William Shakespeare, Macbeth

 

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Cambridge 2008

 

First Witch: When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch: When the hurly-burly’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.

Second Witch: Paddock calls.

Third Witch: Anon.

All: Fair is foul, and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air. (1.1.1-13) [Graymalkin – a cat’s name; Paddock – Toad.]

 

Captain: Doubtful it stood,

As two spent swimmers that do cling together (1.2.7-8)

 

Duncan: No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death

And with his former title greet Macbeth. (1.2.63-5)

 

Macbeth; … 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. Wither are they vanished? (1.3.73-8)

 

Banquo: … 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.— (1.3.121-5)

 

Macbeth: …Stars, hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and deep desires,

The eye wink at the hand. Yet let that be,

Which the eye fears when it is done to see. (1.4.50-3)

 

Duncan: This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

Banquo: This guest of summer

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve

By his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath

Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coign of vantage but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle;

Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed

The air is delicate. (1.6.1-10) [martlet – a swift…martlets and related species were common emblems of prudent trust and harmony in the realm; mansionry – mansions collectively; coign of vantage – projecting corner; pendent – hanging]

 

Lady Macbeth: 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 valour,

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’th’adage? (1.7.35-44) [cat adage – ‘the cat would eat fish but she will not wet her feet’]

 

Lady Macbeth: 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’unguarded Duncan? What not put upon

His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt

Of our great quell? (1.7.63-72) [limbeck – alembic, an apparatus used in distilling]

 

Lady Macbeth: …I have drugged their possets, (2.2.6) [possets – drinks made from hot milk, liquor, and spices (a delicacy)]

 

Macbeth: I’ll go no more.

I am afraid to think what I have done;

Look on’t again, I dare not.

Lady Macbeth: Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping of the dead

Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,

I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt.        Exit

                                     Knock within

Macbeth: Whence is that knocking?

How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here? Ha: they pluck out mine eyes.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No: this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red. (2.2.53-66) [incarnadine – stain red, literally, make flesh-coloured; green – ocean/waters]

 

Lennox: The night has been unruly: where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,

Lamentings heard i’th’air, strange screams of death

And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustion and confused events

New hatched to th’woeful time. The obscure bird

Clamoured the livelong might. Some say, the earth

Was feverous and did shake.

Macbeth: ‘Twas a rough night.

Lennox: My young remembrance cannot parallel

A fellow to it.

                            Enter Macduff

Macduff: O horror, horror, horror,

Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee.

Macbeth and Lennox: What’s the matter?

Macduff: Confusion now hath made his masterpiece: (2.3.46-59)

 

Macbeth: Had I but died an hour before this chance,

I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant,

There’s nothing serious in mortality.

All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees

Is left this vault to brag of. (2.3.84-9)

 

Macbeth: …If’t be so,

For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;

For them, the gracious Duncan have I murdered,

Put rancours in the vessel of my peace

Only for them, and mine eternal jewel

Given to the common enemy of man,

To make them kings, … (3.1.65-71) [jewel – soul]

 

Macbeth: Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,

As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,

Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept

All by the name of dogs. The valued file

Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,

The housekeeper, the hunter, every one

According to the gift which bounteous nature

Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive

Particular addition from the bill

That writes them all alike. And so of men. (3.1.91-100)

 

Lady Macbeth: …Are you a man?

Macbeth: Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appal the devil. (3.4.58-60)

 

Macbeth: …The time has 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. (3.4.78-83)

 

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 feed. … (3.4.129-32)

 

First Witch: Round about the cauldron go;

In the poisoned entrails throw. (4.1.4-5)

 

All: Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. (4.1.10-11)

 

Second Witch: By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes;

Open locks, whoever knocks. (4.1.44-6) [pricking – tingling]

 

Lady Macduff: Sirrah, your father’s dead,

And what will you do now? How will you live?

Son: As birds do, mother.

Lady Macduff: What, with worms and flies?

Son: with what I get I mean, and so do they.

Lady Macduff: Poor bird, thou’dst never fear the net, nor lime, the pitfall, nor the gin.

Son: Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.

My father is not dead for all your saying. (4.2.30-7)

 

Macduff: …each new morn,

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out

Like syllable of dolour. (4.3.3-7)

 

Macduff: Not in the legions

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned

In evils to top Macbeth.

Malcolm: I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name. But there’s no bottom, none,

In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,

Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up

The cistern of my lust, and my desire

All continent impediments would o’erbear

That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth,

Than such a one to reign.

Macduff: Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny; it hath

Th’untimely emptying of the happy throne

And fall of many kings. But fear not yet

To take upon you what is yours: you may

Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty

And yet seem cold. The time you may so hoodwink.

We have willing dames enough; there cannot be

That vulture in you to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,

Finding it so inclined. (4.3.55-76)

 

Malcolm: …The king-becoming graces—

As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,

Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude—

I have no relish of the, but abound

In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

Macduff: O Scotland! Scotland! (4.3.90-100)

 

Malcolm: …I am yet

Unknown to women, never was forsworn,

Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,

At no time broke my faith, would not betray

The devil to his fellow, and delight

No less in truth than life. My first false speaking

Was this upon myself. (4.2.125-31)

 

Lady Macbeth: Here’s the smell of blood still; all the per-

fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O. (5.1.43-4)

 

Macbeth: The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon.

Where go’st thou that goose-look?

Servant: There is ten thousand—

Macbeth: Geese, villain?

Servant: Soldiers, sir. (5.3.11-13)

 

Seyton; It is the cry of women, my good lord.

Macbeth: I have almost forgot the taste of fears;

The time has been, me senses would have cooled

To hear a night-shriek and my fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors;

Direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts

Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?

Seyton: The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth: She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle,

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. (5.5.8-27)