Macbeth

SCENE I. A dark cave. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH. Three times the brindled cat has mewed.

SECOND WITCH. Three times, and once the hedgehog has whined.

THIRD WITCH. The harpy cries: it's time, it's time.

FIRST WITCH. Go around and around the cauldron; throw the poisoned entrails in. Toad, you who under a cold stone have slept thirty-one days and nights, sweating out venom, boil first in the enchanted pot!

ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.

SECOND WITCH. A slice of a marsh snake, boil and bake in the cauldron; eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder's forked tongue and blindworm's sting, lizard's leg and young owl's wing, for a charm of powerful mischief, boil and bubble like a hell-broth.

ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.

THIRD WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, a witch's mummified flesh, the maw and gullet of the ravenous salt-sea shark, root of hemlock dug up in the dark, liver of a blaspheming Jew, gall of goat, and slips of yew stripped off during an eclipse of the moon, nose of a Turk and lips of a Tartar, finger of a baby strangled at birth and delivered in a ditch by a whore, make the gruel thick and slimy. Add to that a tiger's entrails, for the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.

SECOND WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood. Then the charm is firm and complete.

Enter Hecate.

HECATE. Oh, well done! I praise your efforts, and everyone shall share in the profits. And now sing around the cauldron, like elves and fairies in a ring, enchanting everything you put in.

[Music and a song: "Black Spirits," etc.]

[Exit Hecate.]

SECOND WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, whoever knocks!

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH. What now, you secret, black, and midnight hags! What is it you're doing?

ALL. A deed without a name.

MACBETH. I command you, by whatever power you practice, however you come to know it, answer me: though you unleash the winds and set them fighting against the churches; though the foaming waves wreck and swallow up all ships; though the ripe corn be beaten flat and trees blown down; though castles topple onto their guards' heads; though palaces and pyramids bow their tops down to their foundations; though the whole store of nature's seeds tumble together until destruction itself grows sick of it, still answer me what I ask you.

FIRST WITCH. Speak.

SECOND WITCH. Ask.

THIRD WITCH. We'll answer.

FIRST WITCH. Say whether you'd rather hear it from our mouths, or from our masters.

MACBETH. Call them, let me see them.

FIRST WITCH. Pour in the blood of a sow that has eaten her nine piglets; throw into the flame the grease that has sweated from a murderer's gallows.

ALL. Come, high or low; show yourself and your office skillfully!

[Thunder. An Apparition of an armed Head rises.]

MACBETH. Tell me, you unknown power,

FIRST WITCH. He knows your thoughts: listen to his words, but say nothing.

APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff; beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.

[Descends.]

MACBETH. Whatever you are, thanks for your good warning; you've struck my fear exactly right. But one more word.

FIRST WITCH. He will not be commanded. Here's another, more powerful than the first.

[Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises.]

APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!

MACBETH. If I had three ears, I'd hear you with all of them.

APPARITION. Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh in scorn at the power of any man, for no one born of woman shall harm Macbeth.

[Descends.]

MACBETH. Then live, Macduff: why should I fear you? But still, I'll make doubly sure and take a guarantee from fate. You shall not live; so I can tell pale-hearted fear that it lies, and sleep in spite of thunder.

[Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand, rises.]

What is this, that rises like the offspring of a king, and wears upon his baby's forehead the round crown and summit of sovereignty?

ALL. Listen, but don't speak to it.

APPARITION. Be as brave as a lion, proud, and pay no heed to who is angry, who frets, or where conspirators are: Macbeth shall never be defeated until great Birnam wood comes up against him to high Dunsinane hill.

[Descends.]

MACBETH. That will never happen: who can conscript the forest, or order a tree to pull up its earth-bound root? Sweet prophecies, good! Rebellion, never rise until the wood of Birnam rises, and our high-placed Macbeth shall live out his natural span and give up his breath only to time and mortal custom. Yet my heart throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art can tell so much, shall Banquo's descendants ever reign in this kingdom?

