Macbeth by William Shakespeare (top 100 books to read TXT) 📕

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 crown'd withal.

Enter a 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 inform'd 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. Exit Messenger.
    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 the access and passage to remorse,
    That no compunctious visitings of nature
    Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
    And take my milk for gall, your murthering 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 the innocent flower,
    But be the serpent under it. 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. Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle. Hautboys and torches.

Enter 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 honor'd 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 'ield 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 heap'd 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 holp 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;
    Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,
    And shall continue our graces towards him.
    By your leave, hostess. Exeunt.

SCENE VII Macbeth's castle. Hautboys and torches.

Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass over the stage. Then enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly. If the 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'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
    We still have judgement here, that we but teach
    Bloody instructions, which being taught return
    To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd 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 murtherer 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 new-born 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 the other.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

    How now, what news?
  LADY MACBETH. He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the
chamber?
  MACBETH. Hath he ask'd for me?
  LADY MACBETH. Know you not he has?
  MACBETH. We will proceed no further in this business:
    He hath honor'd 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 dress'd 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' the adage?
  MACBETH. Prithee, peace!
    I dare do all that may become a man;
    Who dares do more is none.
  LADY MACBETH. What beast wast 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 pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
    And dash'd 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 drenched natures lie as in a death,
    What cannot you and I perform upon
    The 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 mark'd 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.
                                                         Exeunt.

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ACT II. SCENE I. Inverness. Court of Macbeth's castle.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, bearing 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. 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 cursed 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.
  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 weird sisters:
    To you they have show'd 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 counsel'd.
  MACBETH. Good repose the while.
  BANQUO. Thanks, sir, the like to you.
                                     Exeunt Banquo. and Fleance.
  MACBETH. 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,
    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-oppressed brain?
    I see thee yet, in form as palpable
    As this which now I draw.
    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' the 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 curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
    Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,
    Alarum'd 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 whereabout,
    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. Exit.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter Lady