is aught thou knowest of the situation there, we would much like to hear it. do not be shy overmuch! we have allowed thee to attend our court for this very reason.’

[bracketsoffear]

The Swine Prince (Darkest Dungeon) (Blurred for body horror. Even by the standards of the Flesh, yuck.) "A hulking monster pig created by doing black magic experiments on swine. His brain is exposed, his guts are slopping out all over the floor and he attacks with a massive meat cleaver. Waits at the end of filthy warrens filled with other violent mutant pigs made from the Ancestor's experimentations. What he lacks in storyline he makes up for in sheer disgusting viscerality."

Benji (Hell Followed With Us) "In a world torn apart by a horrific man-made Flood virus that either kills or twists one into something called a Grace, Benji is a young trans man raised by the doomsday cult that created the virus. His mother elected him to join the trials become the general to their battle against the heretics of the world. He was injected with a special strain of the virus that will slowly replace his body and turn him into an ‘Angel’ with the power to control all those plagued by the Flood virus. Throughout the story Benji feels his body twisting and changing, growing massive teeth, organs moving within his body, and as much as this terrifies him and as much as he initially desires to deny virus it’s purpose—to stay ‘good’ like his late father requested—he decides to embrace the changes with the goal of taking what has been done to him and using it to hurt the cult that destroyed the world. Benji and his body scare people, enemies and allys alike. When his powers come to fruition he is able to break bones, create growths, and shape and manipulate the flesh of all those with even a dormant strain of the Flood virus within them. It’s a very fleshy story, and with the abilities, desire to inflict pain and fear, and element of choice in transformation, Benji is an excellent Flesh avatar."

[venzlenes]

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas. I’ll bet you couldn’t pour !@#$ out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won’t go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You’re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformation. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You’re a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won’t have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusional self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral[size] equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meat slapper.

On a good day you’re a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

You smarmy lager lout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oink artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill. You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid.

You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don’t have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn’t really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success.

True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us ”normal” people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are ”challenged” persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn’t have been ”right”. Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally NOT GOOD.

I know u got this off a google. I've used it before. AND U WERE WITH ME WHEN I USED IT @myguumi

[crucioslut]

'You just go ahead and get some sleep, I'll be fine.'

Bellatrix's blueish blackened eyelids were as heavy as boulders, yet each time they threatened to flutter closed, her head lolling down or to the side, she fought it. Determined to remain awake and alert, no matter how loud her fatigued body cried out for rest.

The prior weeks (Or, had it been months by now?), had been entirely overtaken with long excersions, demanding battles and the kind of anxiety that drifted in and out right at the forefront, mocking as it did. The Order was consistently getting smarter and stronger, growing in numbers and power just the same. Everybody could feel it. No longer was the opposing side absorbed by fear. They'd become driven by something else and radiated confidence that for the first time was palpable.

It made Bellatrix Lestrange positively sick. She would kill all of them, if it was the last thing she ever did. One-by-one, slowly and exquisitely. And when she was finished slaughtering the swine, she would collect all of their filthy heads and present them to her Master. She would make him proud. Just as she always had.

The Death Eaters who remained faithful to the cause all of these years later were tired. They were overworked and losing faith. This was the unspoken truth.

The two witches found asylum in a leaky cave. Hidden away following a particularly intense ambush by the order, resulting in the women losing the rest of their camp as they all fled in different directions. They found cover in the mean time, waiting for Lucius, Dolohov and the others to return and taking a much needed moment's rest. Bellatrix had jumped onto a tall rock and climbed to the top of it, shining a bright purple light from the tip of her wand inspecting the surroundings they'd all occupied minutes prior, the area still piping hot with the remnants of magical war just outside of their cave.

"There's nothing I can see." Bella muttered to her daughter, intently searching for any signs of invisible traps cast by the enemy. "But those pigs are getting clever, Delphi. I don't trust it. We'll stay put until the others return." She said, hopping off the rock. "Better them than us."

At this, Bellatrix began to laugh, her cackles bouncing off the walls and echoing eerily throughout the dripping cave as she recalled her brother-in-law getting blasted right onto his ass just minutes earlier. "Knowing that uncle Lucy of yours, he will simply walk right into it without so much as checking." Bella shook her head, her laugh dying down to nothing. Her expression twisted into something most scornful and sour. "Useless thing, he is. I ought to kill him along with the rest. He's holding us back." She hissed.

Bellatrix slumped down next to her daughter on the ground, releasing a sigh she hadn't known she'd been holding in. They were already filthy and there was no point in wasting the energy casting the dirt and grime away when they'd find themselves covered once again shortly after.

Bella's eyes lazily rolled over to the member of the order that lay helpless next to them. bound and silenced by magic. The iridescent rippled vines binding the red-headed witch's wrists and ankles swirled, shining most brilliantly in waves. Still the witch gave it a good fight, attempting to scream but nothing came out. Bellatrix and Delphini both feeling the intensity of the other witch's focused wandless magic trying desperately hard to free herself, and both easily opposing and overpowering it each time.

The girl wriggled and squiggled, hysterically, attempting to do anything to free herself.

"Enough!" Bellatrix shrieked, whipping her across her face with her wand sharply, leaving behind a welt. "You should be thanking us that you're being left alive. Sit still! You're making me dizzy!"

Bella's head rest against Delphini's shoulder once their prisoner had settled, eyes threatening to shut once again. "You okay, Dove?" She muttered, yawning. A hand moving to hold onto her daughter's arm affectionately.

'You just go ahead and get some sleep, I'll be fine.' Delphini said.

But her mother's eyes widened at that, sitting back up and getting to her feet. "No." Bella said, sternly. That was not an option.

Instead, Bella paced their pretty little prisoner, speaking to her as though she'd be able to respond. "The Dark Lord won't be very happy to me if I brutalize you too badly before he's even gotten the chance to look at you..." Bella's voice was gentle and low, a tactic that drew people to her, that voice nearly warm and inviting. She leaned down and swiped her thumb over the red head's forehead to clear hair away from her face. The younger witch flinched and attempted to squirm from her touch, gazing up at the older witch in total and complete fear.

Bellatrix grinned wide, exposing teeth like a hungry wolf.

"...But I'm sure we can still have some fun."

@daughterofyourdarklord

[stickerrsssss]

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas. I’ll bet you couldn’t pour !@#$ out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won’t go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You’re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformation. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You’re a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won’t have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusional self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral[size] equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meat slapper.

On a good day you’re a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient

in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

You smarmy lager lout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oink artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted

fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill.

You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate,

noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid.

Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid.

You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond

the laws of physics that we know. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don’t have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn’t really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success.

True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us ”normal” people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are ”challenged” persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn’t have been ”right”.

Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.:

You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb,

evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive,

mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally NOT GOOD.

(I lovb yaou… this is a copy pastas🥺🥺)

This is a copy pasta??? No way!!!! I totally definitely thought you wrote all of this out by hand!!!!

[neko-naruto]

i've lost my ignorance, security, and pride

Summary: Copen never did consider a karma so cruel in his journals when he'd write about the potential of his justified path coming to bite him in the ass, nor does he truly believe it when it's so viciously forced into his face by none other than Nova

Warnings: unethical surgeries, verbal degradation, Nova has something going on, check Ao3 port for full tags

Authors Note: *laughs nervously as I stare at the 2 ppl who like gunvolt on tumblr* so how do ya'll feel about toxic yaoi? cause I got toxic yaoi with a side of unethical surgeries and a title from a Nine Inch Nails song.

"You're such a swine," Nova purred, hand firmly gripping Copen's jaw, "A filthy, worthless, pig."

Copen snarled up at him, "You're one to talk, Adept."

"You're a broken record. Adept, Adept, Adept- it's your favorite word, right up there with justice," Nova said, smug grin slanting to a cruel smirk.

"I'll tear your very heart out in the name of God," Copen threatened, tried too at least. The paralytics holding him down made it very hard to come off half as threatening as he wanted to. He just had to grit his teeth and grimace as soft hands held his face and tainted his skin.

Nove gives a single chuckle, "I doubt you could so much as scratch me in your current state." He takes a step back from Copen who struggles to reach out and claw him open, tug him and punch him, do anything to hurt him in any way possible.

He can manage seething, "I'll sooner die than watch you ruin everything."

Nova claps twice and a row of soldiers file in, "Boys, take him down to the lab, I wish to impart a gift upon him."

Copen's eyes widen as the soliders encroach on him, hands gripping his arms and legs and holding him securely to the point it hurts. The crackling purple remains to hold his joints locked in place and muscles contracted so he can do nothing but breath and take it. When enough hands have him secured, Nova claps once more and they don't hoist him up. The purple Adept leans just enough that they're at eye level, he's grinning this sickly smile that makes Copen feel ill.

"What are you going to do to me?" The hunter questioned.

Nova reaches out to run a finger from Copen's ear too his chin and tilts up, "I'm going to make you despise your very existence."

Nova shoves aside Copen who fumbles for words and writhes to the best of his ability. He watches as the Adept turns his back as he's slowly carried away, dragged on the ground.

"I want him in heavy restraints when I arrive, and I want him awake while I do it."

Copen's blood runs cold as the words sink into his paralyzed body.

-/-/-/-

All Copen can do is stare at the ceiling even after the paralytics have come down, he knows the restraints are too strong for him to break. He's been stripped of his dignity and his pride and his armor, he can't manage much of a fight physically at this point. LED lights sear his eyes as they shine down on him mockingly from the ceiling, he can see the glint of scalpels, needles, and vials from the corner of his eye.

He hears the door open and tries to turn and see it but he awkwardly hits the brace clamped over his neck. It aches from the physical struggling he tried mere moments after being locked in. The struggling earned him nothing but mocking and laughing from useless foot soldiers.

"No need to worry, I have it under control. Thank you for dealing with the first part for me."

It's Nova, he sounds as calm and collected as ever. He steps in and the door slides shut. He shrugs off his regal coat and hangs it up on the door and trades for it an apron.

"You're gonna kill me down here, while I'm vulnerable," Copen declared as Nova washed his hands and hummed a tune.

"I would never," Nova said with a faux tone of offense, he steps over to Copen's restrained form and grabs a marker, "I have something far more sinister in mind."

"You're gonna cut me open? Harvest my organs and let me live out my remaining days without them sickly and frail?" Copen questioned as Nova brought the marker to pale flesh and ran dotted lines across Copen's chest.

"Don't give me ideas now," Nova said with a light laugh as he capped the marker.

Copen took a deep breath, "Than what it is it?"

"You're a smart boy, you'll figure it out," Nova chided as he grabbed the scalpel and pressed it against skin, "This may hurt."

He pressed down and it did hurt, it was a clean type of hurting though. A simple little slice down the front of his chest, from his clavicles to the base of his rib cage. He felt his breath hitch as the pain diffused, it was quick to return when fingers pressed into the slit of flesh. He bit his tongue instead of screaming, body spasming at the unprecedented intrusion.

Nova gave a hum, "Someone doesn't like being fingered. I guess I'll open you up a bit more before we get to penetration." He laughs at his own words and Copen just feels a wave of disgust wash over him at the fact Nova is comparing this to sex. Albeit, in a very subtle and twisted way, but it's a comparison regardless.

The scalpel comes down along two more dotted lines and with one quick motion his chest opens up. He feels extremely nauseated, like he'd vomit if he had anything in his stomach. He dry heaves despite gravity working against him, he convulses and wheezes as fingers prod at his inner muscles. Tracing over the bits on his ribs and tapping his beating heart and pinching at his clavicles.

There isn't the comforting discomfort of latex either, it's just skin on flesh. The taint of an Adept's touch is being ingrained into his being with every passing second of Nova exploring his body in a very unpleasant way. His finger nails dig into his palm into Nova forces them apart with bloody hands.

"Don't hurt yourself, you don't even have reason to hate yourself yet," Nova said in a tone far too soothing for a man so sinister and cruel, but it worked. Copen relaxed, he let his body go as limp as possible because as much as he wants to defy, he knows he can't win this one. Nova grins, "You'll have plenty of reasons to hate yourself soon enough."

A needle is held high, a clear fluid fills it, and then it's plunged into Copen. Close to his heart, but not quite, narrowly missing the most vital of his organs. The glass tube rests nestled against his lung as the fluid is deposited into his body. His breathing starts to slow all the while and the prodding sensation of Nova's fingers inside of him.

Anesthetic, how kind.

Three needles are held this time, red, green, and blue. There's hesitation on Nova's face as he lays them atop Copen's rib cage and contemplates. He grabs red first, "You know, you'll be the first to have three Septima's implanted in your body."

Copen starts struggling again, "You're turning me into an Adept!?"

"I thought that was clear," Nova said smugly as he snapped his fingers, bright purple crackling across Copen once more to paralyze him. He lets a finger, dripping with blood, hover over Copen's lips. The taste of ichor rests heavy on Copen's tongue and he squirms as best he can, the terrible taste of his own blood making him feel ill. Nova smirks a bit, "Now hold still, I don't want to kill you during this process. Although, three at once may kill you in the long run."

As the first of three needles puncture his heart he passes out with a gut wrenching scream that makes even Nova feel nauseated. A rending pain running through every single vein in his body as a Septima is implanted in him. He sees Nova's smug face and a wave goodbye as he fades out of consciousness.

-/-/-/-

When he awakes he finds himself in a hospital bed with stitches running up his front and a crusty sensation coagulating near them. It makes him feel ill, even more when he hears them crackle as he sits up. A sharp sting pierces him and he tries not to hiss as a bare hand clutches at his clothed chest. He's wearing one of those hospital gowns, but the blood and puss and Septimal residue soak into it in the shape of his cuts.

"I wouldn't be moving for a while if I were you," Nova said calmly from where he stood leaning in the doorway, dressed to the nines in his usual outfit. He has a bouquet of flowers in one hand with a gaudy 'get well soon!' card attached, it makes Copen cringe.

"If it'll kill me then I'll make a point of it," Copen snarled as Nova stepped in and ever closer.

Nova chuckled lightly, "You idiot," He doesn't use anything innately insulting which is odd, he's dropped his smug I'm better than you aura. He takes a seat on the foot of Copen's bed, "You're stuck in here now, we won't let you die."

"What do you mean I'm stuck in here?" Copen asked.

Nova was so bold as to reach out and trace along the front of Copen's hospital gown, he smiled the entire time. He pressed just above the heart and Copen winced, "You're stuck with Sumeragi, your Septima's are prone to malfunctioning. They're unstable unless you're here with our technology monitoring you to keep you alive."

Copen goes wide-eyed, "What?"

"You have to stay with Sumeragi, attach yourself to a Glaive, and hope that we'll trust you to use your Septima in taking down QUILL." Nova crawls a little further up Copen's hospital bed, "That or you go out there and wait for the inevitably of a premature death."

"So I have to sit here at your beck and call like a dog or die?"

"You're a smart one, a bit slow, but smart."

If he wasn't already nauseated with how close Nova is too him at the moment he'd feel like vomiting. He goes pale he knows that much and he swears his head starts to spin.

"So," Nova begins, reaching out to touch Copen's face and now there's no divide between them. They've become equally low, Copen's been lowered forcibly to become the same dirt all Adept's are. "What'll it be?"

Copen can't answer, he just tries to look away.

Nova wrenches him back into eye contact, "Did you not hear me, filth?"

"I'll take the Glaive." He submits but he doesn't want too, he submits because he knows he'll find out how to break the leash when he can escape. Until then he'd like to stay alive long enough to shoot down the likes of Gunvolt and the rest of QUILL, even if it means working for Sumeragi.

Nova grins as he pushes himself back, "I'll get it fashioned right away, I'll make sure your armor is reminiscent of what you wore when you tried to defile my name."

[kaioshin-kai]

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas. I’ll bet you couldn’t pour !@#$ out of a boot with instructions on the heel. You are a canker. A sore that won’t go away. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.

You’re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into this world. An insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then killed themselves in recognition of what they had done.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformation. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention you smell?

Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be able to access it more rapidly.

You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You’re a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won’t have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.

And what meaning do you expect your delusional self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake?

You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral[size] equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a disease, you puerile one-handed slack-jawed drooling meat slapper.

On a good day you’re a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.

You smarmy lager lout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oink artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill. You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away.

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid.

