The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ the name of Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you’ll sweat fort.

[Knocking within.] 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. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock!

Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.

Opens the gate.

Enter Macduff and Lennox.

MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late?

PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.

MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke?

PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.

MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.

PORTER. That it did, sir, i’ the very throat on me; but requited him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made shift to cast him.

MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring?

Enter Macbeth.

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir.

MACBETH. morrow, both.

MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?

MACBETH. Not yet.

MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him; I have almost slipp’d the hour.

MACBETH. I’ll bring you to him.

MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you, But yet ‘tis one.

MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.

This is the door.

MACDUFF I’ll make so bold to call,

For ‘tis my limited service. Exit.

LENNOX. Goes the King hence 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’ the air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion and confused events New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamor’d the livelong night. Some say the earth Was feverous and did shake.

MACBETH. ‘Twas a rough fight.

LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it.

Re-enter Macduff.

MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee.

MACBETH. LENNOX. What’s the matter?

MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.

Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence The life o’ the building.

MACBETH. What is’t you say? the life?

LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?

MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak; See, and then speak yourselves.

Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.

Awake, awake!

Ring the alarum bell. Murther 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 murther as it fell.

Enter Banquo.

O Banquo, Banquo!

Our royal master’s murther’d.

LADY MACBETH. Woe, alas!

What, in our house?

BANQUO. Too cruel anywhere.

Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself, And say it is not so.

Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.

MACBETH. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant There’s nothing serious in mortality.

All is but toys; renown and grace is dead, The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.

DONALBAIN. What is amiss?

MACBETH. You are, and do not know’t.

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Is stopped, the very source of it is stopp’d.

MACDUFF. Your royal father’s murther’d.

MALCOLM. O, by whom?

LENNOX. Those of his chamber, as it seem’d, had done’t.

Their hands and faces were all badged with blood; So were their daggers, which unwiped we found Upon their pillows.

They stared, and were distracted; no man’s life Was to be trusted with them.

MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them.

MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so?

MACBETH. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.

The expedition of my violent love

Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood, And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there, the murtherers, Steep’d in the colors of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech’d with gore. Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make ‘s love 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 brew’d.

MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion.

BANQUO. Look to the lady.

Lady Macbeth is carried out.

And when we have our naked frailties hid, That suffer in exposure, let us meet

And question this most bloody piece of work To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.

In the great hand of God I stand, and thence Against the undivulged 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.

ALL. Well contented.

Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.

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

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.

DONALBAIN. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the near in blood, The nearer bloody.

MALCOLM. This murtherous 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.

Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Outside Macbeth’s castle.

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. Ah, good father,

Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, Threaten his bloody stage. By the 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 towering in her pride of place Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

ROSS. And Duncan’s horses-a thing most strange and certain-Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would make War with mankind.

OLD MAN. ‘Tis said they eat each other.

ROSS. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes That look’d 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 suborn’d:

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 wilt ravin up Thine own life’s 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!

Exeunt.

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ACT III. SCENE I.

Forres. The palace.

Enter Banquo.

BANQUO. Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promised, and I fear Thou play’dst most foully for’t; yet it was said It should not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from them (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine) Why, by the verities on thee made good, May they not be my oracles as well

And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.

Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, 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 bestow’d In England and in Ireland, not confessing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention. But