Macbeth (Including The Biography of the Infamous Author). William Shakespeare

GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ‘tis her command.

       DOCTOR.

       You see, her eyes are open.

       GENTLEWOMAN.

       Ay, but their sense is shut.

       DOCTOR.

       What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.

       GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

       LADY MACBETH.

       Yet here’s a spot.

       DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

       LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! out, I say!— One; two; why, then ‘tis time to do’t ;—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

       DOCTOR.

       Do you mark that?

       LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?—What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.

       DOCTOR.

       Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

       GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.

       LADY MACBETH. Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

       DOCTOR.

       What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

       GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

       DOCTOR.

       Well, well, well,—

       GENTLEWOMAN.

       Pray God it be, sir.

       DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

       LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:—I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.

       DOCTOR.

       Even so?

       LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what’s done cannot be undone: to bed, to bed, to bed.

       [Exit.]

       DOCTOR.

       Will she go now to bed?

       GENTLEWOMAN.

       Directly.

       DOCTOR.

       Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds

       Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

       To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

       More needs she the divine than the physician.—

       God, God, forgive us all!—Look after her;

       Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

       And still keep eyes upon her:—so, goodnight:

       My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight:

       I think, but dare not speak.

       GENTLEWOMAN.

       Goodnight, good doctor.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.

       [Enter. with drum and colours, Menteith, Caithness, Angus,

       Lennox, and Soldiers.]

       MENTEITH.

       The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

       His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.

       Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes

       Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm

       Excite the mortified man.

       ANGUS.

       Near Birnam wood

       Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.

       CAITHNESS.

       Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

       LENNOX.

       For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file

       Of all the gentry: there is Siward’s son

       And many unrough youths, that even now

       Protest their first of manhood.

       MENTEITH.

       What does the tyrant?

       CAITHNESS.

       Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:

       Some say he’s mad; others, that lesser hate him,

       Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,

       He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause

       Within the belt of rule.

       ANGUS.

       Now does he feel

       His secret murders sticking on his hands;

       Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;

       Those he commands move only in command,

       Nothing in love: now does he feel his title

       Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

       Upon a dwarfish thief.

       MENTEITH.

       Who, then, shall blame

       His pester’d senses to recoil and start,

       When all that is within him does condemn

       Itself for being there?

       CAITHNESS.

       Well, march we on,

       To give obedience where ‘tis truly ow’d:

       Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal;

       And with him pour we, in our country’s purge,

       Each drop of us.

       LENNOX.

       Or so much as it needs,

       To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.

       Make we our march towards Birnam.

       [Exeunt, marching.]

       SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

       [Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.]

       MACBETH.

       Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:

       Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane

       I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?

       Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know

       All mortal consequences have pronounc’d me thus,—

       “Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman

       Shall e’er have power upon thee.”—Then fly, false thanes,

       And mingle with the English epicures:

       The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,

       Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

       [Enter a Servant.]

       The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d loon!