Complete Plays, The (141 page)

Malcolm

 
This murderous shaft that’s shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away: there’s warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there’s no mercy left.

Exeunt

S
CENE
IV. O
UTSIDE
M
ACBETH
’
S
CASTLE
.

Enter Ross and an old Man

Old Man

Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.

Ross

Ah, good father,
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, ’tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?

Old Man

’Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

Ross

And Duncan’s horses — a thing most strange and certain —
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.

Old Man

’Tis said they eat each other.

Ross

They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
That look’d upon’t. Here comes the good Macduff.

Enter Macduff

How goes the world, sir, now?

Macduff

Why, see you not?

Ross

Is’t known who did this more than bloody deed?

Macduff

Those that Macbeth hath slain.

Ross

Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend?

Macduff

They were suborn’d:
Malcolm and Donalbain, the king’s two sons,
Are stol’n away and fled; which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.

Ross

’Gainst nature still!
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life’s means! Then ’tis most like
The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

Macduff

He is already named, and gone to Scone
To be invested.

Ross

 
Where is Duncan’s body?

Macduff

Carried to Colmekill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones.

Ross

Will you to Scone?

Macduff

No, cousin, I’ll to Fife.

Ross

Well, I will thither.

Macduff

Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

Ross

Farewell, father.

Old Man

God’s benison go with you; and with those
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

Exeunt

ACT III

S
CENE
I. F
ORRES
. T
HE
PALACE
.

Enter Banquo

Banquo

Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play’dst most foully for’t: yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them —
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine —
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth, as king, Lady Macbeth, as queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants

Macbeth

Here’s our chief guest.

Lady Macbeth

If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.

Macbeth

To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,
And I’ll request your presence.

Banquo

Let your highness
Command upon me; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit.

Macbeth

 
Ride you this afternoon?

Banquo

Ay, my good lord.

Macbeth

We should have else desired your good advice,
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,
In this day’s council; but we’ll take to-morrow.
Is’t far you ride?

Banquo

As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
’Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.

Macbeth

Fail not our feast.

Banquo

My lord, I will not.

Macbeth

We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow’d
In England and in Ireland, not confessing
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
With strange invention: but of that to-morrow,
When therewithal we shall have cause of state
Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: adieu,
Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?

Banquo

Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon ’s.

Macbeth

I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;
And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell.

Exit Banquo

Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night: to make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till supper-time alone: while then, God be with you!

Exeunt all but Macbeth, and an attendant

Sirrah, a word with you: attend those men
Our pleasure?

Attendant

They are, my lord, without the palace gate.

Macbeth

Bring them before us.

Exit Attendant

To be thus is nothing;
But to be safely thus.— Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear’d: ’tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him: then prophet-like
They hail’d him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench’d with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so,
For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder’d;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man,
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come fate into the list.
And champion me to the utterance! Who’s there!

Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers

Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.

Exit Attendant

Was it not yesterday we spoke together?

First Murderer

It was, so please your highness.

Macbeth

Well then, now
Have you consider’d of my speeches? Know
That it was he in the times past which held you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self: this I made good to you
In our last conference, pass’d in probation with you,
How you were borne in hand, how cross’d, the instruments,
Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
To half a soul and to a notion crazed
Say ‘Thus did Banquo.’

First Murderer

You made it known to us.

Macbeth

I did so, and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature
That you can let this go? Are you so gospell’d
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bow’d you to the grave
And beggar’d yours for ever?

First Murderer

We are men, my liege.

Macbeth

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept
All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
Particular addition. from the bill
That writes them all alike: and so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i’ the worst rank of manhood, say ’t;
And I will put that business in your bosoms,
Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.

Second Murderer

I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.

First Murderer

And I another
So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune,
That I would set my lie on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on’t.

Macbeth

Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.

Both Murderers

True, my lord.

Macbeth

So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my near’st of life: and though I could
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For certain friends that are both his and mine,
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
Who I myself struck down; and thence it is,
That I to your assistance do make love,
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.

Second Murderer

We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.

First Murderer

Though our lives —

Macbeth

Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ the time,
The moment on’t; for’t must be done to-night,
And something from the palace; always thought
That I require a clearness: and with him —
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work —
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:
I’ll come to you anon.

Both Murderers

We are resolved, my lord.

Macbeth

I’ll call upon you straight: abide within.

Exeunt Murderers

It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.

Exit

S
CENE
II. T
HE
PALACE
.

Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant

Lady Macbeth

Is Banquo gone from court?

Servant

Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.

Lady Macbeth

Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
For a few words.

Servant

 
Madam, I will.

Exit

Lady Macbeth

Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Enter Macbeth

How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.

Macbeth

We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it:
She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.

Lady Macbeth

Come on;
Gentle my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.

Macbeth

So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
Unsafe the while, that we
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.

Lady Macbeth

You must leave this.

Macbeth

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.

Lady Macbeth

But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.

Macbeth

There’s comfort yet; they are assailable;
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.

Lady Macbeth

What’s to be done?

Macbeth

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So, prithee, go with me.