ALL. Seek to know no more.

MACBETH. I will be satisfied: deny me this, and an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know. Why is that cauldron sinking? And what noise is this?

[Oboes.]

FIRST WITCH. Show!

SECOND WITCH. Show!

THIRD WITCH. Show!

ALL. Show him to his eyes, and grieve his heart; come like shadows, and so depart!

[A procession of eight kings appears and passes over in order, the last with a mirror in his hand; Banquo following.]

MACBETH. You are too much like the ghost of Banquo. Down! Your crown scorches my eyeballs. And your hair, you second gold-crowned brow, is like the first. A third is like the one before. Filthy hags! Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start out of my head, eyes! What, will the line stretch out to Judgment Day? Another still! A seventh! I'll see no more. And yet the eighth appears, carrying a mirror that shows me many more; and some I see that carry double orbs and triple scepters. Horrible sight! Now I see it's true, for the blood-clotted Banquo smiles at me and points at them as his own. What! Is this so?

FIRST WITCH. Yes, sir, all this is so. But why does Macbeth stand there so astonished? Come, sisters, let us cheer up his spirits and show him the best of our delights. I'll charm the air to make a sound, while you perform your grotesque dance, so that this great king may kindly say our efforts paid him a proper welcome.

[Music. The Witches dance, and vanish.]

MACBETH. Where are they? Gone? Let this destructive hour stand forever cursed in the calendar! Come in, out there!

Enter Lennox.

LENNOX. What is your Grace's wish?

MACBETH. Did you see the Weird Sisters?

LENNOX. No, my lord.

MACBETH. Didn't they pass by you?

LENNOX. No, indeed, my lord.

MACBETH. Let the air they ride on be infected, and damned be all those who trust them! I heard the galloping of a horse: who was it that came by?

LENNOX. It's two or three men, my lord, who bring you word that Macduff has fled to England.

MACBETH. Fled to England!

LENNOX. Yes, my good lord.

MACBETH. Time, you forestall my dreadful deeds. The fleeting intention is never caught up with unless the deed goes along with it. From this moment, the very first impulses of my heart shall be the first actions of my hand. And even now, to crown my thoughts with deeds, let it be thought and done: I will strike Macduff's castle by surprise; seize Fife; put to the sword's edge his wife, his children, and all the unlucky souls in his line. No boasting like a fool; I'll do this deed before the intention cools. But no more visions! Where are these gentlemen? Come, bring me to them.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. Fife. A room in Macduff's castle.

Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.

LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him flee the country?

ROSS. You must be patient, madam.

LADY MACDUFF. He had none: his flight was madness. Even when our actions don't make us traitors, our fears do.

ROSS. You don't know whether it was his wisdom or his fear.

LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his children, his estate and his titles, in a place from which he himself flees? He doesn't love us: he lacks natural affection. For even the poor wren, the tiniest of birds, will fight the owl to defend her young ones in the nest. It's all fear and no love; and there's just as little wisdom, when the flight runs so against all reason.

ROSS. My dearest cousin, please, control yourself. As for your husband, he is noble, wise, and judicious, and knows best the crises of these times. I dare not say much more: but the times are cruel, when we are branded traitors and don't even know it ourselves; when we believe frightening rumors yet don't know what we fear, but drift upon a wild and violent sea, tossed every way. I take my leave of you; it won't be long before I'm here again. Things at their worst will either stop, or else climb back up to what they were before. My pretty cousin, blessing upon you!

LADY MACDUFF. He has a father, and yet he's fatherless.

ROSS. I am so much a fool that if I stayed any longer, it would be my disgrace and your distress. I take my leave at once.

[Exit.]

LADY MACDUFF. Young man, your father's dead. And what will you do now? How will you live?

SON. As birds do, mother.

LADY MACDUFF. What, on worms and flies?

SON. On whatever I can get, I mean; and so do they.

LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! You'd never fear the net or the birdlime, the trap or the snare.

