Macbeth by William Shakespeare (top ten books of all time .TXT) 📕

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Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal 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! 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 vanishes.

Lady Macbeth What, quite unmann’d in folly? Macbeth If I stand here, I saw him. Lady Macbeth Fie, for shame! Macbeth

Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d
Too terrible for the ear: the times have 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.
I drink to the general joy o’ the 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. Re-enter Ghost. Macbeth

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

What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm’d rhinoceros, or the 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 mockery, hence! Ghost vanishes.
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 blanch’d 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! Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. 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 magot-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 to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird 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
Stepp’d 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 scann’d.

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. Exeunt.

Scene V

A Heath.

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 call’d 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’ the morning: thither he
Will come to know his destiny:
Your vessels and your spells provide,
Your charms and every thing beside.
I am for the 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 vaporous drop profound;
I’ll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that distill’d 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
He hopes ’bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. Music and a song within: “Come away, come away,” etc.
Hark! I am call’d; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. Exit.

First Witch Come, let’s make haste; she’ll soon be back again. Exeunt. Scene VI

Forres. The palace.

Enter Lennox and another Lord. Lennox

My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
Which can interpret further: only, I say,
Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
And the