Macbeth: Complete Text and Annotations

Macbeth

ACT II SCENE III	The same.
	Knocking within. Enter a Porter
Porter	Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in th'other devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.]
	Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX
MACDUFF	Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,	30
	That you do lie so late?
Porter	'Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
MACDUFF	What three things does drink especially provoke?	35
Porter	Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
	urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
	it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.	45
MACDUFF	I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter	That it did, sir, i' the very throat on
	me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I
	think, being too strong for him, though he took
	up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast	50
	him.
MACDUFF	Is thy master stirring?
	Enter MACBETH
	Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
LENNOX	Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH	Good morrow, both.	55
MACDUFF	Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH	Not yet.
MACDUFF	He did command me to call timely on him:
	I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH	I'll bring you to him.	60
MACDUFF	I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
	But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH	The labour we delight in physics pain.
	This is the door.
MACDUFF	I'll make so bold to call,	65
	For 'tis my limited service.
	Exit
LENNOX	Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH	He does: he did appoint so.
LENNOX	The night has been unruly: where we lay,
	Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,	70
	Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
	And prophesying with accents terrible
	Of dire combustion and confused events
	New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
	Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth	75
	Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH	'Twas a rough night.
LENNOX	My young remembrance cannot parallel
	A fellow to it.
	Re-enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF	O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart	80
	Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH	\|
	\| What's the matter.
LENNOX	\|
MACDUFF	Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!	85
	Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
	The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
	The life o' the building!
MACBETH	What is 't you say? the life?
LENNOX	Mean you his majesty?	90
MACDUFF	Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
	With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;
	See, and then speak yourselves.
	Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX
	Awake, awake!
	Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!	95
	Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
	Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
	And look on death itself! up, up, and see
	The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
	As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,	100
	To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.
	Bell rings
	Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH	What's the business,
	That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
	The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
MACDUFF	O gentle lady,	105
	'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
	The repetition, in a woman's ear,
	Would murder as it fell.
	Enter BANQUO
	O Banquo, Banquo,
	Our royal master 's murder'd!	110
LADY MACBETH	Woe, alas!
	What, in our house?
BANQUO	Too cruel any where.
	Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
	And say it is not so.	115
	Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS
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	120
	Is left this vault to brag of.
	Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN
DONALBAIN	What is amiss?
MACBETH	You are, and do not know't:
	The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
	Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.	125
MACDUFF	Your royal father 's murder'd.
MALCOLM	O, by whom?
LENNOX	Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
	Their hands and faces were an badged with blood;
	So were their daggers, which unwiped we found	130
	Upon their pillows:
	They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
	Was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH	O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
	That I did kill them.	135
MACDUFF	Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH	Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
	Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
	The expedition my violent love
	Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,	140
	His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
	And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
	For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
	Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
	Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,	145
	That had a heart to love, and in that heart
	Courage to make 's love known?
LADY MACBETH	Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF	Look to the lady.
MALCOLM	Aside to DONALBAIN
	That most may claim this argument for ours?	150
DONALBAIN	Aside to MALCOLM
	where our fate,
	Hid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
	Let 's away;
	Our tears are not yet brew'd.
MALCOLM	Aside to DONALBAIN
	Upon the foot of motion.	155
BANQUO	Look to the lady:
	LADY MACBETH is carried out
	And when we have our naked frailties hid,
	That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
	And question this most bloody piece of work,
	To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:	160
	In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
	Against the undivulged pretence I fight
	Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF	And so do I.
ALL	So all.	165
MACBETH	Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
	And meet i' the hall together.
ALL	Well contented.
	Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.
MALCOLM	What will you do?
	Let's not consort with them:
	To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
	Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
DONALBAIN	To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
	Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
	There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
	The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM	This murderous shaft that's shot
	Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
	Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
	And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
	But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
	Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
	[Exeunt]