You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I’m sorry. I can’t go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don’t have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. I have snipped away most of what you wrote, because, well... it didn’t really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective... Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success.

True, these are rudimentary skills that many of us ”normal” people take for granted that everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are ”challenged” persons in this world who find these things more difficult. If I had known that this was your case then I would have never read your post. It just wouldn’t have been ”right”. Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, clueless, and generally NOT GOOD.

[kadencrafter78]

ACT 1

Scene 1

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

FIRST WITCH  When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? SECOND WITCH  When the hurly-burly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won. THIRD WITCH  That will be ere the set of sun. FIRST WITCH  Where the place? SECOND WITCH  Upon the heath. THIRD WITCH  There to meet with Macbeth. FIRST WITCH  I come, Graymalkin. SECOND WITCH  Paddock calls. THIRD WITCH  Anon. ALL  Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

Hover through the fog and filthy air. They exit.

Scene 2Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain.

DUNCAN  What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt The newest state. MALCOLM  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. CAPTAIN  Doubtful it stood, As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel, for to that The multiplying villainies of nature Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied; And Fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling, Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak; For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage Till he faced the slave; Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements. DUNCAN  O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman! CAPTAIN  As whence the sun ’gins his reflection Shipwracking storms and direful thunders break, So from that spring whence comfort seemed to come Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark: No sooner justice had, with valor armed, Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels, But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage, With furbished arms and new supplies of men, Began a fresh assault. DUNCAN  Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? CAPTAIN  Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion. If I say sooth, I must report they were As cannons overcharged with double cracks, So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe. Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds Or memorize another Golgotha, I cannot tell— But I am faint. My gashes cry for help. DUNCAN  So well thy words become thee as thy wounds: They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons. The Captain is led off by Attendants.

Enter Ross and Angus.

Who comes here? MALCOLM  The worthy Thane of Ross. LENNOX  What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look that seems to speak things strange. ROSS  God save the King. DUNCAN  Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane? ROSS  From Fife, great king, Where the Norweyan 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, lapped in proof, Confronted him with self-comparisons, Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm, Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude, The victory fell on us. DUNCAN  Great happiness! ROSS  That now Sweno, The Norways’ king, craves composition. Nor would we deign him burial of his men Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch Ten thousand dollars to our general use. DUNCAN  No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present death, And with his former title greet Macbeth. ROSS  I’ll see it done. DUNCAN 

What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. They exit.

Scene 3

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH Where hast thou been, sister? SECOND WITCH  Killing swine. THIRD WITCH  Sister, where thou? FIRST WITCH  A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap And munched and munched and munched. “Give me,” quoth I. “Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger; But in a sieve I’ll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do. SECOND WITCH  I’ll give thee a wind. FIRST WITCH  Th’ art kind. THIRD WITCH  And I another. FIRST WITCH  I myself have all the other, And the very ports they blow; All the quarters that they know I’ th’ shipman’s card. I’ll drain him dry as hay. Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid. He shall live a man forbid. Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tossed. Look what I have. SECOND WITCH  Show me, show me. FIRST WITCH  Here I have a pilot’s thumb, Wracked as homeward he did come.Drum within. THIRD WITCH  A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come. ALL, dancing in a circle  The Weïrd 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. Peace, the charm’s wound up.

Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

MACBETH  So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BANQUO  How far is ’t called to Forres?—What are these, So withered, and so wild in their attire, That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth And yet are on ’t?—Live you? Or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand me By each at once her choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips. You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so. MACBETH  Speak if you can. What are you? FIRST WITCH  All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! SECOND WITCH  All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! THIRD WITCH  All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter! BANQUO  Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ 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 favors nor your hate. FIRST WITCH  Hail! SECOND WITCH  Hail! THIRD WITCH  Hail! FIRST WITCH  Lesser than Macbeth and greater. SECOND WITCH  Not so happy, yet much happier. THIRD WITCH  Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! FIRST WITCH  Banquo and Macbeth, all hail! MACBETH  Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more. By Sinel’s death 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 Cawdor. Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you. Witches vanish. BANQUO  The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanished? MACBETH  Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted, As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed! BANQUO  Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner? MACBETH  Your children shall be kings. BANQUO  You shall be king. MACBETH  And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so? BANQUO  To th’ selfsame tune and words.—Who’s here?

Enter Ross and Angus.

ROSS  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. Silenced with that, In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, Strange images of death. As thick as tale Came post with post, and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense, And poured them down before him. ANGUS  We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks, Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee. ROSS  And for an earnest of a greater honor, He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor, In which addition, hail, most worthy thane, For it is thine. BANQUO  What, can the devil speak true? MACBETH  The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me In borrowed robes? ANGUS  Who was the Thane lives yet, But under heavy judgment bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined With those of Norway, or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage, or that with both He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not; But treasons capital, confessed and proved, Have overthrown him. MACBETH, aside  Glamis and Thane of Cawdor! The greatest is behind. To Ross and Angus. Thanks for your pains. Aside to Banquo. Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them? BANQUO  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 harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s In deepest consequence.— Cousins, a word, I pray you.They step aside. MACBETH, aside  Two truths are told As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen. Aside. 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 smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not. BANQUO  Look how our partner’s rapt. MACBETH, aside  If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir. BANQUO  New honors come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold But with the aid of use. MACBETH, aside  Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. BANQUO  Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. MACBETH  Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are registered where every day I turn The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King. Aside to Banquo. Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time, The interim having weighed it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other. BANQUO  Very gladly. MACBETH 

Till then, enough.—Come, friends. They exit.

Scene 4

Flourish. Enter King Duncan, Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain, and Attendants.

DUNCAN  Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet returned? MALCOLM  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 confessed 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. DUNCAN  There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

O worthiest cousin, The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee. 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. MACBETH  The service and the loyalty I owe In doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part Is to receive our duties, and our duties Are to your throne and state children and servants, Which do but what they should by doing everything Safe toward your love and honor. DUNCAN  Welcome hither. I have begun to plant thee and will labor 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. BANQUO  There, if I grow, The harvest is your own. DUNCAN  My plenteous joys, Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes, And you whose places are the nearest, know We will establish our estate upon Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must Not unaccompanied invest him only, But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness And bind us further to you. MACBETH  The rest is labor which is not used for you. I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach. So humbly take my leave. DUNCAN  My worthy Cawdor. MACBETH, aside  The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; 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. He exits. DUNCAN  True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed: It is a banquet to me.—Let’s after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

It is a peerless kinsman. Flourish. They exit.

Scene 5Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone, with a letter.

LADY MACBETH, reading the letter  They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st 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 Weïrd 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 might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ th’ 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 ’dst 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 valor of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal. Enter Messenger.

What is your tidings? MESSENGER  The King comes here tonight. LADY MACBETH  Thou ’rt mad to say it. Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so, Would have informed for preparation? MESSENGER  So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming. One of my fellows had the speed of him, Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message. LADY MACBETH  Give him tending. He brings great news.Messenger exits. 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 th’ access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry “Hold, hold!”

Enter Macbeth.

Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant. MACBETH  My dearest love, Duncan comes here tonight. LADY MACBETH  And when goes hence? MACBETH  Tomorrow, as he purposes. LADY MACBETH  O, never Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent flower, But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night’s great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. MACBETH  We will speak further. LADY MACBETH  Only look up clear. To alter favor ever is to fear.

Leave all the rest to me. They exit.

Scene 6

Hautboys and Torches. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and Attendants.

DUNCAN  This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. BANQUO  This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle. Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

DUNCAN  See, see our honored hostess!— The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you How you shall bid God ’ild us for your pains And thank us for your trouble. LADY MACBETH  All our service, In every point twice done and then done double, Were poor and single business to contend Against those honors deep and broad wherewith Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old, And the late dignities heaped up to them, We rest your hermits. DUNCAN  Where’s the Thane of Cawdor? We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose To be his purveyor; but he rides well, And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath helped him To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest tonight. LADY MACBETH  Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure, Still to return your own. DUNCAN  Give me your hand. Taking her hand. Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly And shall continue our graces towards him.

By your leave, hostess. They exit.

Scene 7

Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth.

MACBETH  If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly. If th’ assassination Could trammel up the consequence and catch With his surcease success, that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgment here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th’ ingredience 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 his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked newborn babe Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on th’ other—

Enter Lady Macbeth.

How now, what news? LADY MACBETH  He has almost supped. Why have you left the chamber? MACBETH  Hath he asked for me? LADY MACBETH  Know you not he has? MACBETH  We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honored me of late, and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon. LADY MACBETH  Was the hope drunk Wherein you 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 afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage? MACBETH  Prithee, peace. I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none. LADY MACBETH  What beast was ’t, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this. MACBETH  If we should fail— LADY MACBETH  We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains Will I with wine and wassail so convince That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell? MACBETH  Bring forth men-children only, For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. 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? LADY MACBETH  Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar Upon his death? MACBETH  I am settled and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth

know. They exit.

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him.

BANQUO How goes the night, boy? FLEANCE  The moon is down. I have not heard the clock. BANQUO  And she goes down at twelve. FLEANCE  I take ’t ’tis later, sir. BANQUO  Hold, take my sword.He gives his sword to Fleance. There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.

Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.

Give me my sword.—Who’s there? MACBETH  A friend. BANQUO  What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s abed. He hath been in unusual pleasure, and Sent forth great largess to your offices. This diamond he greets your wife withal, By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up In measureless content. He gives Macbeth a jewel. MACBETH  Being unprepared, Our will became the servant to defect, Which else should free have wrought. BANQUO  All’s well. I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters. To you they have showed some truth. MACBETH  I think not of them. Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, We would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time. BANQUO  At your kind’st leisure. MACBETH  If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis, It shall make honor for you. BANQUO  So I lose none In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, I shall be counseled. MACBETH  Good repose the while. BANQUO  Thanks, sir. The like to you. Banquo and Fleance exit. MACBETH  Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Servant exits. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.He draws his dagger. Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still, And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There’s no such thing. It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one-half world Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s off’rings, 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 whereabouts And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. A bell rings. I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell. He exits.

Scene 2Enter Lady Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH  That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark!—Peace. It was the owl that shrieked, 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 drugged 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. Th’ 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 with bloody daggers.

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’ th’ second chamber? LADY MACBETH  Donalbain. MACBETH  This is a sorry sight. 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 addressed 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, List’ning 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 raveled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’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 murdered 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. She exits with the daggers. Knock within. MACBETH  Whence is that knocking? How is ’t with me when every noise appalls me? What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH  My hands are of your color, but I shame To wear a heart so white.Knock. 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.Knock. 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. Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou

couldst. They exit.

Scene 3

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. (Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins enough about you; here you’ll sweat for ’t. (Knock.) Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’ 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. (Knock.) 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. (Knock.) 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 th’ everlasting bonfire. (Knock.) Anon, anon!

The Porter opens the door to Macduff and Lennox.

I pray you, remember the porter. 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’ th’ 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. Porter exits. 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 slipped 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 labor we delight in physics pain. This is the door. MACDUFF  I’ll make so bold to call, For ’tis my limited service.Macduff exits. LENNOX  Goes the King hence today? 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’ th’ air, strange screams of death, And prophesying, with accents terrible, Of dire combustion and confused events New hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird Clamored 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.

Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF  O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! MACBETH AND 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’ th’ 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. Macbeth and Lennox exit. 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 murdered. LADY MACBETH  Woe, alas! What, in our house? BANQUO  Too cruel anywhere.— Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself And say it is not so. Enter Macbeth, Lennox, and Ross.

MACBETH  Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessèd 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 stopped; the very source of it is stopped. MACDUFF  Your royal father’s murdered. MALCOLM  O, by whom? LENNOX  Those of his chamber, as it seemed, 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. 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, temp’rate, and furious, Loyal, and neutral, in a moment? No man. Th’ expedition of my violent love Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood, And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers, Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make ’s love known? LADY MACBETH  Help me hence, ho! MACDUFF  Look to the lady. MALCOLM, 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 brewed. MALCOLM, aside to Donalbain  Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion. BANQUO  Look to the lady. Lady Macbeth is assisted to leave. 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 pretense I fight Of treasonous malice. MACDUFF  And so do I. ALL  So all. MACBETH  Let’s briefly put on manly readiness And meet i’ th’ hall together. ALL  Well contented. All but Malcolm and Donalbain exit. MALCOLM  What will you do? Let’s not consort with them. To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England. DONALBAIN  To Ireland I. Our separated fortune Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are, There’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood, The nearer bloody. MALCOLM  This murderous shaft that’s shot Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse, And let us not be dainty of leave-taking But shift away. There’s warrant in that theft

Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left. They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Ross with an Old Man.

OLD MAN  Threescore and ten I can remember well, Within the volume of which time I have seen Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night Hath trifled former knowings. ROSS  Ha, good father, Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, Threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day, And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp. Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame That darkness does the face of earth entomb When living light should kiss it? OLD MAN  ’Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. ROSS  And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and certain), Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would Make war with mankind. OLD MAN  ’Tis said they eat each other. ROSS  They did so, to th’ amazement of mine eyes That looked upon ’t.

Enter Macduff.

Here comes the good Macduff.— How goes the world, sir, now? MACDUFF  Why, see you not? ROSS  Is ’t known who did this more than bloody deed? MACDUFF  Those that Macbeth hath slain. ROSS  Alas the day, What good could they pretend? MACDUFF  They were suborned. Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons, Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them Suspicion of the deed. ROSS  ’Gainst nature still! Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up Thine own lives’ means. Then ’tis most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. MACDUFF  He is already named and gone to Scone To be invested. ROSS  Where is Duncan’s body? MACDUFF  Carried to Colmekill, The sacred storehouse of his predecessors And guardian of their bones. ROSS  Will you to Scone? MACDUFF  No, cousin, I’ll to Fife. ROSS  Well, I will thither. MACDUFF  Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu, Lest our old robes sit easier than our new. ROSS  Farewell, father. OLD MAN  God’s benison go with you and with those

That would make good of bad and friends of foes. All exit.

ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter Banquo.

BANQUO  Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all As the Weïrd Women promised, and I fear Thou played’st 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? But hush, no more.

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth, Lennox, Ross, Lords, and Attendants.

MACBETH  Here’s our chief guest. LADY MACBETH  If he had been forgotten, It had been as a gap in our great feast And all-thing unbecoming. MACBETH  Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir, And I’ll request your presence. BANQUO  Let your Highness Command upon me, to the which my duties Are with a most indissoluble tie Forever knit. MACBETH  Ride you this afternoon? BANQUO  Ay, my good lord. MACBETH  We should have else desired your good advice (Which still hath been both grave and prosperous) In this day’s council, but we’ll take tomorrow. Is ’t far you ride? BANQUO  As far, my lord, as will fill up the time ’Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better, I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain. MACBETH  Fail not our feast. BANQUO  My lord, I will not. MACBETH  We hear our bloody cousins are bestowed In England and in Ireland, not confessing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention. But of that 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? BANQUO  Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon ’s. MACBETH  I wish your horses swift and sure of foot, And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell.Banquo exits. Let every man be master of his time Till seven at night. To make society The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself Till suppertime alone. While then, God be with you. Lords and all but Macbeth and a Servant exit. Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men Our pleasure? SERVANT  They are, my lord, without the palace gate. MACBETH  Bring them before us.Servant exits. 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 feared. ’Tis much he dares, And to that dauntless temper of his mind He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor To act in safety. There is 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 hailed him father to a line of kings. Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown And put a barren scepter in my grip, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so, For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind; For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered, Put rancors in the vessel of my peace Only for them, and mine eternal jewel Given to the common enemy of man To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings. Rather than so, come fate into the list, And champion me to th’ utterance.—Who’s there?

Enter Servant and two Murderers.

