Macbeth

SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.

DOCTOR. I have kept watch with you for two nights, but I can find no truth in what you report. When was it that she last walked?

GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went off to war, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown over herself, unlock her writing-desk, take out paper, fold it, write on it, read it, then seal it, and go back to bed again; yet all this while she was fast asleep.

DOCTOR. A great disturbance of nature, to enjoy the benefit of sleep and at the same time do the things one does while awake. In this sleepy activity, besides her walking and other actions, what have you ever heard her say?

GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, is something I will not repeat after her.

DOCTOR. You may tell me; and it is entirely fitting that you should.

GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor to anyone, since I have no witness to back up my word.

Enter Lady Macbeth with a candle.

Look, here she comes! This is exactly how she appears; and, on my life, she is fast asleep. Watch her; stand back out of sight.

DOCTOR. How did she get that light?

GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it was standing beside her: she keeps a light by her at all times; that is her own command.

DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMAN. Yes, but their power of sight is shut.

DOCTOR. What is she doing now? Look how she rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMAN. It is a habit of hers, to seem to be washing her hands like this. I have known her keep it up for a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETH. There is still a spot here.

DOCTOR. Listen, she is speaking. I will write down what comes from her, to strengthen my memory of it.

LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two. Well, then it is time to do it. Hell is dark! Shame, my lord, shame! A soldier, and afraid? What need have we to fear anyone knowing, when no one can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man would have had so much blood in him?

DOCTOR. Do you notice that?

LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands never be clean? No more of that, my lord, no more of that: you ruin everything with this alarm.

DOCTOR. Enough, enough. You have learned what you should not have.

GENTLEWOMAN. She has said what she should not, I am certain of that: heaven knows what she has come to know.

LADY MACBETH. Here is the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

DOCTOR. What a sigh that is! The heart is heavily burdened.

GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my breast for all the honor of the whole body.

DOCTOR. Well, well, well.

GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it may be well, sir.

DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my skill: yet I have known people who walked in their sleep and later died holy deaths in their beds.

LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; do not look so pale. I tell you once again, Banquo is buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

DOCTOR. Is it so?

LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed. There is knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What is done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.

[_Exit._]

DOCTOR. Will she go to bed now?

GENTLEWOMAN. Straightaway.

DOCTOR. Foul rumors are spreading. Unnatural deeds breed unnatural troubles: diseased minds will unburden their secrets to their deaf pillows. She needs the priest more than the physician. God, God, forgive us all! Look after her; take away from her anything she might harm herself with, and keep your eyes on her constantly. So, good night: she has bewildered my mind and astonished my sight. I think, but dare not say it.

GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.

Enter, with drum and colors, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox and Soldiers.

MENTEITH. The English army is near, led by Malcolm, his uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Vengeance burns in them; for their beloved cause would rouse even a dead man to the bloody and grim call to arms.

ANGUS. We shall meet them near Birnam Wood. That is the way they are coming.

CAITHNESS. Does anyone know whether Donalbain is with his brother?

LENNOX. He is certainly not, sir. I have a list of all the gentry: there is Siward's son, and many beardless youths who are only now asserting their first manhood.

MENTEITH. What is the tyrant doing?

CAITHNESS. He is strongly fortifying great Dunsinane. Some say he is mad; others, who hate him less, call it valiant fury: but it is certain he cannot fasten his diseased cause within the belt of self-control.

ANGUS. Now he feels his secret murders clinging to his hands; now moment-by-moment revolts rebuke his breach of faith; those he commands move only on command, never out of love: now he feels his kingship hang loose about him, like a giant's robe on a dwarfish thief.

MENTEITH. Who, then, can blame his tormented senses for flinching and starting, when everything within him condemns itself for being there?

CAITHNESS. Well, let us march on, to give our obedience where it is truly owed: let us meet the healer of our sick country; and with him let us pour out, in our nation's cleansing, every drop of our blood.

LENNOX. Or as much of it as is needed to water the royal flower and drown the weeds. Let us march toward Birnam.

[_Exeunt, marching._]

SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter Macbeth, Doctor and Attendants.

MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them all desert: until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane I cannot be touched by fear. What is the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of a woman? The spirits that know all mortal outcomes have declared to me: "Fear not, Macbeth; no man born of woman shall ever have power over you." So flee, treacherous thanes, and mingle with the English gluttons: the mind that rules me and the heart I bear shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Enter a Servant.

The devil turn you black with damnation, you cream-faced fool! Where did you get that terrified, goose-like look?

SERVANT. There are ten thousand—

MACBETH. Geese, villain?

SERVANT. Soldiers, sir.

MACBETH. Go prick your face and redden over your fear, you cowardly boy. What soldiers, fool? Death of your soul! Those pale cheeks of yours advise others to be afraid. What soldiers, whey-face?

