Complete Plays, The (145 page)

Macduff

I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

Malcolm

Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macduff

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword’s length set him; if he ’scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Malcolm

This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
The night is long that never finds the day.

Exeunt

ACT V

S
CENE
I. D
UNSINANE
. A
NTE
-
ROOM
IN
THE
CASTLE
.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman

Doctor

I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

Gentlewoman

Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown 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 practise: 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

S
CENE
II. T
HE
COUNTRY
NEAR
D
UNSINANE
.

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

S
CENE
III. D
UNSINANE
. 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 that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!

Enter Seyton

Seyton

What is your gracious pleasure?

Macbeth

What news more?

Seyton

All is confirm’d, my lord, which was reported.

Macbeth

I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack’d.
Give me my armour.

Seyton

’Tis not needed yet.

Macbeth

I’ll put it on.
Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?

Doctor

Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

Macbeth

Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor

Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

Macbeth

Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.— Pull’t off, I say.—
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?

Doctor

Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.

Macbeth

Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Doctor

[Aside]
 
Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.

Exeunt

S
CENE
IV. C
OUNTRY
NEAR
B
IRNAM
WOOD
.

Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward and Young Siward, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching

Malcolm

Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.

Menteith

We doubt it nothing.

Siward

What wood is this before us?

Menteith

The wood of Birnam.

Malcolm

Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear’t before him: thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Soldiers

It shall be done.

Siward

We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before ’t.

Malcolm

’Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macduff

Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siward

The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
Towards which advance the war.

Exeunt, marching

S
CENE
V. D
UNSINANE
. W
ITHIN
THE
CASTLE
.

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colours

Macbeth

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still ‘They come:’ our castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.