To the Servant. Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.Servant exits. Was it not yesterday we spoke together? MURDERERS  It was, so please your Highness. MACBETH  Well then, now Have you considered of my speeches? Know That it was he, in the times past, which held you So under fortune, which you thought had been Our innocent self. This I made good to you In our last conference, passed in probation with you How you were borne in hand, how crossed, the instruments, Who wrought with them, and all things else that might To half a soul and to a notion crazed Say “Thus did Banquo.” FIRST MURDERER  You made it known to us. MACBETH  I did so, and went further, which is now Our point of second meeting. Do you find Your patience so predominant in your nature That you can let this go? Are you so gospeled To pray for this good man and for his issue, Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave And beggared yours forever? FIRST MURDERER  We are men, my liege. MACBETH  Ay, in the catalogue you go for men, As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept All by the name of dogs. The valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive Particular addition, from the bill That writes them all alike. And so of men. Now, if you have a station in the file, Not i’ th’ worst rank of manhood, say ’t, And I will put that business in your bosoms Whose execution takes your enemy off, Grapples you to the heart and love of us, Who wear our health but sickly in his life, Which in his death were perfect. SECOND MURDERER  I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Hath so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. FIRST MURDERER  And I another So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend it or be rid on ’t. MACBETH  Both of you Know Banquo was your enemy. MURDERERS  True, my lord. MACBETH  So is he mine, and in such bloody distance That every minute of his being thrusts Against my near’st 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 that are both his and mine, Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall Who I myself struck down. And thence it is That I to your assistance do make love, Masking the business from the common eye For sundry weighty reasons. SECOND MURDERER  We shall, my lord, Perform what you command us. FIRST MURDERER  Though our lives— MACBETH  Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most I will advise you where to plant yourselves, Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ th’ time, The moment on ’t, for ’t must be done tonight And something from the palace; always thought That I require a clearness. And with him (To leave no rubs nor botches in the work) Fleance, his son, that keeps him company, 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. MURDERERS  We are resolved, my lord. MACBETH  I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within. Murderers exit. It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight, If it find heaven, must find it out tonight. He exits.

Scene 2

Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant.

LADY MACBETH Is Banquo gone from court? SERVANT  Ay, madam, but returns again tonight. LADY MACBETH  Say to the King I would attend his leisure For a few words. SERVANT  Madam, I will.He exits. LADY MACBETH  Naught’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. Enter Macbeth.

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. MACBETH  We have scorched the snake, not killed 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 That 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. LADY MACBETH  Come on, gentle my lord, Sleek o’er your rugged looks. Be bright and jovial Among your guests tonight. MACBETH  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 honors in these flattering streams And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are. LADY MACBETH  You must leave this. MACBETH  O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives. LADY MACBETH  But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne. MACBETH  There’s comfort yet; they are assailable. Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note. LADY MACBETH  What’s to be done? MACBETH  Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed.—Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th’ rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.— Thou marvel’st at my words, but hold thee still. Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

So prithee go with me. They exit.

Scene 3

Enter three Murderers.

FIRST MURDERER  But who did bid thee join with us? THIRD MURDERER  Macbeth. SECOND MURDERER, to the First Murderer  He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers Our offices and what we have to do To the direction just. FIRST MURDERER  Then stand with us.— The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day. Now spurs the lated traveler apace To gain the timely inn, and near approaches The subject of our watch. THIRD MURDERER  Hark, I hear horses. BANQUO, within  Give us a light there, ho! SECOND MURDERER  Then ’tis he. The rest That are within the note of expectation Already are i’ th’ court. FIRST MURDERER  His horses go about. THIRD MURDERER  Almost a mile; but he does usually (So all men do) from hence to th’ palace gate Make it their walk.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch.

SECOND MURDERER  A light, a light! THIRD MURDERER  ’Tis he. FIRST MURDERER  Stand to ’t. BANQUO, to Fleance  It will be rain tonight. FIRST MURDERER  Let it come down! The three Murderers attack. BANQUO  O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge—O slave! He dies. Fleance exits. THIRD MURDERER  Who did strike out the light? FIRST MURDERER  Was ’t not the way? THIRD MURDERER  There’s but one down. The son is fled. SECOND MURDERER  We have lost best half of our affair. FIRST MURDERER 

Well, let’s away and say how much is done. They exit.

Scene 4Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.

MACBETH  You know your own degrees; sit down. At first And last, the hearty welcome.They sit. LORDS  Thanks to your Majesty. MACBETH  Ourself will mingle with society And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time We will require her welcome. LADY MACBETH  Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends, For my heart speaks they are welcome.

Enter First Murderer to the door.

MACBETH  See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks. Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst. Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure The table round. He approaches the Murderer. There’s blood upon thy face. MURDERER  ’Tis Banquo’s then. MACBETH  ’Tis better thee without than he within. Is he dispatched? MURDERER  My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him. MACBETH  Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats, Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil. MURDERER  Most royal sir, Fleance is ’scaped. MACBETH, aside  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 am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe? MURDERER  Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenchèd gashes on his head, The least a death to nature. MACBETH  Thanks for that. There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow We’ll hear ourselves again.Murderer exits. LADY MACBETH  My royal lord, You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making, ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.

MACBETH, to Lady Macbeth  Sweet remembrancer!— Now, good digestion wait on appetite And health on both! LENNOX  May ’t please your Highness sit. MACBETH  Here had we now our country’s honor roofed, Were the graced person of our Banquo present, Who may I rather challenge for unkindness Than pity for mischance. ROSS  His absence, sir, Lays��blame upon his promise. Please ’t your Highness To grace us with your royal company? MACBETH  The table’s full. LENNOX  Here is a place reserved, sir. MACBETH  Where? LENNOX  Here, my good lord. What is ’t that moves your Highness? MACBETH  Which of you have done this? LORDS  What, my good lord? MACBETH, to the Ghost  Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake Thy gory locks at me. ROSS  Gentlemen, rise. His Highness is not well. LADY MACBETH  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.Drawing Macbeth aside. Are you a man? MACBETH  Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appall the devil. LADY MACBETH  O, proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear. This is the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all’s done, You look but on a stool. MACBETH  Prithee, see there. Behold, look! To the Ghost. Lo, how say you? Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.— If charnel houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites.Ghost exits. LADY MACBETH  What, quite unmanned in folly? MACBETH  If I stand here, I saw him. LADY MACBETH  Fie, for shame! MACBETH  Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time, Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear. The time has been That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end. But now they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns And push us from our stools. This is more strange Than such a murder is. LADY MACBETH  My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. MACBETH  I do forget.— Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends. I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all. Then I’ll sit down.—Give me some wine. Fill full.

Enter Ghost.

I drink to th’ general joy o’ th’ 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. LORDS  Our duties, and the pledge. They raise their drinking cups. MACBETH, to the Ghost  Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with. LADY MACBETH  Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other; Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. MACBETH, to the Ghost  What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble. Or be alive again And dare me to the desert with thy sword. If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mock’ry, hence!Ghost exits. Why so, being gone, I am a man again.—Pray you sit still. LADY MACBETH  You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admired disorder. MACBETH  Can such things be And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe When now I think you can behold such sights And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks When mine is blanched with fear. ROSS  What sights, my lord? LADY MACBETH  I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse. Question enrages him. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. LENNOX  Good night, and better health Attend his Majesty. LADY MACBETH  A kind good night to all. Lords and all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth exit. MACBETH  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 maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood.—What is the night? LADY MACBETH  Almost at odds with morning, which is which. MACBETH  How say’st thou that Macduff denies his person At our great bidding? LADY MACBETH  Did you send to him, sir? MACBETH  I hear it by the way; but I will send. There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow (And betimes I will) to the Weïrd 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 Stepped 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 scanned. LADY MACBETH  You lack the season of all natures, sleep. MACBETH  Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.

We are yet but young in deed. They exit.

Scene 5Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.

FIRST WITCH  Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly. HECATE  Have I not reason, beldams as you are? Saucy and overbold, how did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death, And I, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, Was never called to bear my part Or show the glory of our art? And which is worse, all you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now. Get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i’ th’ morning. Thither he Will come to know his destiny. Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms and everything beside. I am for th’ air. This night I’ll spend Unto a dismal and a fatal end. Great business must be wrought ere noon. Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vap’rous drop profound. I’ll catch it ere it come to ground, And that, distilled by magic sleights, Shall raise such artificial sprites As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion. He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear. And you all know, security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. Music and a song. Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.Hecate exits. Sing within “Come away, come away,” etc. FIRST WITCH 

Come, let’s make haste. She’ll soon be back again. They exit.

Scene 6

Enter Lennox and another Lord.

LENNOX  My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, Which can interpret farther. Only I say Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead. And the right valiant Banquo walked too late, Whom you may say, if ’t please you, Fleance killed, For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late. Who cannot want the thought how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain To kill their gracious father? Damnèd 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? Ay, and wisely, too, For ’twould have angered any heart alive To hear the men deny ’t. So that I say He has borne all things well. And I do think That had he Duncan’s sons under his key (As, an ’t please heaven, he shall not) they should find What ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance. But peace. For from broad words, and ’cause he failed His presence at the tyrant’s feast, I hear Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell Where he bestows himself? LORD  The son of Duncan (From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth) Lives in the English court and is received Of the most pious Edward with such grace That the malevolence of fortune nothing Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff Is gone to pray the holy king upon his aid To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward That, by the help of these (with Him above To ratify the work), we may again Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights, Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives, Do faithful homage, and receive free honors, All which we pine for now. And this report Hath so exasperate the King that he Prepares for some attempt of war. LENNOX  Sent he to Macduff? LORD  He did, and with an absolute “Sir, not I,” The cloudy messenger turns me his back And hums, as who should say “You’ll rue the time That clogs me with this answer.” LENNOX  And that well might Advise him to a caution t’ hold what distance His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel Fly to the court of England and unfold His message ere he come, that a swift blessing May soon return to this our suffering country Under a hand accursed. LORD 

I’ll send my prayers with him. They exit.

ACT 4

Scene 1

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH  Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed. SECOND WITCH  Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined. THIRD WITCH  Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time!” FIRST WITCH  Round about the cauldron go; In the poisoned entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Sweltered venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot. The Witches circle the cauldron. ALL  Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH  Fillet of a fenny snake In the cauldron boil and bake. Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL  Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. THIRD WITCH  Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravined salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat and slips of yew Slivered in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-delivered by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab. Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron For th’ ingredience of our cauldron. ALL  Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH  Cool it with a baboon’s blood. Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.

HECATE  O, well done! I commend your pains, And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains. And now about the cauldron sing Like elves and fairies in a ring, Enchanting all that you put in. Music and a song: “Black Spirits,” etc. Hecate exits. SECOND WITCH  By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks.

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH  How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is ’t you do? ALL  A deed without a name. MACBETH  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 yeasty 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, though the treasure Of nature’s germens tumble all together Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask you. FIRST WITCH  Speak. SECOND WITCH  Demand. THIRD WITCH  We’ll answer. FIRST WITCH  Say if th’ hadst rather hear it from our mouths Or from our masters’. MACBETH  Call ’em. Let me see ’em. FIRST WITCH  Pour in sow’s blood that hath eaten Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten From the murderers’ gibbet throw Into the flame. ALL  Come high or low; Thyself and office deftly show.

Thunder. First Apparition, an Armed Head.

MACBETH  Tell me, thou unknown power— FIRST WITCH  He knows thy thought. Hear his speech but say thou naught. FIRST APPARITION  Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff! Beware the Thane of Fife! Dismiss me. Enough. He descends. MACBETH  Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks. Thou hast harped my fear aright. But one word more— FIRST WITCH  He will not be commanded. Here’s another More potent than the first.

Thunder. Second Apparition, a Bloody Child.

SECOND APPARITION  Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!— MACBETH  Had I three ears, I’d hear thee. SECOND APPARITION  Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.He descends. 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. Thunder. Third Apparition, a Child Crowned, with a tree in his hand.

What is this That rises like the issue of a king And wears upon his baby brow the round And top of sovereignty? ALL  Listen but speak not to ’t. THIRD APPARITION  Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him.He descends. MACBETH  That will never be. Who can impress the forest, bid the tree Unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements, good! Rebellious dead, rise never till the Wood Of Birnam 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. Tell me, if your art Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever Reign in this kingdom? ALL  Seek to know no more. MACBETH  I will be satisfied. Deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know! Cauldron sinks. Hautboys. Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this? FIRST WITCH  Show. SECOND WITCH  Show. THIRD WITCH  Show. ALL  Show his eyes and grieve his heart. Come like shadows; so depart. A show of eight kings, the eighth king with a glass in his hand, and Banquo last.

MACBETH  Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair, Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. A third is like the former.—Filthy hags, Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes! What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom? Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more. And yet the eighth appears who bears a glass Which shows me many more, and some I see That twofold balls and treble scepters carry. Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true, For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me And points at them for his. The Apparitions disappear. What, is this so? FIRST WITCH  Ay, sir, all this is so. But why Stands Macbeth thus amazedly? Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites And show the best of our delights. I’ll charm the air to give a sound While you perform your antic round, That this great king may kindly say Our duties did his welcome pay. Music. The Witches dance and vanish. MACBETH  Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursèd in the calendar!— Come in, without there.

Enter Lennox.

LENNOX  What’s your Grace’s will? MACBETH  Saw you the Weïrd Sisters? LENNOX  No, my lord. MACBETH  Came they not by you? LENNOX  No, indeed, my lord. MACBETH  Infected be the air whereon they ride, And damned all those that trust them! I did hear The galloping of horse. Who was ’t came by? LENNOX  ’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word Macduff is fled to England. MACBETH  Fled to England? LENNOX  Ay, my good lord. MACBETH, aside  Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits. The flighty purpose never is o’ertook Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very 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 th’ edge o’ th’ sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool. But no more sights!—Where are these gentlemen?

Come bring me where they are. They exit.

[holisticdetective42]

don’t click keep reading. Whatever you do don’t click it. Just don’t.

Scene 1

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

FIRST WITCH   When shall we three meet again?  In thunder, lightning, or in rain? SECOND WITCH   When the hurly-burly’s done,  When the battle’s lost and won. THIRD WITCH   That will be ere the set of sun. FIRST WITCH   Where the place? SECOND WITCH   Upon the heath. THIRD WITCH   There to meet with Macbeth. FIRST WITCH  I come, Graymalkin. ⌜SECOND WITCH⌝  Paddock calls. ⌜THIRD WITCH⌝  Anon. ALL   Fair is foul, and foul is fair;  Hover through the fog and filthy air. They exit.

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Scene 2

Alarum within. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain.

DUNCAN   What bloody man is that? He can report,  As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt  The newest state. MALCOLM   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. CAPTAIN  Doubtful it stood,  As two spent swimmers that do cling together  And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald  (Worthy to be a rebel, for to that  The multiplying villainies of nature  Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles  Of kerns and ⌜gallowglasses⌝ is supplied;  And Fortune, on his damnèd ⌜quarrel⌝ smiling,  Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;  For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),  Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,  Which smoked with bloody execution,  Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage  Till he faced the slave;  Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,  Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,  And fixed his head upon our battlements. DUNCAN   O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman! CAPTAIN   As whence the sun ’gins his reflection  Shipwracking storms and direful thunders ⌜break,⌝

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 So from that spring whence comfort seemed to  come  Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:  No sooner justice had, with valor armed,  Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,  But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,  With furbished arms and new supplies of men,  Began a fresh assault. DUNCAN   Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and  Banquo? CAPTAIN   Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.  If I say sooth, I must report they were  As cannons overcharged with double cracks,  So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.  Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds  Or memorize another Golgotha,  I cannot tell—  But I am faint. My gashes cry for help. DUNCAN   So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:  They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons. ⌜The Captain is led off by Attendants.⌝

Enter Ross and Angus.

 Who comes here? MALCOLM   The worthy Thane of Ross. LENNOX   What a haste looks through his eyes!  So should he look that seems to speak things  strange. ROSS  God save the King. DUNCAN  Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane? ROSS  From Fife, great king,  Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky

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 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, lapped in proof,  Confronted him with self-comparisons,  Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm,  Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude,  The victory fell on us. DUNCAN   Great happiness! ROSS  That now Sweno,  The Norways’ king, craves composition.  Nor would we deign him burial of his men  Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch  Ten thousand dollars to our general use. DUNCAN   No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive  Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present  death,  And with his former title greet Macbeth. ROSS  I’ll see it done. DUNCAN   What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. They exit.

Scene 3

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH  Where hast thou been, sister? SECOND WITCH  Killing swine. THIRD WITCH  Sister, where thou? FIRST WITCH   A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap  And munched and munched and munched. “Give  me,” quoth I.  “Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries.