SERVANT. The English force, if it please you.

MACBETH. Take your face out of here.

[_Exit Servant._]

Seyton! I am sick at heart, when I look—Seyton, I say!—This assault will either cheer me forever or unseat me now. I have lived long enough: my course of life has withered into the dry, yellow leaf; and the things that should go with old age, such as honor, love, obedience, crowds of friends, I must not expect to have; but in their place, curses, not loud but deep, mouthed honor, mere breath, which the poor heart would gladly refuse me, and dare not. Seyton!

Enter Seyton.

SEYTON. What is your gracious pleasure?

MACBETH. What further news?

SEYTON. Everything is confirmed, my lord, that was reported.

MACBETH. I will fight until the flesh is hacked from my bones. Give me my armor.

SEYTON. It is not needed yet.

MACBETH. I will put it on anyway. Send out more horsemen, scour the countryside all around; hang those who talk of fear. Give me my armor. How is your patient, doctor?

DOCTOR. Not so much sick, my lord, as troubled with crowding fantasies that keep her from her rest.

MACBETH. Cure her of that: can you not treat a diseased mind, pluck a rooted sorrow from the memory, erase the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet forgetful antidote cleanse the crowded breast of that dangerous matter which weighs upon the heart?

DOCTOR. In that, the patient must treat himself.

MACBETH. Throw medicine to the dogs, I will have none of it. Come, put my armor on; give me my staff: Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes are fleeing from me. Come, sir, hurry. If you could, doctor, examine the urine of my country, find its disease, and purge it to sound and pristine health, I would applaud you to the very echo, which would applaud you again. Pull it off, I say. What rhubarb, senna, or what purging drug would flush these English out of here? Do you hear of them?

DOCTOR. Yes, my good lord. Your royal preparations make us hear something of them.

MACBETH. Bring it after me. I will not be afraid of death and destruction, until Birnam Forest comes to Dunsinane.

[_Exeunt all except Doctor._]

DOCTOR. Were I safely away and clear of Dunsinane, no amount of profit would easily draw me back here.

[_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Country near Dunsinane: a Wood in view.

Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross and Soldiers, marching.

MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand when our bedchambers will be safe.

MENTEITH. We have no doubt of it.

SIWARD. What wood is this before us?

MENTEITH. The Wood of Birnam.

MALCOLM. Let every soldier cut down a bough for himself, and carry it in front of him. By this we shall conceal the size of our army, and cause their scouts to report of us wrongly.

SOLDIERS. It shall be done.

SIWARD. We learn nothing except that the confident tyrant still keeps within Dunsinane, and will endure our laying siege to it.

MALCOLM. That is his main hope; for wherever the chance has been offered, both high and low have deserted him, and none serve with him but conscripts, whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFF. Let our fair judgments wait upon the true outcome, and let us apply ourselves to diligent soldiership.

SIWARD. The time approaches that will, by due decision, make us know what we shall claim to have, and what we owe. Speculative thoughts merely report their uncertain hopes, but the sure result must be settled by blows; toward which, advance the war.

[_Exeunt, marching._]

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter, with drum and colors, Macbeth, Seyton and Soldiers.

MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outer walls; the cry is still, "They come!" Our castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie until famine and fever eat them up. Were they not reinforced by those who should be on our side, we might have met them boldly, face to face, and beaten them back home.

[_A cry of women within._]

What is that noise?

SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[_Exit._]

MACBETH. I have almost forgotten the taste of fears. There was a time when my senses would have gone cold to hear a shriek in the night; and the hair on my scalp would, at a dreadful tale, rouse and stir as if it were alive. I have gorged myself full with horrors; dreadfulness, familiar to my murderous thoughts, can no longer startle me.

Enter Seyton.

Why was that cry raised?

SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH. She should have died at a later time. There would have been a fitting hour for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps on at this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lit fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life is but a walking shadow; a poor actor, who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger.

You come to use your tongue; tell your story quickly.

MESSENGER. Gracious my lord, I should report what I claim I saw, but I do not know how to do it.

MACBETH. Well, say it, sir.

MESSENGER. As I stood my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and suddenly, it seemed to me, the wood began to move.

MACBETH. Liar, and slave!

MESSENGER. Let me suffer your wrath if it is not so. Within these three miles you may see it coming; I tell you, a moving grove.

MACBETH. If you speak falsely, you shall hang alive on the nearest tree until famine shrivels you: if your words are true, I do not care if you do the same to me. I begin to lose my resolve, and to doubt the double-talk of the fiend, that lies like truth. "Fear not, until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane;" and now a wood comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out! If what he claims does indeed appear, there is no fleeing from here nor staying here. I begin to grow weary of the sun, and wish the whole order of the world were now undone. Ring the alarm bell! Blow, wind! Come, ruin! At least we will die with armor on our backs.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.

Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff and their Army, with boughs.

