The Tragedy Of Macbeth

1 A banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords
2 and Attendants.
3 MACBETH.
4 You know your own degrees, sit down. At first
5 And last the hearty welcome.
6 LORDS.
7 Thanks to your Majesty.
8 MACBETH.
9 Ourself will mingle with society,
10 And play the humble host.
11 Our hostess keeps her state; but, in best time,
12 We will require her welcome.
13 LADY MACBETH.
14 Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;
15 For my heart speaks they are welcome.
16 Enter first Murderer to the door.
17 MACBETH.
18 See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks.
19 Both sides are even: here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst.
20 Be large in mirth; anon we’ll drink a measure
21 The table round. There’s blood upon thy face.
22 MURDERER.
23 ’Tis Banquo’s then.
24 MACBETH.
25 ’Tis better thee without than he within.
26 Is he dispatch’d?
27 MURDERER.
28 My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him.
29 MACBETH.
30 Thou art the best o’ th’ cut-throats;
31 Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance:
32 If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.
33 MURDERER.
34 Most royal sir,
35 Fleance is ’scap’d.
36 MACBETH.
37 Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect;
38 Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
39 As broad and general as the casing air:
40 But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in
41 To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo’s safe?
42 MURDERER.
43 Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,
44 With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
45 The least a death to nature.
46 MACBETH.
47 Thanks for that.
48 There the grown serpent lies; the worm that’s fled
49 Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
50 No teeth for th’ present.—Get thee gone; tomorrow
51 We’ll hear, ourselves, again.
52 [_Exit Murderer._]
53 LADY MACBETH.
54 My royal lord,
55 You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
56 That is not often vouch’d, while ’tis a-making,
57 ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;
58 From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
59 Meeting were bare without it.
60 The Ghost of Banquo rises, and sits in Macbeth’s place.
61 MACBETH.
62 Sweet remembrancer!—
63 Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
64 And health on both!
65 LENNOX.
66 May’t please your Highness sit.
67 MACBETH.
68 Here had we now our country’s honour roof’d,
69 Were the grac’d person of our Banquo present;
70 Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
71 Than pity for mischance!
72 ROSS.
73 His absence, sir,
74 Lays blame upon his promise. Please’t your Highness
75 To grace us with your royal company?
76 MACBETH.
77 The table’s full.
78 LENNOX.
79 Here is a place reserv’d, sir.
80 MACBETH.
81 Where?
82 LENNOX.
83 Here, my good lord. What is’t that moves your Highness?
84 MACBETH.
85 Which of you have done this?
86 LORDS.
87 What, my good lord?
88 MACBETH.
89 Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake
90 Thy gory locks at me.
91 ROSS.
92 Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is not well.
93 LADY MACBETH.
94 Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus,
95 And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
96 The fit is momentary; upon a thought
97 He will again be well. If much you note him,
98 You shall offend him, and extend his passion.
99 Feed, and regard him not.—Are you a man?
100 MACBETH.
101 Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
102 Which might appal the devil.
103 LADY MACBETH.
104 O proper stuff!
105 This is the very painting of your fear:
106 This is the air-drawn dagger which you said,
107 Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts
108 (Impostors to true fear), would well become
109 A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,
110 Authoris’d by her grandam. Shame itself!
111 Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,
112 You look but on a stool.
113 MACBETH.
114 Pr’ythee, see there!
115 Behold! look! lo! how say you?
116 Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.—
117 If charnel houses and our graves must send
118 Those that we bury back, our monuments
119 Shall be the maws of kites.
120 [_Ghost disappears._]
121 LADY MACBETH.
122 What, quite unmann’d in folly?
123 MACBETH.
124 If I stand here, I saw him.
125 LADY MACBETH.
126 Fie, for shame!
127 MACBETH.
128 Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time,
129 Ere humane statute purg’d the gentle weal;
130 Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d
131 Too terrible for the ear: the time has been,
132 That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
133 And there an end; but now they rise again,
134 With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
135 And push us from our stools. This is more strange
136 Than such a murder is.
137 LADY MACBETH.
138 My worthy lord,
139 Your noble friends do lack you.
140 MACBETH.
141 I do forget.—
142 Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.
143 I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
144 To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
145 Then I’ll sit down.—Give me some wine, fill full.—
146 I drink to the general joy o’ th’ whole table,
147 And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss:
148 Would he were here.
149 Ghost rises again.
150 To all, and him, we thirst,
151 And all to all.
152 LORDS.
153 Our duties, and the pledge.
154 MACBETH.
155 Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
156 Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
157 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
158 Which thou dost glare with!
159 LADY MACBETH.
160 Think of this, good peers,
161 But as a thing of custom: ’tis no other,
162 Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
163 MACBETH.
164 What man dare, I dare:
165 Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
166 The arm’d rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger;
167 Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
168 Shall never tremble: or be alive again,
169 And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
170 If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
171 The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
172 Unreal mock’ry, hence!
173 [_Ghost disappears._]
174 Why, so;—being gone,
175 I am a man again.—Pray you, sit still.
176 LADY MACBETH.
177 You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting
178 With most admir’d disorder.
179 MACBETH.
180 Can such things be,
181 And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
182 Without our special wonder? You make me strange
183 Even to the disposition that I owe,
184 When now I think you can behold such sights,
185 And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
186 When mine are blanch’d with fear.
187 ROSS.
188 What sights, my lord?
189 LADY MACBETH.
190 I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
191 Question enrages him. At once, good night:—
192 Stand not upon the order of your going,
193 But go at once.
194 LENNOX.
195 Good night; and better health
196 Attend his Majesty!
197 LADY MACBETH.
198 A kind good night to all!
199 [_Exeunt all Lords and Attendants._]
200 MACBETH.
201 It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood.
202 Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
203 Augurs, and understood relations, have
204 By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
205 The secret’st man of blood.—What is the night?
206 LADY MACBETH.
207 Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
208 MACBETH.
209 How say’st thou, that Macduff denies his person
210 At our great bidding?
211 LADY MACBETH.
212 Did you send to him, sir?
213 MACBETH.
214 I hear it by the way; but I will send.
215 There’s not a one of them but in his house
216 I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow
217 (And betimes I will) to the Weird Sisters:
218 More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
219 By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
220 All causes shall give way: I am in blood
221 Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
222 Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
223 Strange things I have in head, that will to hand,
224 Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.
225 LADY MACBETH.
226 You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
227 MACBETH.
228 Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
229 Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
230 We are yet but young in deed.
231 [_Exeunt._]