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 Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger;  But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,  And, like a rat without a tail,  I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do. SECOND WITCH   I’ll give thee a wind. FIRST WITCH   Th’ art kind. THIRD WITCH   And I another. FIRST WITCH   I myself have all the other,  And the very ports they blow;  All the quarters that they know  I’ th’ shipman’s card.  I’ll drain him dry as hay.  Sleep shall neither night nor day  Hang upon his penthouse lid.  He shall live a man forbid.  Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,  Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.  Though his bark cannot be lost,  Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.  Look what I have. SECOND WITCH  Show me, show me. FIRST WITCH   Here I have a pilot’s thumb,  Wracked as homeward he did come.Drum within. THIRD WITCH   A drum, a drum!  Macbeth doth come. ALL, ⌜dancing in a circle⌝   The Weïrd Sisters, hand in hand,  Posters of the sea and land,  Thus do go about, about,  Thrice to thine and thrice to mine

p. 17

 And thrice again, to make up nine.  Peace, the charm’s wound up.

Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

MACBETH   So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BANQUO   How far is ’t called to ⌜Forres?⌝—What are these,  So withered, and so wild in their attire,  That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth  And yet are on ’t?—Live you? Or are you aught  That man may question? You seem to understand  me  By each at once her choppy finger laying  Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,  And yet your beards forbid me to interpret  That you are so. MACBETH   Speak if you can. What are you? FIRST WITCH   All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! SECOND WITCH   All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! THIRD WITCH   All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter! BANQUO   Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear  Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ 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 favors nor your hate.

p. 19

FIRST WITCH  Hail! SECOND WITCH  Hail! THIRD WITCH  Hail! FIRST WITCH   Lesser than Macbeth and greater. SECOND WITCH   Not so happy, yet much happier. THIRD WITCH   Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.  So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! FIRST WITCH   Banquo and Macbeth, all hail! MACBETH   Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.  By Sinel’s death 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 Cawdor. Say from whence  You owe this strange intelligence or why  Upon this blasted heath you stop our way  With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you. Witches vanish. BANQUO   The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,  And these are of them. Whither are they vanished? MACBETH   Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted,  As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed! BANQUO   Were such things here as we do speak about?  Or have we eaten on the insane root  That takes the reason prisoner? MACBETH   Your children shall be kings. BANQUO   You shall be king.

p. 21

MACBETH   And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so? BANQUO   To th’ selfsame tune and words.—Who’s here?

Enter Ross and Angus.

ROSS   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. Silenced with that,  In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day  He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,  Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,  Strange images of death. As thick as tale  ⌜Came⌝ post with post, and every one did bear  Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,  And poured them down before him. ANGUS   We are sent  To give thee from our royal master thanks,  Only to herald thee into his sight,  Not pay thee. ROSS   And for an earnest of a greater honor,  He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor,  In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,  For it is thine. BANQUO   What, can the devil speak true? MACBETH   The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me  In borrowed robes? ANGUS   Who was the Thane lives yet,  But under heavy judgment bears that life  Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was  combined

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 With those of Norway, or did line the rebel  With hidden help and vantage, or that with both  He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;  But treasons capital, confessed and proved,  Have overthrown him. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!  The greatest is behind. ⌜To Ross and Angus.⌝ Thanks  for your pains.  ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Do you not hope your children  shall be kings,  When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me  Promised no less to them? BANQUO   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 harm,  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,  Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s  In deepest consequence.—  Cousins, a word, I pray you.⌜They step aside.⌝ MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   Two truths are told  As happy prologues to the swelling act  Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.  ⌜Aside.⌝ 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 smothered in surmise,  And nothing is but what is not.

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BANQUO  Look how our partner’s rapt. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   If chance will have me king, why, chance may  crown me  Without my stir. BANQUO   New honors come upon him,  Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold  But with the aid of use. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   Come what come may,  Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. BANQUO   Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. MACBETH   Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought  With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains  Are registered where every day I turn  The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.  ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Think upon what hath chanced,  and at more time,  The interim having weighed it, let us speak  Our free hearts each to other. BANQUO  Very gladly. MACBETH  Till then, enough.—Come, friends. They exit.

Scene 4

Flourish. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain, and Attendants.

DUNCAN   Is execution done on Cawdor? ⌜Are⌝ not  Those in commission yet returned? MALCOLM   My liege,  They are not yet come back. But I have spoke  With one that saw him die, who did report

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 That very frankly he confessed 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. DUNCAN   There’s no art  To find the mind’s construction in the face.  He was a gentleman on whom I built  An absolute trust.

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

 O worthiest cousin,  The sin of my ingratitude even now  Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before  That swiftest wing of recompense is slow  To overtake thee. 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. MACBETH   The service and the loyalty I owe  In doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part  Is to receive our duties, and our duties  Are to your throne and state children and servants,  Which do but what they should by doing everything  Safe toward your love and honor. DUNCAN   Welcome hither.  I have begun to plant thee and will labor  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. BANQUO   There, if I grow,  The harvest is your own.

p. 29

DUNCAN   My plenteous joys,  Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves  In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes,  And you whose places are the nearest, know  We will establish our estate upon  Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter  The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must  Not unaccompanied invest him only,  But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine  On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness  And bind us further to you. MACBETH   The rest is labor which is not used for you.  I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful  The hearing of my wife with your approach.  So humbly take my leave. DUNCAN   My worthy Cawdor. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step  On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,  For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;  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. He exits. DUNCAN   True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant,  And in his commendations I am fed:  It is a banquet to me.—Let’s after him,  Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.  It is a peerless kinsman. Flourish. They exit.

p. 31

Scene 5

Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone, with a letter.

LADY MACBETH, ⌜reading the letter⌝ They met me in the  day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st  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 Weïrd 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  might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant  of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy  heart, and farewell.  Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be  What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;  It is too full o’ th’ 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 ’dst 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 valor of my tongue  All that impedes thee from the golden round,  Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem  To have thee crowned withal.

p. 33

Enter Messenger.

 What is your tidings? MESSENGER   The King comes here tonight. LADY MACBETH   Thou ’rt mad to say it.  Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so,  Would have informed for preparation? MESSENGER   So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming.  One of my fellows had the speed of him,  Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more  Than would make up his message. LADY MACBETH   Give him tending.  He brings great news.Messenger exits.  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 th’ access and passage to remorse,  That no compunctious visitings of nature  Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between  Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts  And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,  Wherever in your sightless substances  You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,  And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,  That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,  Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark  To cry “Hold, hold!”

Enter Macbeth.

 Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,  Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter!

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 Thy letters have transported me beyond  This ignorant present, and I feel now  The future in the instant. MACBETH   My dearest love,  Duncan comes here tonight. LADY MACBETH   And when goes hence? MACBETH   Tomorrow, as he purposes. LADY MACBETH   O, never  Shall sun that morrow see!  Your face, my thane, is as a book where men  May read strange matters. To beguile the time,  Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,  Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent  flower,  But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming  Must be provided for; and you shall put  This night’s great business into my dispatch,  Which shall to all our nights and days to come  Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. MACBETH   We will speak further. LADY MACBETH   Only look up clear.  To alter favor ever is to fear.  Leave all the rest to me. They exit.

Scene 6

Hautboys and Torches. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and Attendants.

DUNCAN   This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air  Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself  Unto our gentle senses.

p. 37

BANQUO   This guest of summer,  The temple-haunting ⌜martlet,⌝ does approve,  By his loved ⌜mansionry,⌝ that the heaven’s breath  Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,  Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird  Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.  Where they ⌜most⌝ breed and haunt, I have  observed,  The air is delicate.

Enter Lady ⌜Macbeth.⌝

DUNCAN  See, see our honored hostess!—  The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,  Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you  How you shall bid God ’ild us for your pains  And thank us for your trouble. LADY MACBETH   All our service,  In every point twice done and then done double,  Were poor and single business to contend  Against those honors deep and broad wherewith  Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,  And the late dignities heaped up to them,  We rest your hermits. DUNCAN   Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?  We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose  To be his purveyor; but he rides well,  And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath helped  him  To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,  We are your guest tonight. LADY MACBETH   Your servants ever  Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt  To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure,  Still to return your own. DUNCAN   Give me your hand.

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⌜Taking her hand.⌝  Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly  And shall continue our graces towards him.  By your leave, hostess. They exit.

Scene 7

Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth.

MACBETH   If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well  It were done quickly. If th’ assassination  Could trammel up the consequence and catch  With his surcease success, that but this blow  Might be the be-all and the end-all here,  But here, upon this bank and ⌜shoal⌝ of time,  We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases  We still have judgment here, that we but teach  Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return  To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice  Commends th’ ingredience 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 his host,  Who should against his murderer shut the door,  Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan  Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been  So clear in his great office, that his virtues  Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against  The deep damnation of his taking-off;  And pity, like a naked newborn babe  Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed

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 Upon the sightless couriers of the air,  Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,  That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur  To prick the sides of my intent, but only  Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself  And falls on th’ other—

Enter Lady ⌜Macbeth.⌝

 How now, what news? LADY MACBETH   He has almost supped. Why have you left the  chamber? MACBETH   Hath he asked for me? LADY MACBETH   Know you not he has? MACBETH   We will proceed no further in this business.  He hath honored me of late, and I have bought  Golden opinions from all sorts of people,  Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,  Not cast aside so soon. LADY MACBETH   Was the hope drunk  Wherein you 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 afeard  To be the same in thine own act and valor  As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that  Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life  And live a coward in thine own esteem,  Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”  Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage? MACBETH   Prithee, peace.  I dare do all that may become a man.  Who dares ⌜do⌝ more is none.

p. 43

LADY MACBETH   What beast was ’t,  then,  That made you break this enterprise to me?  When you durst do it, then you were a man;  And to be more than what you were, you would  Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place  Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.  They have made themselves, and that their fitness  now  Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know  How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.  I would, while it was smiling in my face,  Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums  And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you  Have done to this. MACBETH   If we should fail— LADY MACBETH   We fail?  But screw your courage to the sticking place  And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep  (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey  Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains  Will I with wine and wassail so convince  That memory, the warder of the brain,  Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason  A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep  Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death,  What cannot you and I perform upon  Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon  His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt  Of our great quell? MACBETH   Bring forth men-children only,  For thy undaunted mettle should compose  Nothing but males. 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?

p. 45

LADY MACBETH   Who dares receive it other,  As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar  Upon his death? MACBETH   I am settled and bend up  Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.  Away, and mock the time with fairest show.  False face must hide what the false heart doth  know. They exit.

p. 49

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him.

BANQUO  How goes the night, boy? FLEANCE   The moon is down. I have not heard the clock. BANQUO  And she goes down at twelve. FLEANCE  I take ’t ’tis later, sir. BANQUO   Hold, take my sword.⌜He gives his sword to Fleance.⌝  There’s husbandry in heaven;  Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.  A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,  And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,  Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature  Gives way to in repose.

Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.

 Give me my sword.—Who’s  there? MACBETH  A friend. BANQUO   What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s abed.  He hath been in unusual pleasure, and  Sent forth great largess to your offices.  This diamond he greets your wife withal,

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 By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up  In measureless content. ⌜He gives Macbeth a jewel.⌝ MACBETH   Being unprepared,  Our will became the servant to defect,  Which else should free have wrought. BANQUO  All’s well.  I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters.  To you they have showed some truth. MACBETH   I think not of  them.  Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,  We would spend it in some words upon that  business,  If you would grant the time. BANQUO   At your kind’st leisure. MACBETH   If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,  It shall make honor for you. BANQUO   So I lose none  In seeking to augment it, but still keep  My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,  I shall be counseled. MACBETH   Good repose the while. BANQUO  Thanks, sir. The like to you. Banquo ⌜and Fleance⌝ exit. MACBETH   Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,  She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. ⌜Servant⌝ exits.  Is this a dagger which I see before me,  The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch  thee.  I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.  Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible  To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

p. 53

 A dagger of the mind, a false creation  Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?  I see thee yet, in form as palpable  As this which now I draw.⌜He draws his dagger.⌝  Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going,  And such an instrument I was to use.  Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses  Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,  And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,  Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.  It is the bloody business which informs  Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one-half world  Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse  The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates  Pale Hecate’s off’rings, 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 whereabouts  And take the present horror from the time,  Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.  Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. A bell rings.  I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.  Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell  That summons thee to heaven or to hell. He exits.

p. 55

Scene 2

Enter Lady ⌜Macbeth.⌝

LADY MACBETH   That which hath made them drunk hath made me  bold.  What hath quenched them hath given me fire.  Hark!—Peace.  It was the owl that shrieked, 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 drugged  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. Th’ 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 ⌜with bloody daggers.⌝

 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’ th’ second chamber? LADY MACBETH  Donalbain.

p. 57

MACBETH  This is a sorry sight. 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 addressed 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,  List’ning 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 raveled sleave of care,  The death of each day’s life, sore labor’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 murdered sleep, and therefore  Cawdor  Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.”

p. 59

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. She exits ⌜with the daggers.⌝ Knock within. MACBETH   Whence is that  knocking?  How is ’t with me when every noise appalls me?  What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.  Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood  Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather  The multitudinous seas incarnadine,  Making the green one red.

Enter Lady ⌜Macbeth.⌝

LADY MACBETH   My hands are of your color, but I shame  To wear a heart so white.Knock.  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.Knock.

p. 61

 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. Knock.  Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou  couldst. They exit.

Scene 3

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. (Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’  th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged  himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time!  Have napkins enough about you; here you’ll sweat  for ’t. (Knock.) Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’  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. (Knock.) 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. (Knock.) 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 th’ everlasting bonfire. (Knock.)  Anon, anon!

⌜The Porter opens the door to⌝ Macduff and Lennox.

 I pray you, remember the porter.

p. 63

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’ th’ 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. ⌜Porter exits.⌝ 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 slipped the hour.

p. 65

MACBETH   I’ll bring you to him. MACDUFF   I know this is a joyful trouble to you,  But yet ’tis one. MACBETH   The labor we delight in physics pain.  This is the door. MACDUFF   I’ll make so bold to call,  For ’tis my limited service.Macduff exits. LENNOX  Goes the King hence today? 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’ th’ air, strange screams of  death,  And prophesying, with accents terrible,  Of dire combustion and confused events  New hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird  Clamored 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.

Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF   O horror, horror, horror!  Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! MACBETH AND 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’ th’ building.

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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. Macbeth and Lennox exit.  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 murdered. LADY MACBETH   Woe, alas!  What, in our house? BANQUO   Too cruel anywhere.—  Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself  And say it is not so.

p. 69

Enter Macbeth, Lennox, and Ross.

MACBETH   Had I but died an hour before this chance,  I had lived a blessèd 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 stopped; the very source of it is stopped. MACDUFF   Your royal father’s murdered. MALCOLM   O, by whom? LENNOX   Those of his chamber, as it seemed, 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. 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, temp’rate, and furious,  Loyal, and neutral, in a moment? No man.  Th’ expedition of my violent love  Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,  His silver skin laced with his golden blood,  And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature  For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers,

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 Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers  Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain  That had a heart to love, and in that heart  Courage to make ’s love known? LADY MACBETH   Help me hence, ho! MACDUFF   Look to the lady. MALCOLM, ⌜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 brewed. MALCOLM, ⌜aside to Donalbain⌝   Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion. BANQUO  Look to the lady. ⌜Lady Macbeth is assisted to leave.⌝  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 pretense I fight  Of treasonous malice. MACDUFF   And so do I. ALL   So all. MACBETH   Let’s briefly put on manly readiness  And meet i’ th’ hall together. ALL   Well contented. ⌜All but Malcolm and Donalbain⌝ exit. 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.

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DONALBAIN   To Ireland I. Our separated fortune  Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are,  There’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood,  The nearer bloody. MALCOLM   This murderous shaft that’s shot  Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way  Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse,  And let us not be dainty of leave-taking  But shift away. There’s warrant in that theft  Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left. They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Ross with an Old Man.

OLD MAN   Threescore and ten I can remember well,  Within the volume of which time I have seen  Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore  night  Hath trifled former knowings. ROSS   Ha, good father,  Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,  Threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day,  And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.  Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame  That darkness does the face of earth entomb  When living light should kiss it? OLD MAN   ’Tis unnatural,  Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last  A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place,  Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. ROSS   And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and  certain),

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 Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,  Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,  Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would  Make war with mankind. OLD MAN   ’Tis said they eat each  other. ROSS   They did so, to th’ amazement of mine eyes  That looked upon ’t.

Enter Macduff.