MALCOLM. Now we are near enough. Throw down your leafy screens, and show yourselves as those you truly are. You, worthy uncle, shall with my cousin, your right noble son, lead our first assault: worthy Macduff and I shall take upon ourselves whatever else remains to do, according to our plan.

SIWARD. Fare you well. If we but find the tyrant's army tonight, let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, those clamorous heralds of blood and death.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the Plain.

Alarms. Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake. I cannot flee, but, like a baited bear, I must fight the round. What man is this that was not born of woman? Such a one I must fear, or fear no one.

Enter young Siward.

YOUNG SIWARD. What is your name?

MACBETH. You will be afraid to hear it.

YOUNG SIWARD. No; even if you call yourself by a hotter name than any in hell.

MACBETH. My name is Macbeth.

YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not speak a title more hateful to my ear.

MACBETH. No, nor more terrifying.

YOUNG SIWARD. You lie, abhorred tyrant. With my sword I will prove the lie you speak.

[_They fight, and young Siward is slain._]

MACBETH. You were born of woman. But I smile at swords, I laugh weapons to scorn, when they are brandished by a man that is born of a woman.

[_Exit._]

Alarms. Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF. The noise is that way. Tyrant, show your face! If you are slain, and not by a stroke of mine, my wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched peasants, whose arms are hired to carry their spears. Either you, Macbeth, or else my sword, with its blade still unnicked, I will sheathe again without a deed done. There you must be; by this great clatter, someone of the highest rank seems to be announced. Let me find him, Fortune! And I beg for nothing more.

[_Exit. Alarms._]

Enter Malcolm and old Siward.

SIWARD. This way, my lord; the castle has been surrendered without a struggle: the tyrant's own people fight on both sides; the noble thanes are doing bravely in the war, the day almost declares itself yours, and there is little left to do.

MALCOLM. We have met with foes who strike beside us, on our own side.

SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.

[_Exeunt. Alarms._]

SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die on my own sword? While I see living men, the gashes look better on them.

Enter Macduff.

MACDUFF. Turn, hell-hound, turn!

MACBETH. Of all men I have avoided you: but get back; my soul is already too burdened with the blood of your family.

MACDUFF. I have no words; my voice is in my sword: you villain bloodier than any words can describe you!

[_They fight._]

MACBETH. You waste your effort: you might as easily wound the uncuttable air with your keen sword as make me bleed: let your blade fall on vulnerable heads; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to any man born of woman.

MACDUFF. Despair of your charm; and let the demon whom you have always served tell you that Macduff was ripped from his mother's womb before his time.

MACBETH. Cursed be the tongue that tells me so, for it has cowed the better part of my manhood! And let these juggling fiends be believed no more, who deceive us with a double meaning; who keep the word of their promise to our ear, and break it to our hope! I will not fight with you.

MACDUFF. Then yield, coward, and live to be the spectacle and gazing-stock of the age. We will have you, as we do our rarer monsters, painted on a signboard, with the caption beneath, "Here may you see the tyrant."

MACBETH. I will not yield, to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, and to be taunted with the rabble's curses. Though Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane, and you oppose me, being of no woman born, yet I will try to the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; and damned be him that first cries, "Stop, enough!"

[_Exeunt fighting. Alarms._]

Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross, Thanes and Soldiers.

MALCOLM. I wish the friends we are missing were safely arrived.

SIWARD. Some must be lost; and yet, by these I see here, so great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: he only lived until he became a man; and no sooner had his prowess proved that, in the unflinching post where he fought, than, like a man, he died.

SIWARD. Then he is dead?

ROSS. Yes, and carried off the field. Your cause for sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it would have no end.

SIWARD. Were his wounds on the front of his body?

ROSS. Yes, on the front.

SIWARD. Why then, let him be God's soldier! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them a fairer death: and so his death-bell is rung.

MALCOLM. He deserves more sorrow, and that I will spend for him.

SIWARD. He deserves no more. They say he departed well and paid his debt: and so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.

Enter Macduff with Macbeth's head.

MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so you are. Behold, where stands the usurper's cursed head: the age is free again. I see you surrounded by your kingdom's finest jewels, who echo my salutation in their minds; whose voices I want, aloud, together with mine: Hail, King of Scotland!

ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!

[_Flourish._]

MALCOLM. We shall not spend a great deal of time before we settle accounts with your several loyalties, and make ourselves even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, from now on be earls, the first that ever Scotland named in such an honor. What more remains to be done, which should be newly planted with the new age, such as calling home our exiled friends abroad, who fled the snares of watchful tyranny; bringing to justice the cruel agents of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen, who, it is thought, by her own violent hands took her own life; this, and whatever else demands our attention, by the grace of God, we will perform in fitting measure, time, and place. So thanks to all at once, and to each one, whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.

[_Flourish. Exeunt._]

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