Act 2 Macbeth

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 him his sword.] There’s husbandry^° in heaven;

Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.

5 [He gives him his belt and dagger.]

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?

10 [He takes his sword.]

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.^°

15 This diamond he greets your wife withal,

By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up

In^° measureless content.

[He gives a diamond.]

MACBETH Being unprepared,

Our will became the servant to defect,^°

Which else should free^° have wrought.

20 BANQUO All’s well.

I dreamt last night of the three Weird 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.

25 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.^°

30 MACBETH Good repose the while!

BANQUO Thanks, sir. The like to you. Exit Banquo [with Fleance].

MACBETH [to Servant]

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink^° is ready,

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Exit [Servant].

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

35 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,

40 Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd^° brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw. [He draws a dagger.]

Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going,^°

And such an instrument I was to use.

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45 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^°

50 Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse^°

The curtained^° sleep. Witchcraft celebrates

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Pale Hecate’s offerings,^° and withered Murder,

Alarumed^° by his sentinel, the wolf,

55 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

60 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

65 That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Exit.

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.

5 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,

10 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 [bearing bloody daggers].

My husband!

15 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.

20 MACBETH As I descended?

LADY MACBETH Ay.

MACBETH Hark! Who lies i’ the second chamber?

LADY MACBETH Donalbain.

MACBETH [looking at his hands]

This is a sorry sight.

25 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.

30 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.

35 MACBETH But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”?

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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!

40 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?

45 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

50 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.

55 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,

60 I’ll gild^° the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt.

[She takes the daggers, and] exit. 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

65 Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

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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

70 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

75 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! Exeunt.

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’ the

5 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

10 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.

15 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.)

20 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

25 bonfire. (Knock). Anon, anon! [He opens

the gate.] I pray you, remember the porter.

Enter Macduff and Lennox.

MACDUFF Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,

That you do lie so late?

PORTER Faith, sir, we were carousing till the

30 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 un-provokes: it

35 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

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40 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.

45 PORTER That it did, sir, i’ the very throat on me.^°

But I requited him for his lie, and, I think,

being too strong for him, though he took

up my legs^° sometimes, yet I made a shift^°

to cast^° him.

50 MACDUFF Is thy master stirring?

Enter Macbeth.

Our knocking has awaked him. Here he comes. [Exit Porter.]

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.

55 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,

60 For ’tis my limited^° service. Exit Macduff.

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,

65 Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,

And prophesying with accents terrible^°

Of dire combustion^° and confused events

New hatched to the woeful time.^° The obscure bird^°

Clamored the livelong night. Some say the earth

70 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?

75 MACDUFF Confusion^° now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence

The life o’ the building!

MACBETH What is ’t you say? The life?

80 LENNOX Mean you His Majesty?

MACDUFF Approach the chamber and destroy your sight

With a new Gorgon.^° Do not bid me speak;

See, and then speak yourselves. Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.

Awake, awake!

Ring the alarum bell. Murder and treason!

85 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^°

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90 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,

95 ’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.

100 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.^°

105 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

110 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

115 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,

120 Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.

Th’ expedition^° of my violent love

Outran the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden^° blood,

And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature^°

125 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 [fainting] Help me hence, ho!

MACDUFF Look to the lady.

MALCOLM [aside to Donalbain]

130 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.

135 MALCOLM [aside to Donalbain] Nor our strong

sorrow upon the foot of motion.^°

BANQUO Look to the lady. [Lady Macbeth is helped out.]

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And when we have our naked frailties hid,^°

That suffer in exposure, let us meet

And question^° this most bloody piece of work

140 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’ the hall together.

145 ALL Well contented.

Exeunt [all but Malcolm and Donalbain].

MALCOLM What will you do? Let’s not consort^° with them.

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office

Which the false man does easy.^° I’ll to England.

DONALBAIN To Ireland, I. Our separated fortune

150 Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are,

There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the nea’er 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,

155 And let us not be dainty of^° leave-taking,

But shift away.^° There’s warrant^° in that theft

Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left. Exeunt.

Scene 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,^°

5 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?

10 OLD MAN ’Tis unnatural,

Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last

A falcon, towering^° in her pride of place,^°

Was by a mousing^° owl hawked at and killed.

ROSS And Duncan’s horses — a thing most strange and certain —

15 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.

20 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?^°°

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MACDUFF They were

suborned.^°

25 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 life’s means! Then ’tis most like^°

30 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.

35 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.

40 OLD MAN God’s benison^° go with you, and with those

That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

Exeunt. omnes