 Here comes the good  Macduff.—  How goes the world, sir, now? MACDUFF   Why, see you not? ROSS   Is ’t known who did this more than bloody deed? MACDUFF   Those that Macbeth hath slain. ROSS   Alas the day,  What good could they pretend? MACDUFF   They were suborned.  Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons,  Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them  Suspicion of the deed. ROSS   ’Gainst nature still!  Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up  Thine own lives’ means. Then ’tis most like  The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. MACDUFF   He is already named and gone to Scone  To be invested. ROSS   Where is Duncan’s body? MACDUFF  Carried to Colmekill,  The sacred storehouse of his predecessors  And guardian of their bones.

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ROSS   Will you to Scone? MACDUFF   No, cousin, I’ll to Fife. ROSS   Well, I will thither. MACDUFF   Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu,  Lest our old robes sit easier than our new. ROSS  Farewell, father. OLD MAN   God’s benison go with you and with those  That would make good of bad and friends of foes. All exit.

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ACT 3

Scene 1

Enter Banquo.

BANQUO   Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all  As the Weïrd Women promised, and I fear  Thou played’st 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? But hush, no more.

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady ⌜Macbeth,⌝ Lennox, Ross, Lords, and Attendants.

MACBETH   Here’s our chief guest. LADY MACBETH   If he had been forgotten,  It had been as a gap in our great feast  And all-thing unbecoming. MACBETH   Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,  And I’ll request your presence. BANQUO   Let your Highness

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 Command upon me, to the which my duties  Are with a most indissoluble tie  Forever knit. MACBETH  Ride you this afternoon? BANQUO  Ay, my good lord. MACBETH   We should have else desired your good advice  (Which still hath been both grave and prosperous)  In this day’s council, but we’ll take tomorrow.  Is ’t far you ride? BANQUO   As far, my lord, as will fill up the time  ’Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,  I must become a borrower of the night  For a dark hour or twain. MACBETH   Fail not our feast. BANQUO  My lord, I will not. MACBETH   We hear our bloody cousins are bestowed  In England and in Ireland, not confessing  Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers  With strange invention. But of that 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? BANQUO   Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon ’s. MACBETH   I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,  And so I do commend you to their backs.  Farewell.Banquo exits.  Let every man be master of his time  Till seven at night. To make society  The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself  Till suppertime alone. While then, God be with you. Lords ⌜and all but Macbeth and a Servant⌝ exit.

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 Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men  Our pleasure? SERVANT   They are, my lord, without the palace gate. MACBETH   Bring them before us.Servant exits.  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 feared. ’Tis much he  dares,  And to that dauntless temper of his mind  He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor  To act in safety. There is 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 hailed him father to a line of kings.  Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown  And put a barren scepter in my grip,  Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,  No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so,  For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;  For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,  Put rancors in the vessel of my peace  Only for them, and mine eternal jewel  Given to the common enemy of man  To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings.  Rather than so, come fate into the list,  And champion me to th’ utterance.—Who’s there?

Enter Servant and two Murderers.

 ⌜To the Servant.⌝ Now go to the door, and stay there  till we call.Servant exits.

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 Was it not yesterday we spoke together? ⌜MURDERERS⌝   It was, so please your Highness. MACBETH   Well then, now  Have you considered of my speeches? Know  That it was he, in the times past, which held you  So under fortune, which you thought had been  Our innocent self. This I made good to you  In our last conference, passed in probation with you  How you were borne in hand, how crossed, the  instruments,  Who wrought with them, and all things else that  might  To half a soul and to a notion crazed  Say “Thus did Banquo.” FIRST MURDERER   You made it known to us. MACBETH   I did so, and went further, which is now  Our point of second meeting. Do you find  Your patience so predominant in your nature  That you can let this go? Are you so gospeled  To pray for this good man and for his issue,  Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave  And beggared yours forever? FIRST MURDERER   We are men, my liege. MACBETH   Ay, in the catalogue you go for men,  As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels,  curs,  Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept  All by the name of dogs. The valued file  Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,  The housekeeper, the hunter, every one  According to the gift which bounteous nature  Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive

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 Particular addition, from the bill  That writes them all alike. And so of men.  Now, if you have a station in the file,  Not i’ th’ worst rank of manhood, say ’t,  And I will put that business in your bosoms  Whose execution takes your enemy off,  Grapples you to the heart and love of us,  Who wear our health but sickly in his life,  Which in his death were perfect. SECOND MURDERER   I am one, my liege,  Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world  Hath so incensed that I am reckless what  I do to spite the world. FIRST MURDERER   And I another  So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune,  That I would set my life on any chance,  To mend it or be rid on ’t. MACBETH   Both of you  Know Banquo was your enemy. ⌜MURDERERS⌝   True, my lord. MACBETH   So is he mine, and in such bloody distance  That every minute of his being thrusts  Against my near’st 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 that are both his and mine,  Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall  Who I myself struck down. And thence it is  That I to your assistance do make love,  Masking the business from the common eye  For sundry weighty reasons. SECOND MURDERER   We shall, my lord,  Perform what you command us. FIRST MURDERER   Though our lives—

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MACBETH   Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at  most  I will advise you where to plant yourselves,  Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ th’ time,  The moment on ’t, for ’t must be done tonight  And something from the palace; always thought  That I require a clearness. And with him  (To leave no rubs nor botches in the work)  Fleance, his son, that keeps him company,  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. ⌜MURDERERS⌝  We are resolved, my lord. MACBETH   I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within. ⌜Murderers exit.⌝  It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,  If it find heaven, must find it out tonight. ⌜He exits.⌝

Scene 2

Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant.

LADY MACBETH  Is Banquo gone from court? SERVANT   Ay, madam, but returns again tonight. LADY MACBETH   Say to the King I would attend his leisure  For a few words. SERVANT  Madam, I will.He exits. LADY MACBETH  Naught’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.

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Enter Macbeth.

 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. MACBETH   We have scorched the snake, not killed 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  That 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. LADY MACBETH   Come on, gentle my lord,  Sleek o’er your rugged looks. Be bright and jovial  Among your guests tonight. MACBETH   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 honors in these flattering streams  And make our faces vizards to our hearts,  Disguising what they are. LADY MACBETH   You must leave this. MACBETH   O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!  Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.

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LADY MACBETH   But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne. MACBETH   There’s comfort yet; they are assailable.  Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown  His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons  The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums  Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done  A deed of dreadful note. LADY MACBETH   What’s to be done? MACBETH   Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,  Till thou applaud the deed.—Come, seeling night,  Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day  And with thy bloody and invisible hand  Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond  Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow  Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.  Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,  Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do  rouse.—  Thou marvel’st at my words, but hold thee still.  Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.  So prithee go with me. They exit.

Scene 3

Enter three Murderers.

FIRST MURDERER   But who did bid thee join with us? THIRD MURDERER   Macbeth. SECOND MURDERER, ⌜to the First Murderer⌝   He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers  Our offices and what we have to do  To the direction just.

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FIRST MURDERER   Then stand with us.—  The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.  Now spurs the lated traveler apace  To gain the timely inn, ⌜and⌝ near approaches  The subject of our watch. THIRD MURDERER  Hark, I hear horses. BANQUO, within  Give us a light there, ho! SECOND MURDERER  Then ’tis he. The rest  That are within the note of expectation  Already are i’ th’ court. FIRST MURDERER  His horses go about. THIRD MURDERER   Almost a mile; but he does usually  (So all men do) from hence to th’ palace gate  Make it their walk.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch.

SECOND MURDERER  A light, a light! THIRD MURDERER  ’Tis he. FIRST MURDERER  Stand to ’t. BANQUO, ⌜to Fleance⌝  It will be rain tonight. FIRST MURDERER  Let it come down! ⌜The three Murderers attack.⌝ BANQUO   O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!  Thou mayst revenge—O slave! ⌜He dies. Fleance exits.⌝ THIRD MURDERER   Who did strike out the light? FIRST MURDERER   Was ’t not the way? THIRD MURDERER  There’s but one down. The son is  fled. SECOND MURDERER  We have lost best half of our  affair. FIRST MURDERER   Well, let’s away and say how much is done. They exit.

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Scene 4

Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady ⌜Macbeth,⌝ Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.

MACBETH   You know your own degrees; sit down. At first  And last, the hearty welcome.⌜They sit.⌝ LORDS  Thanks to your Majesty. MACBETH   Ourself will mingle with society  And play the humble host.  Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time  We will require her welcome. LADY MACBETH   Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,  For my heart speaks they are welcome.

Enter First Murderer ⌜to the door.⌝

MACBETH   See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks.  Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst.  Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure  The table round. ⌜He approaches the Murderer.⌝ There’s  blood upon thy face. MURDERER  ’Tis Banquo’s then. MACBETH   ’Tis better thee without than he within.  Is he dispatched? MURDERER   My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him. MACBETH   Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats,  Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance.  If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil. MURDERER   Most royal sir, Fleance is ’scaped. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,

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 Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,  As broad and general as the casing air.  But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in  To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe? MURDERER   Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,  With twenty trenchèd gashes on his head,  The least a death to nature. MACBETH   Thanks for that.  There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled  Hath nature that in time will venom breed,  No teeth for th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow  We’ll hear ourselves again.Murderer exits. LADY MACBETH   My royal lord,  You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold  That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making,  ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;  From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;  Meeting were bare without it.

Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.

MACBETH, ⌜to Lady Macbeth⌝  Sweet remembrancer!—  Now, good digestion wait on appetite  And health on both! LENNOX   May ’t please your Highness sit. MACBETH   Here had we now our country’s honor roofed,  Were the graced person of our Banquo present,  Who may I rather challenge for unkindness  Than pity for mischance. ROSS   His absence, sir,  Lays blame upon his promise. Please ’t your  Highness  To grace us with your royal company? MACBETH   The table’s full.

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LENNOX   Here is a place reserved, sir. MACBETH  Where? LENNOX   Here, my good lord. What is ’t that moves your  Highness? MACBETH   Which of you have done this? LORDS   What, my good lord? MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝   Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake  Thy gory locks at me. ROSS   Gentlemen, rise. His Highness is not well. LADY MACBETH   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.⌜Drawing Macbeth aside.⌝  Are you a man? MACBETH   Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that  Which might appall the devil. LADY MACBETH   O, proper stuff!  This is the very painting of your fear.  This is the air-drawn dagger which you said  Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,  Impostors to true fear, would well become  A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,  Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!  Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,  You look but on a stool. MACBETH   Prithee, see there. Behold, look! ⌜To the Ghost.⌝ Lo,  how say you?

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 Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.—  If charnel houses and our graves must send  Those that we bury back, our monuments  Shall be the maws of kites.⌜Ghost exits.⌝ LADY MACBETH  What, quite unmanned in folly? MACBETH   If I stand here, I saw him. LADY MACBETH   Fie, for shame! MACBETH   Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time,  Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;  Ay, and since too, murders have been performed  Too terrible for the ear. The ⌜time⌝ has been  That, when the brains were out, the man would die,  And there an end. But now they rise again  With twenty mortal murders on their crowns  And push us from our stools. This is more strange  Than such a murder is. LADY MACBETH   My worthy lord,  Your noble friends do lack you. MACBETH   I do forget.—  Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.  I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing  To those that know me. Come, love and health to  all.  Then I’ll sit down.—Give me some wine. Fill full.

Enter Ghost.

 I drink to th’ general joy o’ th’ 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. LORDS   Our duties, and the pledge. ⌜They raise their drinking cups.⌝ MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝   Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee.  Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold;

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 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes  Which thou dost glare with. LADY MACBETH   Think of this, good  peers,  But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other;  Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝  What man dare, I dare.  Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,  The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger;  Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves  Shall never tremble. Or be alive again  And dare me to the desert with thy sword.  If trembling I inhabit then, protest me  The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!  Unreal mock’ry, hence!⌜Ghost exits.⌝  Why so, being gone,  I am a man again.—Pray you sit still. LADY MACBETH   You have displaced the mirth, broke the good  meeting  With most admired disorder. MACBETH   Can such things be  And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,  Without our special wonder? You make me strange  Even to the disposition that I owe  When now I think you can behold such sights  And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks  When mine is blanched with fear. ROSS   What sights, my  lord? LADY MACBETH   I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.  Question enrages him. At once, good night.  Stand not upon the order of your going,  But go at once. LENNOX   Good night, and better health  Attend his Majesty.

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LADY MACBETH  A kind good night to all. Lords ⌜and all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth⌝ exit. MACBETH   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 maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought  forth  The secret’st man of blood.—What is the night? LADY MACBETH   Almost at odds with morning, which is which. MACBETH   How say’st thou that Macduff denies his person  At our great bidding? LADY MACBETH   Did you send to him, sir? MACBETH   I hear it by the way; but I will send.  There’s not a one of them but in his house  I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow  (And betimes I will) to the Weïrd 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  Stepped 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 scanned. LADY MACBETH   You lack the season of all natures, sleep. MACBETH   Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse  Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.  We are yet but young in deed. They exit.

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Scene 5

Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.

FIRST WITCH   Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly. HECATE   Have I not reason, beldams as you are?  Saucy and overbold, how did you dare  To trade and traffic with Macbeth  In riddles and affairs of death,  And I, the mistress of your charms,  The close contriver of all harms,  Was never called to bear my part  Or show the glory of our art?  And which is worse, all you have done  Hath been but for a wayward son,  Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,  Loves for his own ends, not for you.  But make amends now. Get you gone,  And at the pit of Acheron  Meet me i’ th’ morning. Thither he  Will come to know his destiny.  Your vessels and your spells provide,  Your charms and everything beside.  I am for th’ air. This night I’ll spend  Unto a dismal and a fatal end.  Great business must be wrought ere noon.  Upon the corner of the moon  There hangs a vap’rous drop profound.  I’ll catch it ere it come to ground,  And that, distilled by magic sleights,  Shall raise such artificial sprites  As by the strength of their illusion  Shall draw him on to his confusion.  He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear  His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear.

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 And you all know, security  Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. Music and a song.  Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see,  Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.⌜Hecate exits.⌝ Sing within “Come away, come away,” etc. FIRST WITCH   Come, let’s make haste. She’ll soon be back again. They exit.

Scene 6

Enter Lennox and another Lord.

LENNOX   My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,  Which can interpret farther. Only I say  Things have been strangely borne. The gracious  Duncan  Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.  And the right valiant Banquo walked too late,  Whom you may say, if ’t please you, Fleance killed,  For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.  Who cannot want the thought how monstrous  It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain  To kill their gracious father? Damnèd 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? Ay, and wisely, too,  For ’twould have angered any heart alive  To hear the men deny ’t. So that I say  He has borne all things well. And I do think  That had he Duncan’s sons under his key  (As, an ’t please heaven, he shall not) they should  find  What ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance.

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 But peace. For from broad words, and ’cause he  failed  His presence at the tyrant’s feast, I hear  Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell  Where he bestows himself? LORD   The ⌜son⌝ of Duncan  (From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth)  Lives in the English court and is received  Of the most pious Edward with such grace  That the malevolence of fortune nothing  Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff  Is gone to pray the holy king upon his aid  To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward  That, by the help of these (with Him above  To ratify the work), we may again  Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,  Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,  Do faithful homage, and receive free honors,  All which we pine for now. And this report  Hath so exasperate ⌜the⌝ King that he  Prepares for some attempt of war. LENNOX  Sent he to Macduff? LORD   He did, and with an absolute “Sir, not I,”  The cloudy messenger turns me his back  And hums, as who should say “You’ll rue the time  That clogs me with this answer.” LENNOX   And that well might  Advise him to a caution ⌜t’ hold⌝ what distance  His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel  Fly to the court of England and unfold  His message ere he come, that a swift blessing  May soon return to this our suffering country  Under a hand accursed. LORD  I’ll send my prayers with him. They exit.

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ACT 4

Scene 1

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH   Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed. SECOND WITCH   Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined. THIRD WITCH   Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time!” FIRST WITCH   Round about the cauldron go;  In the poisoned entrails throw.  Toad, that under cold stone  Days and nights has thirty-one  Sweltered venom sleeping got,  Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot. ⌜The Witches circle the cauldron.⌝ ALL   Double, double toil and trouble;  Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH   Fillet of a fenny snake  In the cauldron boil and bake.  Eye of newt and toe of frog,  Wool of bat and tongue of dog,  Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting,

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 Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,  For a charm of powerful trouble,  Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL   Double, double toil and trouble;  Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. THIRD WITCH   Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,  Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf  Of the ravined salt-sea shark,  Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark,  Liver of blaspheming Jew,  Gall of goat and slips of yew  Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,  Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,  Finger of birth-strangled babe  Ditch-delivered by a drab,  Make the gruel thick and slab.  Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron  For th’ ingredience of our cauldron. ALL   Double, double toil and trouble;  Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH   Cool it with a baboon’s blood.  Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter Hecate ⌜to⌝ the other three Witches.

