Macbeth by William Shakespeare (english novels for beginners .txt) 📖

Persons Represented

DUNCAN, King of Scotland.
MALCOLM, his Son.
DONALBAIN, his Son.
MACBETH, General in the King's Army.
BANQUO, General in the King's Army.
MACDUFF, Nobleman of Scotland.
LENNOX, Nobleman of Scotland.
ROSS, Nobleman of Scotland.
MENTEITH, Nobleman of Scotland.
ANGUS, Nobleman of Scotland.
CAITHNESS, Nobleman of Scotland.
FLEANCE, Son to Banquo.
SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, General of the English Forces.
YOUNG SIWARD, his Son.
SEYTON, an Officer attending on Macbeth.
BOY, Son to Macduff.
An English Doctor. A Scotch Doctor. A Soldier. A Porter. An Old Man.

LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACDUFF.
Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
HECATE,and three Witches.

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers, Attendants, and Messengers.

The Ghost of Banquo and several other Apparitions.

SCENE: In the end of the Fourth Act, in England; through the rest of the Play, in Scotland; and chiefly at Macbeth's Castle.


ACT I.

SCENE I. An open Place. Thunder and Lightning.

[Enter three Witches.]

FIRST WITCH.
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

SECOND WITCH.
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

THIRD WITCH.
That will be ere the set of sun.

FIRST WITCH.
Where the place?

SECOND WITCH.
Upon the heath.

THIRD WITCH.
There to meet with Macbeth.

FIRST WITCH.
I come, Graymalkin!

ALL.
Paddock calls: - anon: -
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Witches vanish.]


SCENE II. A Camp near Forres.

[Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox,
with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier.]

DUNCAN.
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.

MALCOLM.
This is the sergeant
Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity. - Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.

SOLDIER.
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald, -
Worthy to be a rebel, - for to that
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him, - from the Western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
For brave Macbeth, - well he deserves that name, -
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smok'd with bloody execution,
Like valor's minion,
Carv'd out his passag tTill he fac'd the slave;
And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

DUNCAN.
O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

SOLDIER.
As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,
Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.

DUNCAN.
Dismay'd not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

SOLDIER.
Yes;
As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks;
So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell: -
But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.

DUNCAN.
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honor both. - Go, get him surgeons.

[Exit Soldier, attended.]

Who comes here?

MALCOLM.
The worthy Thane of Ross.

LENNOX.
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.

[Enter Ross.]

ROSS.
God save the King!

DUNCAN.
Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?

ROSS.
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.

DUNCAN.
Great happiness!

ROSS.
That now
Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's-inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUNCAN.
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest: - go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

ROSS.
I'll see it done.

DUNCAN.
What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

[Exeunt.]


SCENE III. A heath.

[Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]

FIRST WITCH.
Where hast thou been, sister?

SECOND WITCH.
Killing swine.

THIRD WITCH.
Sister, where thou?

FIRST WITCH.
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd: - "Give me," quoth I:
"Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

SECOND WITCH.
I'll give thee a wind.

FIRST WITCH.
Thou art kind.

THIRD WITCH.
And I another.

FIRST WITCH.
I myself have all the other:
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary seven-nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost. -
Look what I have.

SECOND WITCH.
Show me, show me.

FIRST WITCH.
Here I have a pilot's thumb,
Wreck'd as homeward he did come.

[Drum within.]

THIRD WITCH.
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.

ALL.
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine: -
Peace! - the charm's wound up.

[Enter Macbeth and Banquo.]

MACBETH.
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO.
How far is't call'd to Forres? - What are these
So wither'd, 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 chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: - you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

MACBETH.
Speak, if you can; - what are you?

FIRST WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

SECOND WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

THIRD WITCH.
All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO.
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? - I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: - to me you speak not:
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favors nor your hate.

FIRST WITCH.
Hail!

SECOND WITCH.
Hail!

THIRD WITCH.
Hail!

FIRST WITCH.
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

SECOND WITCH.
Not so happy, yet much happier.

THIRD WITCH.
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

FIRST WITCH.
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

MACBETH.
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel's death 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 belief,
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.

[Witches vanish.]

BANQUO.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them: - whither are they vanish'd?

MACBETH.
Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. - Would they had stay'd!

BANQUO.
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

MACBETH.
Your children shall be kings.

BANQUO.
You shall be king.

MACBETH.
And Thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?

BANQUO.
To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

[Enter Ross and Angus.]

ROSS.
The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his: silenc'd with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,
And pour'd them down before him.

ANGUS.
We are sent
To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.

ROSS.
And, for an earnest of a greater honor,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,
For it is thine.

BANQUO.
What, can the devil speak true?

MACBETH.
The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow'd robes?

ANGUS.
Who was the Thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgement bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin'd
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
Have overthrown him.

MACBETH.
[Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behind. - Thanks for your pains. -
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
Promis'd no less to them?

BANQUO.
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.

MACBETH.
[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
Whose 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