SON. Why should I, mother? They aren't set for poor birds. My father is not dead, whatever you say.

LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead: what will you do for a father?

SON. No, what will you do for a husband?

LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy myself twenty at any market.

SON. Then you'll buy them only to sell again.

LADY MACDUFF. You speak with all your wit; and truly, with enough wit for a boy your age.

SON. Was my father a traitor, mother?

LADY MACDUFF. Yes, that he was.

SON. What is a traitor?

LADY MACDUFF. Why, one who swears an oath and then breaks it.

SON. And is everyone who does that a traitor?

LADY MACDUFF. Everyone who does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.

SON. And must they all be hanged who swear and lie?

LADY MACDUFF. Every one.

SON. Who must hang them?

LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.

SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are enough liars and swearers to beat the honest men and hang them instead.

LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help you, poor monkey! But what will you do for a father?

SON. If he were dead, you'd weep for him: if you wouldn't, it would be a good sign that I'd soon have a new father.

LADY MACDUFF. Poor chatterbox, how you talk!

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER. Bless you, fair lady! You don't know me, though I know your honorable rank well. I fear some danger is coming very near you. If you'll take a plain man's advice, don't be found here; away, with your little ones. To frighten you like this is, I know, too brutal of me; but to do worse to you would be savage cruelty, and that is all too close at hand. Heaven preserve you! I dare stay no longer.

[Exit.]

LADY MACDUFF. Where should I flee? I have done no harm. But I remember now that I am in this earthly world, where doing harm is often praised, and doing good is sometimes counted a dangerous folly. Why then, alas, do I put up that womanly defense, to say I have done no harm? What are these faces?

Enter Murderers.

FIRST MURDERER. Where is your husband?

LADY MACDUFF. I hope in no place so unholy that such as you might find him.

FIRST MURDERER. He's a traitor.

SON. You're lying, you shaggy-haired villain!

FIRST MURDERER. What, you egg!

[Stabbing him.]

You young spawn of treachery!

SON. He has killed me, mother: run away, I beg you!

[Dies. Exit Lady Macduff, crying "Murder!" and pursued by the Murderers.]

SCENE III. England. Before the King's palace.

Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

MALCOLM. Let us find some desolate shade and there weep our sad hearts empty.

MACDUFF. Let us rather grip the deadly sword and, like good men, stand astride our fallen homeland. Each new morning new widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows strike heaven in the face, so that it echoes back as if it shared Scotland's pain and cried out the same note of grief.

MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll mourn; what I know, I'll believe; and what I can put right, when I find a fitting time, I will. What you have said may perhaps be true. This tyrant, whose mere name blisters our tongues, was once thought honest: you loved him well; he hasn't harmed you yet. I am young; but you might earn something from him by betraying me; and it would be wisdom to offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb to appease an angry god.

MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.

MALCOLM. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may give way under a royal command. But I must beg your pardon; my thoughts cannot change what you truly are. Angels still shine bright, though the brightest of them fell. Though all foul things would take on the appearance of grace, yet grace must still look like itself.

MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.

MALCOLM. Perhaps in the very same place where I found my doubts. Why did you leave your wife and child so abruptly, those precious treasures, those strong bonds of love, without even saying goodbye? I pray you, don't let my suspicions be a dishonor to you, but rather my own safeguards. You may be truly honest, whatever I may think.

MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay your foundation firm, for goodness dares not check you! Wear your ill-gotten titles; your claim is now confirmed. Farewell, lord: I would not be the villain you think me for all the land in the tyrant's grasp, and the rich East as well.

MALCOLM. Don't be offended: I don't speak out of absolute distrust of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; it weeps, it bleeds; and each new day another gash is added to her wounds. I think, too, that there would be hands raised in my cause; and here, from gracious England, I have an offer of many thousands of soldiers. But for all this, when I shall trample the tyrant's head, or wear it on my sword, my poor country will have more vices than before, will suffer more, and in more varied ways than ever, under the one who succeeds him.