HECATE   O, well done! I commend your pains,  And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains.  And now about the cauldron sing  Like elves and fairies in a ring,  Enchanting all that you put in. Music and a song: “Black Spirits,” etc. ⌜Hecate exits.⌝

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SECOND WITCH   By the pricking of my thumbs,  Something wicked this way comes.  Open, locks,  Whoever knocks.

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH   How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?  What is ’t you do? ALL   A deed without a name. MACBETH   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 yeasty 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, though the  treasure  Of nature’s ⌜germens⌝ tumble ⌜all together⌝  Even till destruction sicken, answer me  To what I ask you. FIRST WITCH   Speak. SECOND WITCH   Demand. THIRD WITCH   We’ll answer. FIRST WITCH   Say if th’ hadst rather hear it from our mouths  Or from our masters’. MACBETH   Call ’em. Let me see ’em. FIRST WITCH   Pour in sow’s blood that hath eaten  Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten

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 From the murderers’ gibbet throw  Into the flame. ALL   Come high or low;  Thyself and office deftly show.

Thunder. First Apparition, an Armed Head.

MACBETH   Tell me, thou unknown power— FIRST WITCH   He knows thy  thought.  Hear his speech but say thou naught. FIRST APPARITION   Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff!  Beware the Thane of Fife! Dismiss me. Enough. He descends. MACBETH   Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks.  Thou hast harped my fear aright. But one word  more— FIRST WITCH   He will not be commanded. Here’s another  More potent than the first.

Thunder. Second Apparition, a Bloody Child.

SECOND APPARITION  Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!— MACBETH  Had I three ears, I’d hear thee. SECOND APPARITION   Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn  The power of man, for none of woman born  Shall harm Macbeth.⌜He⌝ descends. 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.

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Thunder. Third Apparition, a Child Crowned, with a tree in his hand.

 What is this  That rises like the issue of a king  And wears upon his baby brow the round  And top of sovereignty? ALL  Listen but speak not to ’t. THIRD APPARITION   Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care  Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.  Macbeth shall never vanquished be until  Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill  Shall come against him.⌜He⌝ descends. MACBETH   That will never be.  Who can impress the forest, bid the tree  Unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements, good!  Rebellious dead, rise never till the Wood  Of Birnam 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. Tell me, if your art  Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever  Reign in this kingdom? ALL   Seek to know no more. MACBETH   I will be satisfied. Deny me this,  And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know! ⌜Cauldron sinks.⌝ Hautboys.  Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this? FIRST WITCH  Show. SECOND WITCH  Show. THIRD WITCH  Show. ALL   Show his eyes and grieve his heart.  Come like shadows; so depart.

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A show of eight kings, ⌜the eighth king⌝ with a glass in his hand, and Banquo last.

MACBETH   Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down!  Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,  Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.  A third is like the former.—Filthy hags,  Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes!  What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom?  Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more.  And yet the eighth appears who bears a glass  Which shows me many more, and some I see  That twofold balls and treble scepters carry.  Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true,  For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me  And points at them for his. ⌜The Apparitions disappear.⌝  What, is this so? FIRST WITCH   Ay, sir, all this is so. But why  Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?  Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites  And show the best of our delights.  I’ll charm the air to give a sound  While you perform your antic round,  That this great king may kindly say  Our duties did his welcome pay. Music. The Witches dance and vanish. MACBETH   Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour  Stand aye accursèd in the calendar!—  Come in, without there.

Enter Lennox.

LENNOX   What’s your Grace’s will?

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MACBETH   Saw you the Weïrd Sisters? LENNOX   No, my lord. MACBETH   Came they not by you? LENNOX   No, indeed, my lord. MACBETH   Infected be the air whereon they ride,  And damned all those that trust them! I did hear  The galloping of horse. Who was ’t came by? LENNOX   ’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word  Macduff is fled to England. MACBETH   Fled to England? LENNOX  Ay, my good lord. MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝   Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits.  The flighty purpose never is o’ertook  Unless the deed go with it. From this moment  The very 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 th’ edge o’ th’ sword  His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls  That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;  This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.  But no more sights!—Where are these gentlemen?  Come bring me where they are. They exit.

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Scene 2

Enter Macduff’s Wife, her Son, and Ross.

LADY MACDUFF   What had he done to make him fly the land? ROSS   You must have patience, madam. LADY MACDUFF   He had none.  His flight was madness. When our actions do not,  Our fears do make us traitors. ROSS   You know not  Whether it was his wisdom or his fear. LADY MACDUFF   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. ROSS   My dearest coz,  I pray you school yourself. But for your husband,  He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows  The fits o’ th’ season. I dare not speak much  further;  But cruel are the times when we are traitors  And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor  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.

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LADY MACDUFF   Fathered he is, and yet he’s fatherless. ROSS   I am so much a fool, should I stay longer  It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.  I take my leave at once.Ross exits. LADY MACDUFF  Sirrah, your father’s dead.  And what will you do now? How will you live? SON   As birds do, mother. LADY MACDUFF   What, with worms and flies? SON   With what I get, I mean; and so do they. LADY MACDUFF   Poor bird, thou ’dst never fear the net nor lime,  The pitfall nor the gin. SON   Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set  for.  My father is not dead, for all your saying. LADY MACDUFF   Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father? SON  Nay, how will you do for a husband? LADY MACDUFF   Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. SON  Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again. LADY MACDUFF  Thou speak’st with all thy wit,  And yet, i’ faith, with wit enough for thee. SON  Was my father a traitor, mother? LADY MACDUFF  Ay, that he was. SON  What is a traitor? LADY MACDUFF  Why, one that swears and lies. SON  And be all traitors that do so? LADY MACDUFF  Every one that does so is a traitor  and must be hanged. SON  And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

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LADY MACDUFF  Every one. SON  Who must hang them? LADY MACDUFF  Why, the honest men. SON  Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there  are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest  men and hang up them. LADY MACDUFF  Now God help thee, poor monkey! But  how wilt thou do for a father? SON  If he were dead, you’d weep for him. If you would  not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a  new father. LADY MACDUFF  Poor prattler, how thou talk’st!

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER   Bless you, fair dame. I am not to you known,  Though in your state of honor I am perfect.  I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.  If you will take a homely man’s advice,  Be not found here. Hence with your little ones!  To fright you thus methinks I am too savage;  To do worse to you were fell cruelty,  Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve  you!  I dare abide no longer.Messenger exits. LADY MACDUFF   Whither should I fly?  I have done no harm. But I remember now  I am in this earthly world, where to do harm  Is often laudable, to do good sometime  Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,  Do I put up that womanly defense  To say I have done no harm?

Enter Murderers.

 What are these faces? MURDERER  Where is your husband?

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LADY MACDUFF   I hope in no place so unsanctified  Where such as thou mayst find him. MURDERER   He’s a traitor. SON   Thou liest, thou shag-eared villain! MURDERER   What, you egg?  ⌜Stabbing him.⌝ Young fry of treachery! SON   He has killed  me, mother.  Run away, I pray you. ⌜Lady Macduff⌝ exits, crying “Murder!” ⌜followed by the Murderers bearing the Son’s body.⌝

Scene 3

Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

MALCOLM   Let us seek out some desolate shade and there  Weep our sad bosoms empty. MACDUFF   Let us rather  Hold fast the mortal sword and, like good men,  Bestride our ⌜downfall’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 yelled out  Like syllable of dolor. MALCOLM  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 touched you yet. I am young, but  something

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 You may ⌜deserve⌝ of him through me, and wisdom  To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb  T’ appease an angry god. MACDUFF   I am not treacherous. MALCOLM   But Macbeth is.  A good and virtuous nature may recoil  In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your  pardon.  That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.  Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.  Though all things foul would wear the brows of  grace,  Yet grace must still look so. MACDUFF   I have lost my hopes. MALCOLM   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 dishonors,  But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,  Whatever I shall think. MACDUFF   Bleed, bleed, poor country!  Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,  For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy  wrongs;  The title is affeered.—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. MALCOLM   Be not offended.  I speak not as in absolute fear of you.  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

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 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. MACDUFF   What should he be? MALCOLM   It is myself I mean, in whom I know  All the particulars of vice so grafted  That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth  Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state  Esteem him as a lamb, being compared  With my confineless harms. MACDUFF   Not in the legions  Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned  In evils to top Macbeth. MALCOLM   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, and my desire  All continent impediments would o’erbear  That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth  Than such an one to reign. MACDUFF   Boundless intemperance  In nature is a tyranny. It hath been  Th’ 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—the time you may so hoodwink.

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 We have willing dames enough. There cannot be  That vulture in you to devour so many  As will to greatness dedicate themselves,  Finding it so inclined. MALCOLM   With this there grows  In my most ill-composed affection such  A stanchless avarice that, were I king,  I should cut off the nobles for their lands,  Desire his jewels, and this other’s house;  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. MACDUFF   This avarice  Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root  Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been  The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear.  Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will  Of your mere own. All these are portable,  With other graces weighed. MALCOLM   But I have none. The king-becoming graces,  As justice, verity, temp’rance, 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. MACDUFF   O Scotland, Scotland! MALCOLM   If such a one be fit to govern, speak.  I am as I have spoken. MACDUFF   Fit to govern?

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 No, not to live.—O nation miserable,  With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered,  When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,  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,  Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet,  Died every day she lived. Fare thee well.  These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself  Hath banished me from Scotland.—O my breast,  Thy hope ends here! MALCOLM   Macduff, this noble passion,  Child of integrity, hath from my soul  Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts  To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth  By many of these trains hath sought to win me  Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me  From overcredulous haste. But God above  Deal between thee and me, for even now  I put myself to thy direction and  Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure  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?

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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. ⌜Doctor⌝ exits. MACDUFF   What’s the disease he means? MALCOLM   ’Tis called 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 swoll’n 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.⌝

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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 called 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 marked; where violent sorrow seems  A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell  Is there scarce asked 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 battered 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

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 Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor  Of many worthy fellows that were out;  Which was to my belief witnessed 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 howled 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 forever,  Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound  That ever yet they heard. MACDUFF   Hum! I guess at it. ROSS   Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes  Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner  Were on the quarry of these murdered deer  To add the death of you. MALCOLM   Merciful heaven!—

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 What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows.  Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak  Whispers the o’erfraught 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 killed 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.

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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. They exit.

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ACT 5

Scene 1

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 slumb’ry 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.

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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. O, O, O! 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.

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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.Lady ⌜Macbeth⌝ exits. 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 amazed my sight.  I think but dare not speak. GENTLEWOMAN   Good night, good doctor. They exit.

Scene 2

Drum and Colors. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, ⌜and⌝ Soldiers.

MENTEITH   The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,  His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.

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 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 distempered 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 pestered 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 owed.  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

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 To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.  Make we our march towards Birnam. They exit marching.

Scene 3

Enter Macbeth, ⌜the⌝ 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 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 shake with fear.

Enter Servant.

 The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!  Where got’st thou that goose-look? SERVANT  There is ten thousand— MACBETH  Geese, villain? SERVANT  Soldiers, sir. MACBETH   Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,  Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?  Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine  Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face? SERVANT  The English force, so please you. MACBETH   Take thy face hence.⌜Servant exits.⌝  Seyton!—I am sick at heart  When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push

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 Will cheer me ever or ⌜disseat⌝ me now.  I have lived long enough. My way of life  Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,  And that which should accompany old age,  As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,  I must not look to have, but in their stead  Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath  Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare  not.—  Seyton!

Enter Seyton.

SEYTON   What’s your gracious pleasure? MACBETH   What news more? SEYTON   All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported. MACBETH   I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.  Give me my armor. SEYTON  ’Tis not needed yet. MACBETH  I’ll put it on.  Send out more horses. Skirr the country round.  Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine  armor.—  How does your patient, doctor? DOCTOR  Not so sick, my lord,  As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies  That keep her from her rest. MACBETH   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  Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff  Which weighs upon the heart?

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DOCTOR   Therein the patient  Must minister to himself. MACBETH   Throw physic to the dogs. I’ll none of it.—  Come, put mine armor on. Give me my staff. ⌜Attendants begin to arm him.⌝  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 it to a sound and pristine health,  I would applaud thee to the very echo  That should applaud again.—Pull ’t off, I say.—  What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug  Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of  them? DOCTOR   Ay, my good lord. Your royal preparation  Makes us hear something. MACBETH   Bring it after me.—  I will not be afraid of death and bane  Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane. DOCTOR, ⌜aside⌝   Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,  Profit again should hardly draw me here. They exit.

Scene 4

Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, and Soldiers, marching.

MALCOLM   Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand  That chambers will be safe.

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MENTEITH   We doubt it nothing. SIWARD   What wood is this before us? MENTEITH   The Wood of Birnam. MALCOLM   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. SOLDIER   It shall be done. SIWARD   We learn no other but the confident tyrant  Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure  Our setting down before ’t. MALCOLM   ’Tis his main hope;  For, where there is advantage to be given,  Both more and less have given him the revolt,  And none serve with him but constrainèd things  Whose hearts are absent too. MACDUFF   Let our just censures  Attend the true event, and put we on  Industrious soldiership. SIWARD   The time approaches  That will with due decision make us know  What we shall say we have and what we owe.  Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,  But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;  Towards which, advance the war. They exit marching.

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Scene 5

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colors.

MACBETH   Hang out our banners on the outward walls.  The cry is still “They come!” Our castle’s strength  Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here 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. A cry within of women.  What is that noise? SEYTON   It is the cry of women, my good lord.⌜He exits.⌝ MACBETH   I have almost forgot the taste of fears.  The time has been my senses would have cooled  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 supped full with horrors.  Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,  Cannot once start me.

⌜Enter Seyton.⌝

 Wherefore was that cry? SEYTON  The Queen, my lord, is dead. MACBETH  She should have died hereafter.  There would have been a time for such a word.  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day  To the last syllable of recorded time,  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools  The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

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 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.

Enter a Messenger.

 Thou com’st to use thy tongue: thy story quickly. MESSENGER  Gracious my lord,  I should report that which I say I saw,  But know not how to do ’t. MACBETH   Well, say, sir. MESSENGER   As I did stand my watch upon the hill,  I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought  The Wood began to move. MACBETH   Liar and slave! MESSENGER   Let me endure your wrath if ’t be not so.  Within this three mile may you see it coming.  I say, a moving grove. MACBETH   If thou speak’st false,  Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive  Till famine cling thee. If thy speech be sooth,  I care not if thou dost for me as much.—  I pull in resolution and begin  To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend,  That lies like truth. “Fear not till Birnam Wood  Do come to Dunsinane,” and now a wood  Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!—  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 th’ estate o’ th’ world were now  undone.—

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 Ring the alarum bell!—Blow wind, come wrack,  At least we’ll die with harness on our back. They exit.

Scene 6

Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and their army, with boughs.

MALCOLM   Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down  And show like those you are.—You, worthy uncle,  Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,  Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we  Shall take upon ’s what else remains to do,  According to our order. SIWARD   Fare you well.  Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,  Let us be beaten if we cannot fight. MACDUFF   Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,  Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. They exit. Alarums continued.

Scene 7

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH   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.

Enter young Siward.

YOUNG SIWARD  What is thy name?

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MACBETH  Thou ’lt be afraid to hear it. YOUNG SIWARD   No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name  Than any is in hell. MACBETH   My name’s Macbeth. YOUNG SIWARD   The devil himself could not pronounce a title  More hateful to mine ear. MACBETH   No, nor more fearful. YOUNG SIWARD   Thou liest, abhorrèd tyrant. With my sword  I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st. ⌜They⌝ fight, and young Siward ⌜is⌝ slain. MACBETH   Thou wast born of  woman.  But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,  Brandished by man that’s of a woman born. He exits.

Alarums. Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF   That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!  If thou beest slain, and with no stroke of mine,  My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.  I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms  Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth,  Or else my sword with an unbattered edge  I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;  By this great clatter, one of greatest note  Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune,  And more I beg not.He exits. Alarums.

Enter Malcolm and Siward.

SIWARD   This way, my lord. The castle’s gently rendered.  The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight,

p. 185

 The noble thanes do bravely in the war,  The day almost itself professes yours,  And little is to do. MALCOLM   We have met with foes  That strike beside us. SIWARD   Enter, sir, the castle. They exit. Alarum.

