MACBETH

LINES & CUES

ENTER

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

What are these

So withered, and so wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,

And yet are on’t? —Live you? Or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me

By each at once her choppy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so

Speak, if you can: what are you?

Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:

I know I am thane of Glamis;

But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor Lives

A prosperous gentleman, and to be king

Stands not within the prospect of beleif,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence

You owe this strange intelligence or why

Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.

THE WEIRD SISTERS VANISH

BANQUO:

The earth has bubbles, as the water has,

And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?

Into the air.

and what seemed corporal melted,

edAs breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!

Were such thing here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root

that takes the reason prisoner?

Your children shall be kings.

You shall be king.

And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?

What can the devil speak true?

The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me

In barrowed robes?

Who was the Thane lives yet,

But under heavy judgement bears that life

Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined

With those of Norway, or did line the rebel

With hidden help and vantage, or that with both

He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;

But treasons capital, confessed and proved,

Have overthrown him.

Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!

The greatest is behind.

TO ROSS AND ANGUS

Thanks for your pains.

ASIDE TO BANQUO

Do you not hope your children shall be kings

When those that gave the Thane Cawdor to me

Promised no less to them?

That, trusted home,

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,

Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s

In deepest consequence.—

Cousins, a word, I pray you.

ASIDE

Two truths are told

As happy Prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme. —I thank you, gentlemen.

ASIDE

This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whos horrid image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man

That function is smothered in surmise,

And nothing is but what is not.

BANQUO

Look how our partner’s rapt.

ASIDE

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me

Without my stir

New honors come upon him,

LIke our strange garments, cleave not to their mold

But with the aid of use.

ASIDE

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

Give me your favor. My dull brain was wroght

with things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains

Are registered where every day I turn

The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.

ASIDE TO BANQUO

Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time,

The interim having weighed it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

Very gladly.

Till then, enough. —Come friends.

DUNCAN

Sons, kinsmen, thanes,

And you whose places are the nearest, know

We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

The Prince of Cumberland;

From hence to Inverness,

And bind us further to you.

I'll make joyful

The hearing of my wife with your approach;

So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN

My worthy Cawdor!

ASIDE

The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires.

LADY MACBETH

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!

My dearest love,

Duncan comes here tonight.

And when goes hence?

To-morrow, as he purposes.

O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. Look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't. He that's coming

Must be provided for: and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch.

Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

We will speak further.

ENTER

if it were done when tis done then twere well

it were done quickly. If the assasinantion

could trammel up the consequence and catch

with his surcease success, that but this blow

might be the be all and the end all here

but here upon this bank and shoal of time

we’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

we still have judgement here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught retun

To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice

Commends th’ ingredience of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips. He’s here in double trust

First as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off

And pity, like a naked newborn babe

Striding the blast, or heavens cherubin horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

And falls on th’ other— How now! what news?

LADY MACBETH

He has almost supp’d: why have you left your chamber?

Hath he ask’d for me?

Know you not he has?

We will proceed no furhter in this business

He hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn nowin their newest gloss,

Not cast aside so soon.

Was the hope drunk

Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?

And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely? From this time

Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valor

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”

Like the poor cat i’ the’ ‘adage?

Prithee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none

What beast was’t then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.

They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

Does unmake you. I have given such, and know

How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck’d my nippe from his boneless gums,

And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.

If we should fail

We fail

But screw your courage to the sticking place

And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep

(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard jouney

Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains

Will I with wine and wassail so convince

That memory, the warder of the brain

Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep

Their drenched natures lies as in a death,

What cannot you and I perform upon

Th ungaurded Duncan? What not put upon

His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

Of our great quell?

Bring forth men-children only,

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males. Will it not be recieved,

When we have marked with blood those sleepy two

Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,

That they have done ‘t?

Who dares recieve it other,

As we shall make our griefs and clamor raor

Upon his death?

I am settled and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away and mock the time with fairest show.

False face must hide what the false heart doth

Know.