MACDUFF. Who would that be?

MALCOLM. I mean myself; in whom I know every kind of vice is so ingrained that, when they are laid open, black Macbeth will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state will think him a lamb, compared to my boundless harms.

MACDUFF. Not in all the legions of horrid hell can there come a devil more damned in evils to outdo Macbeth.

MALCOLM. I grant he is bloody, lustful, greedy, false, deceitful, rash, malicious, tasting of every sin that has a name. But there's no limit, none, to my lechery: your wives, your daughters, your matrons, and your maids could not fill up the cistern of my lust; and my desire would overpower all restraints that opposed my will. Better Macbeth than such a one to reign.

MACDUFF. Boundless lack of self-control in a man's nature is a tyranny; it has been the untimely emptying of many a happy throne, and the fall of many kings. But don't be afraid to take up what is yours: you may indulge your pleasures in vast abundance and still seem chaste; you can so deceive the world. We have plenty of willing women; there cannot be so great a vulture in you as to devour all who would offer themselves to greatness, finding it so inclined.

MALCOLM. Along with this there grows in my thoroughly corrupt nature such an insatiable greed that, were I king, I would cut off the nobles for their lands; I'd covet this man's jewels and that man's house: and the more I had, the more it would work like a sauce to make me hungrier, so that I'd invent unjust quarrels against the good and loyal, destroying them for wealth.

MACDUFF. This greed strikes deeper; it takes a more harmful root than lust, which passes with youth; and it has been the sword that slew our kings. Yet do not fear; Scotland has plenty to satisfy your desire out of what is rightly yours alone. All these faults are bearable, when weighed against other virtues.

MALCOLM. But I have none of those. The graces that befit a king, such as justice, truth, temperance, stability, generosity, perseverance, mercy, humility, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no taste for any of them; but I abound in the variety of every crime, committing each many ways. No, if I had the power, I would pour the sweet milk of harmony into hell, shatter the world's peace, and destroy all unity on earth.

MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!

MALCOLM. If such a man is fit to govern, say so: I am as I have described myself.

MACDUFF. Fit to govern? No, not fit to live. O miserable nation, ruled by an illegitimate tyrant with a bloody scepter, when will you see your healthy days again, since the truest heir to your throne stands self-accused by his own confession and blasphemes his own noble lineage? Your royal father was a most saintly king. The queen who bore you was more often on her knees than on her feet, and died to the world every day she lived. Farewell! These evils you charge upon yourself have banished me from Scotland. O my heart, your hope ends here!

MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion, born of your integrity, has wiped the dark doubts from my soul and reconciled my thoughts to your goodness and honor. Devilish Macbeth has tried by many such tricks to lure me into his power, and prudent wisdom holds me back from over-hasty trust. But may God above judge between you and me! For even now I put myself under your direction, and take back my slanders against myself; here I renounce the faults and blames I laid upon myself, as things foreign to my nature. I have never yet known a woman; I've never broken an oath; I've scarcely coveted even what was my own; at no time have I broken faith; I would not betray even the Devil to a fellow devil; and I delight no less in truth than in life. My first lie in my whole life was this one, told against myself. What I truly am is yours and my poor country's to command. In fact, before your arrival here, old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men, all ready to march, was already setting out. Now we'll go together, and may our chance of success be as sure as the justice of our cause. Why are you silent?

MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once are hard to reconcile.

Enter a Doctor.

MALCOLM. Well; more of this soon. Does the King come out, I pray you?

DOCTOR. Yes, sir. There is a crowd of wretched souls waiting for his cure. Their disease defeats the utmost efforts of medicine; but at his touch, such holiness has heaven given his hand, they immediately recover.

MALCOLM. I thank you, doctor.

[Exit Doctor.]

MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?