⌜Scene 8⌝

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH   Why should I play the Roman fool and die  On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes  Do better upon them.

Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF   Turn, hellhound, turn! MACBETH   Of all men else I have avoided thee.  But get thee back. My soul is too much charged  With blood of thine already. MACDUFF   I have no words;  My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain  Than terms can give thee out.Fight. Alarum. MACBETH   Thou losest labor.  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 charmèd life, which must not yield  To one of woman born. MACDUFF   Despair thy charm,  And let the angel whom thou still hast served  Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb  Untimely ripped.

p. 187

MACBETH   Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,  For it hath cowed my better part of man!  And be these juggling fiends no more believed  That palter with us in a double sense,  That keep the word of promise to our ear  And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee. MACDUFF  Then yield thee, coward,  And live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time.  We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,  Painted upon a pole, and underwrit  “Here may you see the tyrant.” MACBETH   I will not yield  To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet  And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.  Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane  And thou opposed, being of no woman born,  Yet I will try the last. Before my body  I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,  And damned be him that first cries “Hold! Enough!” They exit fighting. Alarums.

⌜They⌝ enter fighting, and Macbeth ⌜is⌝ slain. ⌜Macduff exits carrying off Macbeth’s body.⌝ Retreat and flourish. Enter, with Drum and Colors, Malcolm, Siward, Ross, Thanes, and Soldiers.

MALCOLM   I would the friends we miss were safe arrived. SIWARD   Some must go off; and yet by these I see  So great a day as this is cheaply bought. MALCOLM   Macduff is missing, and your noble son. ROSS   Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt.  He only lived but till he was a man,

p. 189

 The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed  In the unshrinking station where he fought,  But like a man he died. SIWARD   Then he is dead? ROSS   Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow  Must not be measured by his worth, for then  It hath no end. SIWARD   Had he his hurts before? ROSS   Ay, on the front. SIWARD   Why then, God’s soldier be he!  Had I as many sons as I have hairs,  I would not wish them to a fairer death;  And so his knell is knolled. MALCOLM   He’s worth more sorrow, and that I’ll spend for  him. SIWARD  He’s worth no more.  They say he parted well and paid his score,  And so, God be with him. Here comes newer  comfort.

Enter Macduff with Macbeth’s head.

MACDUFF   Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold where stands  Th’ usurper’s cursèd head. The time is free.  I see thee compassed with thy kingdom’s pearl,  That speak my salutation in their minds,  Whose voices I desire aloud with mine.  Hail, King of Scotland! ALL  Hail, King of Scotland!Flourish. MALCOLM   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,

p. 191

 Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland  In such an honor named. What’s more to do,  Which would be planted newly with the time,  As calling home our exiled friends abroad  That 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.  So thanks to all at once and to each one,  Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone. Flourish. All exit.

[rainmanlegends]

Scene 1

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

Sexy Witch 1

 When shall we three meet again?

 In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Sexy Witch 2

 When the hurly-burly’s done,

 When the battle’s lost and won.

Sexy Witch 3

 That will be ere the set of sun.

Sexy Witch 1

 Where the place?

Sexy Witch 2

 Upon the heath.

Sexy Witch 3

 There to meet with M*cb*th.

Sexy Witch 1

I come, Graymalkin.

⌜Sexy Witch 2⌝

Paddock calls.

⌜Sexy Witch 3⌝

Anon.

ALL

 Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

 Hover through the fog and filthy air.

They exit.

Scene 2

Alarum within. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm,

Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding

Captain.

DUNCAN

 What bloody man is that? He can report,

 As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

 The newest state.

MALCOLM

 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.

CAPTAIN

Doubtful it stood,

 As two spent swimmers that do cling together

 And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald

 (Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

 The multiplying villainies of nature

 Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles

 Of kerns and ⌜gallowglasses⌝ is supplied;

 And Fortune, on his damnèd ⌜quarrel⌝ smiling,

 Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;

 For brave M*cb*th (well he deserves that name),

 Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,

 Which smoked with bloody execution,

 Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage

 Till he faced the slave;

 Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

 Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,

 And fixed his head upon our battlements.

DUNCAN

 O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!

CAPTAIN

 As whence the sun ’gins his reflection

 Shipwracking storms and direful thunders ⌜break,⌝

 So from that spring whence comfort seemed to

 come

 Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:

 No sooner justice had, with valor armed,

 Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,

 But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,

 With furbished arms and new supplies of men,

 Began a fresh assault.

DUNCAN

 Dismayed not this our captains, M*cb*th and

 Banquo?

CAPTAIN

 Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.

 If I say sooth, I must report they were

 As cannons overcharged with double cracks,

 So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.

 Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds

 Or memorize another Golgotha,

 I cannot tell—

 But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.

DUNCAN

 So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:

 They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons.

⌜The Captain is led off by Attendants.⌝

Enter Ross and Angus.

 Who comes here?

MALCOLM

 The worthy Thane of Ross.

LENNOX

 What a haste looks through his eyes!

 So should he look that seems to speak things

 strange.

ROSS

God save the King.

DUNCAN

Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane?

ROSS

From Fife, great king,

 Where the Norweyan 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, lapped in proof,

 Confronted him with self-comparisons,

 Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm,

 Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude,

 The victory fell on us.

DUNCAN

 Great happiness!

ROSS

That now Sweno,

 The Norways’ king, craves composition.

 Nor would we deign him burial of his men

 Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch

 Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUNCAN

 No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive

 Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present

 death,

 And with his former title greet M*cb*th.

ROSS

I’ll see it done.

DUNCAN

 What he hath lost, noble M*cb*th hath won.

They exit.

Scene 3

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

Sexy Witch 1

Where hast thou been, sister?

Sexy Witch 2

Killing swine.

Sexy Witch 3

Sister, where thou?

Sexy Witch 1

 A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap

 And munched and munched and munched. “Give

 me,” quoth I.

 “Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries.

 Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger;

 But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,

 And, like a rat without a tail,

 I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Sexy Witch 2

 I’ll give thee a wind.

Sexy Witch 1

 Th’ art kind.

Sexy Witch 3

 And I another.

Sexy Witch 1

 I myself have all the other,

 And the very ports they blow;

 All the quarters that they know

 I’ th’ shipman’s card.

 I’ll drain him dry as hay.

 Sleep shall neither night nor day

 Hang upon his penthouse lid.

 He shall live a man forbid.

 Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,

 Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

 Though his bark cannot be lost,

 Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.

 Look what I have.

Sexy Witch 2

Show me, show me.

Sexy Witch 1

 Here I have a pilot’s thumb,

 Wracked as homeward he did come.

Drum within.

Sexy Witch 3

 A drum, a drum!

 M*cb*th doth come.

ALL

, ⌜dancing in a circle⌝ 

 The Weïrd 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.

 Peace, the charm’s wound up.

Enter M*cb*th and Banquo.

M*cb*th

 So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO

 How far is ’t called to ⌜Forres?⌝—What are these,

 So withered, and so wild in their attire,

 That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth

 And yet are on ’t?—Live you? Or are you aught

 That man may question? You seem to understand

 me

 By each at once her choppy finger laying

 Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,

 And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

 That you are so.

M*cb*th

 Speak if you can. What are you?

Sexy Witch 1

 All hail, M*cb*th! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

Sexy Witch 2

 All hail, M*cb*th! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

Sexy Witch 3

 All hail, M*cb*th, that shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO

 Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear

 Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ 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 favors nor your hate.

Sexy Witch 1

Hail!

Sexy Witch 2

Hail!

Sexy Witch 3

Hail!

Sexy Witch 1

 Lesser than M*cb*th and greater.

Sexy Witch 2

 Not so happy, yet much happier.

Sexy Witch 3

 Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.

 So all hail, M*cb*th and Banquo!

Sexy Witch 1

 Banquo and M*cb*th, all hail!

M*cb*th

 Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.

 By Sinel’s death 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 Cawdor. Say from whence

 You owe this strange intelligence or why

 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

 With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.

Witches vanish.

BANQUO

 The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

 And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

M*cb*th

 Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted,

 As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!

BANQUO

 Were such things here as we do speak about?

 Or have we eaten on the insane root

 That takes the reason prisoner?

M*cb*th

 Your children shall be kings.

BANQUO

 You shall be king.

M*cb*th

 And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?

BANQUO

 To th’ selfsame tune and words.—Who’s here?

Enter Ross and Angus.

ROSS

 The King hath happily received, M*cb*th,

 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. Silenced with that,

 In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day

 He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,

 Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,

 Strange images of death. As thick as tale

 ⌜Came⌝ post with post, and every one did bear

 Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,

 And poured them down before him.

ANGUS

 We are sent

 To give thee from our royal master thanks,

 Only to herald thee into his sight,

 Not pay thee.

ROSS

 And for an earnest of a greater honor,

 He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor,

 In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,

 For it is thine.

BANQUO

 What, can the devil speak true?

M*cb*th

 The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me

 In borrowed robes?

ANGUS

 Who was the Thane lives yet,

 But under heavy judgment bears that life

 Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was

 combined

 With those of Norway, or did line the rebel

 With hidden help and vantage, or that with both

 He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;

 But treasons capital, confessed and proved,

 Have overthrown him.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!

 The greatest is behind. ⌜To Ross and Angus.⌝ Thanks

 for your pains.

 ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Do you not hope your children

 shall be kings,

 When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me

 Promised no less to them?

BANQUO

 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 harm,

 The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

 Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s

 In deepest consequence.—

 Cousins, a word, I pray you.

⌜They step aside.⌝

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Two truths are told

 As happy prologues to the swelling act

 Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.

 ⌜Aside.⌝ 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 smothered in surmise,

 And nothing is but what is not.

BANQUO

Look how our partner’s rapt.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝ 

 If chance will have me king, why, chance may

 crown me

 Without my stir.

BANQUO

 New honors come upon him,

 Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold

 But with the aid of use.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Come what come may,

 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

BANQUO

 Worthy M*cb*th, we stay upon your leisure.

M*cb*th

 Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought

 With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains

 Are registered where every day I turn

 The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.

 ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Think upon what hath chanced,

 and at more time,

 The interim having weighed it, let us speak

 Our free hearts each to other.

BANQUO

Very gladly.

M*cb*th

Till then, enough.—Come, friends.

They exit.

Scene 4

Flourish. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Lennox, Malcolm,

Donalbain, and Attendants.

DUNCAN

 Is execution done on Cawdor? ⌜Are⌝ not

 Those in commission yet returned?

MALCOLM

 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 confessed 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.

DUNCAN

 There’s no art

 To find the mind’s construction in the face.

 He was a gentleman on whom I built

 An absolute trust.

Enter M*cb*th, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

 O worthiest cousin,

 The sin of my ingratitude even now

 Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before

 That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

 To overtake thee. 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.

M*cb*th

 The service and the loyalty I owe

 In doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part

 Is to receive our duties, and our duties

 Are to your throne and state children and servants,

 Which do but what they should by doing everything

 Safe toward your love and honor.

DUNCAN

 Welcome hither.

 I have begun to plant thee and will labor

 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.

BANQUO

 There, if I grow,

 The harvest is your own.

DUNCAN

 My plenteous joys,

 Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves

 In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes,

 And you whose places are the nearest, know

 We will establish our estate upon

 Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

 The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must

 Not unaccompanied invest him only,

 But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine

 On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness

 And bind us further to you.

M*cb*th

 The rest is labor which is not used for you.

 I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful

 The hearing of my wife with your approach.

 So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN

 My worthy Cawdor.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝ 

 The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

 On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,

 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;

 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.

He exits.

DUNCAN

 True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant,

 And in his commendations I am fed:

 It is a banquet to me.—Let’s after him,

 Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

 It is a peerless kinsman.

Flourish. They exit.

Scene 5

Enter M*cb*th’s Wife, alone, with a letter.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

, ⌜reading the letter⌝  

They met me in the

 day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st

 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 Weïrd 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

 might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant

 of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy

 heart, and farewell.

 Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

 What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;

 It is too full o’ th’ 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 ’dst 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 valor of my tongue

 All that impedes thee from the golden round,

 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

 To have thee crowned withal.

Enter Messenger.

 What is your tidings?

MESSENGER

 The King comes here tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Thou ’rt mad to say it.

 Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so,

 Would have informed for preparation?

MESSENGER

 So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming.

 One of my fellows had the speed of him,

 Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

 Than would make up his message.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Give him tending.

 He brings great news.

Messenger exits.

 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 th’ access and passage to remorse,

 That no compunctious visitings of nature

 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

 Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts

 And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

 Wherever in your sightless substances

 You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,

 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark

 To cry “Hold, hold!”

Enter M*cb*th.

 Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,

 Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter!

 Thy letters have transported me beyond

 This ignorant present, and I feel now

 The future in the instant.

M*cb*th

 My dearest love,

 Duncan comes here tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 And when goes hence?

M*cb*th

 Tomorrow, as he purposes.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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 th’ 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.

M*cb*th

 We will speak further.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Only look up clear.

 To alter favor ever is to fear.

 Leave all the rest to me.

They exit.

Scene 6

Hautboys and Torches. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm,

Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and

Attendants.

DUNCAN

 This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air

 Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

 Unto our gentle senses.

BANQUO

 This guest of summer,

 The temple-haunting ⌜martlet,⌝ does approve,

 By his loved ⌜mansionry,⌝ that the heaven’s breath

 Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,

 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

 Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.

 Where they ⌜most⌝ breed and haunt, I have

 observed,

 The air is delicate.

Enter Lady ⌜M*cb*th.⌝

DUNCAN

See, see our honored hostess!—

 The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,

 Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you

 How you shall bid God ’ild us for your pains

 And thank us for your trouble.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 All our service,

 In every point twice done and then done double,

 Were poor and single business to contend

 Against those honors deep and broad wherewith

 Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,

 And the late dignities heaped up to them,

 We rest your hermits.

DUNCAN

 Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?

 We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose

 To be his purveyor; but he rides well,

 And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath helped

 him

 To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,

 We are your guest tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Your servants ever

 Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt

 To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure,

 Still to return your own.

DUNCAN

 Give me your hand.

⌜Taking her hand.⌝

 Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly

 And shall continue our graces towards him.

 By your leave, hostess.

They exit.

Scene 7

Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants

with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter

M*cb*th.

M*cb*th

 If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

 It were done quickly. If th’ assassination

 Could trammel up the consequence and catch

 With his surcease success, that but this blow

 Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

 But here, upon this bank and ⌜shoal⌝ of time,

 We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

 We still have judgment here, that we but teach

 Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

 To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice

 Commends th’ ingredience 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 his host,

 Who should against his murderer shut the door,

 Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

 So clear in his great office, that his virtues

 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

 The deep damnation of his taking-off;

 And pity, like a naked newborn babe

 Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed

 Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

 That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

 To prick the sides of my intent, but only

 Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

 And falls on th’ other—

Enter Lady ⌜M*cb*th.⌝

 How now, what news?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 He has almost supped. Why have you left the

 chamber?

M*cb*th

 Hath he asked for me?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Know you not he has?

M*cb*th

 We will proceed no further in this business.

 He hath honored 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.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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 afeard

 To be the same in thine own act and valor

 As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

 Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life

 And live a coward in thine own esteem,

 Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”

 Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?

M*cb*th

 Prithee, peace.

 I dare do all that may become a man.

 Who dares ⌜do⌝ more is none.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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.

M*cb*th

 If we should fail—

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 We fail?

 But screw your courage to the sticking place

 And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep

 (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey

 Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains

 Will I with wine and wassail so convince

 That memory, the warder of the brain,

 Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

 A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep

 Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death,

 What cannot you and I perform upon

 Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon

 His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

 Of our great quell?

M*cb*th

 Bring forth men-children only,

 For thy undaunted mettle should compose

 Nothing but males. 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?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Who dares receive it other,

 As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar

 Upon his death?

M*cb*th

 I am settled and bend up

 Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

 Away, and mock the time with fairest show.

 False face must hide what the false heart doth

 know.

They exit.

why the fuck is macbeth in my fucking inbox bro

[artistictiana]

Scene 1

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

Sexy Witch 1

 When shall we three meet again?

 In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Sexy Witch 2

 When the hurly-burly’s done,

 When the battle’s lost and won.

Sexy Witch 3

 That will be ere the set of sun.

Sexy Witch 1

 Where the place?

