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

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 slumbery 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 any one; 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. 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 is 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. Oh, oh, oh! 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. 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! Exit. Doctor Will she go now to bed? Gentlewoman Directly. Doctor

Foul whisperings 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. Exeunt. Scene II

The country near Dunsinane.

Drum and colours. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers. Menteith

The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
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 distemper’d 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 pester’d 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 medicine 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,
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam. Exeunt, marching.

Scene III

Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter Macbeth, 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 a 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-liver’d boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

Servant The English force, so please you. Macbeth

Take thy face hence. Exit Servant. Seyton!⁠—I am sick at heart,
When I behold⁠—Seyton, I say!⁠—This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And