MALCOLM. It's called the King's Evil: a most miraculous work in this good king, which I have often seen him do since my stay here in England. How he petitions heaven, he alone knows best; but people strangely afflicted, all swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to look at, given up as hopeless by surgery, he cures, hanging a golden coin about their necks with holy prayers. And it is said that he passes on to the kings who succeed him this healing blessing. Along with this strange power, he has a heavenly gift of prophecy; and various blessings hang about his throne, that show him full of grace.

Enter Ross.

MACDUFF. See, who comes here?

MALCOLM. A fellow countryman; but I don't recognize him yet.

MACDUFF. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome here.

MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, quickly remove the causes that make us strangers to each other!

ROSS. Sir, amen.

MACDUFF. Is Scotland still where it was?

ROSS. Alas, poor country, almost afraid to recognize itself! It can no longer be called our mother, but our grave; where nobody but those who know nothing is ever seen to smile; where sighs and groans and shrieks that tear the air are made but not even noticed; where violent grief seems an everyday emotion. The dead man's funeral bell rings, and hardly anyone asks who it's for; and good men's lives run out before the flowers in their caps wither, dying before they even fall sick.

MACDUFF. Oh, an account too precise, and yet too true!

MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?

ROSS. Any grief an hour old makes the teller sound out of date; each minute breeds a new one.

MACDUFF. How is my wife?

ROSS. Why, well.

MACDUFF. And all my children?

ROSS. Well too.

MACDUFF. The tyrant hasn't attacked their peace?

ROSS. No; they were at peace when I left them.

MACDUFF. Don't be stingy with your words: how do things go?

ROSS. When I came here to carry the news, which I have borne heavily, there was a rumor of many worthy men who had taken up arms; which I was the readier to believe because I saw the tyrant's army on the march. Now is the time for help. Your presence in Scotland would create soldiers, would make even our women fight, to cast off their dreadful sufferings.

MALCOLM. Let it be their comfort that we are coming there. Gracious England has lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; there is no older or better soldier in all of Christendom.

ROSS. I wish I could answer this comfort with the like! But I have words that should be howled out in the empty desert, where no ear could catch them.

MACDUFF. What do they concern? The general cause? Or is it a private grief belonging to a single breast?

ROSS. No honest mind but shares some of the woe, though the main part of it belongs to you alone.

MACDUFF. If it is mine, don't keep it from me; let me have it quickly.

ROSS. Don't let your ears forever hate my tongue, which will fill them with the heaviest sound they have ever yet heard.

MACDUFF. Hmm! I can guess at it.

ROSS. Your castle was attacked by surprise; your wife and children savagely slaughtered. To tell you the manner of it would be, on top of the heap of these murdered deer, to add your own death.

MALCOLM. Merciful heaven! Come, man! Don't pull your hat down over your brows. Give your sorrow words. The grief that doesn't speak whispers to the overburdened heart and tells it to break.

MACDUFF. My children too?

ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.

MACDUFF. And I had to be away from there! My wife killed too?

ROSS. I have said it.

MALCOLM. Be comforted: let's make medicine of our great revenge to cure this deadly grief.

MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their mother in one fell swoop?

MALCOLM. Fight it like a man.

MACDUFF. I shall do so; but I must also feel it like a man: I cannot help remembering that such things existed, and were most precious to me. Did heaven look on and refuse to take their part? Sinful Macduff, they were all struck down for your sake! Worthless as I am, not for their own faults but for mine, murder fell upon their souls: may heaven give them rest now!

MALCOLM. Let this be the whetstone of your sword. Turn your grief to anger; don't blunt your heart, but enrage it.

MACDUFF. Oh, I could play the woman with my eyes, and the braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens, cut short all delay; bring this fiend of Scotland and me face to face; set him within my sword's reach; and if he escapes, then heaven forgive him too!

MALCOLM. This talk sounds manly. Come, let's go to the King. Our army is ready; all we lack is to take our leave. Macbeth is ripe for the shaking, and the powers above are putting on their armor. Take what cheer you can: the night is long that never finds the day.

[Exeunt.]