Sexy Witch 2

 Upon the heath.

Sexy Witch 3

 There to meet with M*cb*th.

Sexy Witch 1

I come, Graymalkin.

⌜Sexy Witch 2⌝

Paddock calls.

⌜Sexy Witch 3⌝

Anon.

ALL

 Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

 Hover through the fog and filthy air.

They exit.

Scene 2

Alarum within. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm,

Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding

Captain.

DUNCAN

 What bloody man is that? He can report,

 As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

 The newest state.

MALCOLM

 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.

CAPTAIN

Doubtful it stood,

 As two spent swimmers that do cling together

 And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald

 (Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

 The multiplying villainies of nature

 Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles

 Of kerns and ⌜gallowglasses⌝ is supplied;

 And Fortune, on his damnèd ⌜quarrel⌝ smiling,

 Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;

 For brave M*cb*th (well he deserves that name),

 Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,

 Which smoked with bloody execution,

 Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage

 Till he faced the slave;

 Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

 Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,

 And fixed his head upon our battlements.

DUNCAN

 O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!

CAPTAIN

 As whence the sun ’gins his reflection

 Shipwracking storms and direful thunders ⌜break,⌝

 So from that spring whence comfort seemed to

 come

 Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:

 No sooner justice had, with valor armed,

 Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,

 But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,

 With furbished arms and new supplies of men,

 Began a fresh assault.

DUNCAN

 Dismayed not this our captains, M*cb*th and

 Banquo?

CAPTAIN

 Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.

 If I say sooth, I must report they were

 As cannons overcharged with double cracks,

 So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.

 Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds

 Or memorize another Golgotha,

 I cannot tell—

 But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.

DUNCAN

 So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:

 They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons.

⌜The Captain is led off by Attendants.⌝

Enter Ross and Angus.

 Who comes here?

MALCOLM

 The worthy Thane of Ross.

LENNOX

 What a haste looks through his eyes!

 So should he look that seems to speak things

 strange.

ROSS

God save the King.

DUNCAN

Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane?

ROSS

From Fife, great king,

 Where the Norweyan 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, lapped in proof,

 Confronted him with self-comparisons,

 Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm,

 Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude,

 The victory fell on us.

DUNCAN

 Great happiness!

ROSS

That now Sweno,

 The Norways’ king, craves composition.

 Nor would we deign him burial of his men

 Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch

 Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUNCAN

 No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive

 Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present

 death,

 And with his former title greet M*cb*th.

ROSS

I’ll see it done.

DUNCAN

 What he hath lost, noble M*cb*th hath won.

They exit.

Scene 3

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

Sexy Witch 1

Where hast thou been, sister?

Sexy Witch 2

Killing swine.

Sexy Witch 3

Sister, where thou?

Sexy Witch 1

 A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap

 And munched and munched and munched. “Give

 me,” quoth I.

 “Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries.

 Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger;

 But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,

 And, like a rat without a tail,

 I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Sexy Witch 2

 I’ll give thee a wind.

Sexy Witch 1

 Th’ art kind.

Sexy Witch 3

 And I another.

Sexy Witch 1

 I myself have all the other,

 And the very ports they blow;

 All the quarters that they know

 I’ th’ shipman’s card.

 I’ll drain him dry as hay.

 Sleep shall neither night nor day

 Hang upon his penthouse lid.

 He shall live a man forbid.

 Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,

 Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

 Though his bark cannot be lost,

 Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.

 Look what I have.

Sexy Witch 2

Show me, show me.

Sexy Witch 1

 Here I have a pilot’s thumb,

 Wracked as homeward he did come.

Drum within.

Sexy Witch 3

 A drum, a drum!

 M*cb*th doth come.

ALL

, ⌜dancing in a circle⌝ 

 The Weïrd 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.

 Peace, the charm’s wound up.

Enter M*cb*th and Banquo.

M*cb*th

 So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO

 How far is ’t called to ⌜Forres?⌝—What are these,

 So withered, and so wild in their attire,

 That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth

 And yet are on ’t?—Live you? Or are you aught

 That man may question? You seem to understand

 me

 By each at once her choppy finger laying

 Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,

 And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

 That you are so.

M*cb*th

 Speak if you can. What are you?

Sexy Witch 1

 All hail, M*cb*th! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

Sexy Witch 2

 All hail, M*cb*th! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

Sexy Witch 3

 All hail, M*cb*th, that shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO

 Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear

 Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ 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 favors nor your hate.

Sexy Witch 1

Hail!

Sexy Witch 2

Hail!

Sexy Witch 3

Hail!

Sexy Witch 1

 Lesser than M*cb*th and greater.

Sexy Witch 2

 Not so happy, yet much happier.

Sexy Witch 3

 Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.

 So all hail, M*cb*th and Banquo!

Sexy Witch 1

 Banquo and M*cb*th, all hail!

M*cb*th

 Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.

 By Sinel’s death 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 Cawdor. Say from whence

 You owe this strange intelligence or why

 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

 With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.

Witches vanish.

BANQUO

 The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

 And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

M*cb*th

 Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted,

 As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!

BANQUO

 Were such things here as we do speak about?

 Or have we eaten on the insane root

 That takes the reason prisoner?

M*cb*th

 Your children shall be kings.

BANQUO

 You shall be king.

M*cb*th

 And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?

BANQUO

 To th’ selfsame tune and words.—Who’s here?

Enter Ross and Angus.

ROSS

 The King hath happily received, M*cb*th,

 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. Silenced with that,

 In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day

 He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,

 Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,

 Strange images of death. As thick as tale

 ⌜Came⌝ post with post, and every one did bear

 Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,

 And poured them down before him.

ANGUS

 We are sent

 To give thee from our royal master thanks,

 Only to herald thee into his sight,

 Not pay thee.

ROSS

 And for an earnest of a greater honor,

 He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor,

 In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,

 For it is thine.

BANQUO

 What, can the devil speak true?

M*cb*th

 The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me

 In borrowed robes?

ANGUS

 Who was the Thane lives yet,

 But under heavy judgment bears that life

 Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was

 combined

 With those of Norway, or did line the rebel

 With hidden help and vantage, or that with both

 He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;

 But treasons capital, confessed and proved,

 Have overthrown him.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!

 The greatest is behind. ⌜To Ross and Angus.⌝ Thanks

 for your pains.

 ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Do you not hope your children

 shall be kings,

 When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me

 Promised no less to them?

BANQUO

 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 harm,

 The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

 Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s

 In deepest consequence.—

 Cousins, a word, I pray you.

⌜They step aside.⌝

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Two truths are told

 As happy prologues to the swelling act

 Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.

 ⌜Aside.⌝ 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 smothered in surmise,

 And nothing is but what is not.

BANQUO

Look how our partner’s rapt.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝ 

 If chance will have me king, why, chance may

 crown me

 Without my stir.

BANQUO

 New honors come upon him,

 Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold

 But with the aid of use.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝  

 Come what come may,

 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

BANQUO

 Worthy M*cb*th, we stay upon your leisure.

M*cb*th

 Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought

 With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains

 Are registered where every day I turn

 The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.

 ⌜Aside to Banquo.⌝ Think upon what hath chanced,

 and at more time,

 The interim having weighed it, let us speak

 Our free hearts each to other.

BANQUO

Very gladly.

M*cb*th

Till then, enough.—Come, friends.

They exit.

Scene 4

Flourish. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Lennox, Malcolm,

Donalbain, and Attendants.

DUNCAN

 Is execution done on Cawdor? ⌜Are⌝ not

 Those in commission yet returned?

MALCOLM

 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 confessed 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.

DUNCAN

 There’s no art

 To find the mind’s construction in the face.

 He was a gentleman on whom I built

 An absolute trust.

Enter M*cb*th, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

 O worthiest cousin,

 The sin of my ingratitude even now

 Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before

 That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

 To overtake thee. 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.

M*cb*th

 The service and the loyalty I owe

 In doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part

 Is to receive our duties, and our duties

 Are to your throne and state children and servants,

 Which do but what they should by doing everything

 Safe toward your love and honor.

DUNCAN

 Welcome hither.

 I have begun to plant thee and will labor

 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.

BANQUO

 There, if I grow,

 The harvest is your own.

DUNCAN

 My plenteous joys,

 Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves

 In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes,

 And you whose places are the nearest, know

 We will establish our estate upon

 Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

 The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must

 Not unaccompanied invest him only,

 But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine

 On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness

 And bind us further to you.

M*cb*th

 The rest is labor which is not used for you.

 I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful

 The hearing of my wife with your approach.

 So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN

 My worthy Cawdor.

M*cb*th

, ⌜aside⌝ 

 The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

 On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,

 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;

 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.

He exits.

DUNCAN

 True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant,

 And in his commendations I am fed:

 It is a banquet to me.—Let’s after him,

 Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

 It is a peerless kinsman.

Flourish. They exit.

Scene 5

Enter M*cb*th’s Wife, alone, with a letter.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

, ⌜reading the letter⌝  

They met me in the

 day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st

 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 Weïrd 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

 might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant

 of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy

 heart, and farewell.

 Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

 What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;

 It is too full o’ th’ 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 ’dst 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 valor of my tongue

 All that impedes thee from the golden round,

 Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

 To have thee crowned withal.

Enter Messenger.

 What is your tidings?

MESSENGER

 The King comes here tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Thou ’rt mad to say it.

 Is not thy master with him, who, were ’t so,

 Would have informed for preparation?

MESSENGER

 So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming.

 One of my fellows had the speed of him,

 Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

 Than would make up his message.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Give him tending.

 He brings great news.

Messenger exits.

 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 th’ access and passage to remorse,

 That no compunctious visitings of nature

 Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

 Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts

 And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

 Wherever in your sightless substances

 You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,

 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark

 To cry “Hold, hold!”

Enter M*cb*th.

 Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,

 Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter!

 Thy letters have transported me beyond

 This ignorant present, and I feel now

 The future in the instant.

M*cb*th

 My dearest love,

 Duncan comes here tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 And when goes hence?

M*cb*th

 Tomorrow, as he purposes.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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 th’ 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.

M*cb*th

 We will speak further.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Only look up clear.

 To alter favor ever is to fear.

 Leave all the rest to me.

They exit.

Scene 6

Hautboys and Torches. Enter King ⌜Duncan,⌝ Malcolm,

Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and

Attendants.

DUNCAN

 This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air

 Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

 Unto our gentle senses.

BANQUO

 This guest of summer,

 The temple-haunting ⌜martlet,⌝ does approve,

 By his loved ⌜mansionry,⌝ that the heaven’s breath

 Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,

 Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

 Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.

 Where they ⌜most⌝ breed and haunt, I have

 observed,

 The air is delicate.

Enter Lady ⌜M*cb*th.⌝

DUNCAN

See, see our honored hostess!—

 The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,

 Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you

 How you shall bid God ’ild us for your pains

 And thank us for your trouble.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 All our service,

 In every point twice done and then done double,

 Were poor and single business to contend

 Against those honors deep and broad wherewith

 Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,

 And the late dignities heaped up to them,

 We rest your hermits.

DUNCAN

 Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?

 We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose

 To be his purveyor; but he rides well,

 And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath helped

 him

 To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,

 We are your guest tonight.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Your servants ever

 Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt

 To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure,

 Still to return your own.

DUNCAN

 Give me your hand.

⌜Taking her hand.⌝

 Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly

 And shall continue our graces towards him.

 By your leave, hostess.

They exit.

Scene 7

Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants

with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter

M*cb*th.

M*cb*th

 If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

 It were done quickly. If th’ assassination

 Could trammel up the consequence and catch

 With his surcease success, that but this blow

 Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

 But here, upon this bank and ⌜shoal⌝ of time,

 We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

 We still have judgment here, that we but teach

 Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

 To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice

 Commends th’ ingredience 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 his host,

 Who should against his murderer shut the door,

 Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

 So clear in his great office, that his virtues

 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

 The deep damnation of his taking-off;

 And pity, like a naked newborn babe

 Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed

 Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

 That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

 To prick the sides of my intent, but only

 Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

 And falls on th’ other—

Enter Lady ⌜M*cb*th.⌝

 How now, what news?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 He has almost supped. Why have you left the

 chamber?

M*cb*th

 Hath he asked for me?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Know you not he has?

M*cb*th

 We will proceed no further in this business.

 He hath honored 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.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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 afeard

 To be the same in thine own act and valor

 As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

 Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life

 And live a coward in thine own esteem,

 Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”

 Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?

M*cb*th

 Prithee, peace.

 I dare do all that may become a man.

 Who dares ⌜do⌝ more is none.

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 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.

M*cb*th

 If we should fail—

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 We fail?

 But screw your courage to the sticking place

 And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep

 (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey

 Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains

 Will I with wine and wassail so convince

 That memory, the warder of the brain,

 Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

 A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep

 Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death,

 What cannot you and I perform upon

 Th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon

 His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

 Of our great quell?

M*cb*th

 Bring forth men-children only,

 For thy undaunted mettle should compose

 Nothing but males. 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?

the absolute QUEEN who SLAYS

 Who dares receive it other,

 As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar

 Upon his death?

M*cb*th

 I am settled and bend up

 Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

 Away, and mock the time with fairest show.

 False face must hide what the false heart doth

 know.

They exit.

Ummm... Thank you I guess.

[crazygriffinlord]

An Immortal Puma: An Absurdist Piece In Three Acts: Act The Second: The Javelina Warriors

“This is my summer den”, explained Neil when they arrived. “You will not find my winter den as alluring. Do you want to come upstairs?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Do you want to come upstairs?”, Neil asked sultrily.

“Nope”, refused Susan.

“COME UPSTAIRS AT ONCE, YOUNG LADY AND ALLOW ME TO TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOU!”, shouted Neil at the top of his large cougar lungs.

“AAAAAAAAAH!”, squawked Susan, jumped up in a flurry of feathers, and tried to bolt for the door, but Neil was close behind.

“CRASH!”, went the door suddenly. In burst Lloyd the peccary, Susan’s good friend, along with his younger twin brothers.

“NOBODY EXPECTS THE JAVELINA WARRIORS!”, he snorted loudly. “I am the High Head Chief of the Javelina Warriors, or the HHCJW but for those whose kitty tongues cannot pronounce the sacred name, you can call me…Lloyd. Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to King Pig, and a night out with the neighbor - Oh erh!” 

“COMEON, YOU FILTHY SWINE! BRING IT ON ALREADY!”, roared Neil, raring to defend his title. “AND BY THE WAY, YOUR NAME IS STILL HARD TO PRONOUNCE!”

“Yours too!” retorted Lloyd. “Too many vowels all smushed together in my tusks!”

“I’LL CLAW YOU TO DEATH!”, roared Neil.

“You don't frighten us, you sexy kitty! Go and boil your bottom, son of a woman-beater. I snort at you, so-called Neil Emperor! SNORRRT! SNORRRT! SNORRT!”

“What a strange animal”, remarked Neil in shock.

“I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed lady-killer! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a peacock and your father smelt of grapes!”, Lloyd snorted ragefully.  

“Headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt,headbutt, lunch break, and headbutt!” Lloyd and his brothers sung out the Ancient and Sacred Attack of the Javelina Warriors, knocking Neil unconscious.

“Oh dear!”, Susan exclaimed. 

“Oh dear is right”, Lloyd remarked. “It appears that I’ve killed Neil. The Ancient and Sacred Code of the Javelina Warriors state that we must not kill anybody while fighting them, and now it looks like I’m gonna be booted from my position as High Head Chief of The Javelina Warriors.”

“Well, there’s three things we can do”, theorised Susan. “We can burn him, bury him, or dump in in the lake”

“Which one do you think is the best option?” Lloyd asked.

“Well they're both nasty. If we burn him, he gets stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock if he's not quite dead. But quick.”, explained Susan. “Or, if we don’t want to fry him, you can bury him. And then he'll get eaten up by maggots and weevils, nibble, nibble, nibble, which isn't so hot if, as I said, he's not quite dead.”

“Uh, I don’t think so”, said Lloyd, seeing that Neil had opened his eyes.

“OW!” he suddenly screamed in pain and fell down.

“Does this hurt?”, asked Susan, touching various parts of his body to determine his ailment.

“Yes!” Lloyd cried in pain.

“Oh no!” gasped Susan. “You have…kidney failure! Both of your kidneys are gone”

“I’ll donate a kidney!” Neil exclaimed groggily. “You know I always care best for the wellbeing of women!”