| [A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants] |
|
| MACBETH Lords |
You know your own degrees; sit down: at first And last the hearty welcome. Thanks to your majesty. |
| MACBETH | Ourself will mingle with society, And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time We will require her welcome. |
| LADY MACBETH | Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends; For my heart speaks they are welcome. |
| [First Murderer appears at the door] | |
| MACBETH | See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks. Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst: Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure The table round. |
| [Approaching the door] | |
| There's blood on thy face. | |
| First Murderer | 'Tis Banquo's then. |
| MACBETH | 'Tis better thee without than he within. Is he dispatch'd? |
| First Murderer | My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him. |
| MACBETH | Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it, Thou art the nonpareil. |
| First Murderer | Most royal sir, Fleance is 'scaped. |
| MACBETH | Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect, Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, As broad and general as the casing air: But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe? |
| First Murderer | Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenched gashes on his head; The least a death to nature. |
| MACBETH | Thanks for that: There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow We'll hear, ourselves, again. |
| [Exit Murderer] | |
| LADY MACBETH | My royal lord, You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making, 'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home; From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it. |
| MACBETH | Sweet remembrancer! Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both! |
| LENNOX | May't please your highness sit. |
| [The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH's place] |
|
| MACBETH | Here had we now our country's honour roof'd, Were the graced person of our Banquo present; Who may I rather challenge for unkindness Than pity for mischance! |
| ROSS | His absence, sir, Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness To grace us with your royal company. |
| MACBETH | The table's full. |
| LENNOX | Here is a place reserved, sir. |
| MACBETH | Where? |
| LENNOX | Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness? |
| MACBETH | Which of you have done this? |
| Lords | What, my good lord? |
| MACBETH | Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me. |
| ROSS | Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well. |
| LADY MACBETH | Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat; The fit is momentary; upon a thought He will again be well: if much you note him, You shall offend him and extend his passion: Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man? |
| MACBETH | Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil. |
| LADY MACBETH | O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear: This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool. |
| MACBETH | Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you? Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites. |
| [GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes] | |
| LADY MACBETH | What, quite unmann'd in folly? |
| MACBETH | If I stand here, I saw him. |
| LADY MACBETH | Fie, for shame! |
| MACBETH | Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, Ere human statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd Too terrible for the ear: the times have been, That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools: this is more strange Than such a murder is. |
| LADY MACBETH | My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. |
| MACBETH | I do forget. Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends, I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all; Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full. I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all. |
| Lords | Our duties, and the pledge. |
| [Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO] | |
| MACBETH | Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! |
| LADY MACBETH | Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other; Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. |
| MACBETH | What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence! |
| [GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes] | |
| Why, so: being gone, I am a man again. Pray you, sit still. |
|
| LADY MACBETH | You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder. |
| MACBETH | Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine is blanched with fear. |
| ROSS | What sights, my lord? |
| LADY MACBETH | I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; Question enrages him. At once, good night: Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. |
| LENNOX | Good night; and better health Attend his majesty! |
| LADY MACBETH | A kind good night to all! |
| [Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH] | |
| MACBETH | It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret'st man of blood. What is the night? |
| LADY MACBETH | Almost at odds with morning, which is which. |
| MACBETH | How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person At our great bidding? |
| LADY MACBETH | Did you send to him, sir? |
| MACBETH | I hear it by the way; but I will send: There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow, And betimes I will, to the weird sisters: More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way: I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er: Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd. |
| LADY MACBETH | You lack the season of all natures, sleep. |
| MACBETH | Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use: We are yet but young in deed. |
| [Exeunt] |