Table of Contents
ACT 2, SCENE 3
Setting: 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? | ||
| 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. | ||
| But this place is too cold for hell. [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, | |
| 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? | |
| 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. | ||
| MACDUFF | I believe drink gave thee the lie last night. | 42 |
| 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 | ||
| 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. | |
| MACDUFF | Is the king stirring, worthy thane? | |
| MACBETH | Not yet. | 50 |
| MACDUFF | He did command me to call timely on him: | |
| I have almost slipp'd the hour. | ||
| MACBETH | I'll bring you to him. | |
| 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, | |
| 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, | 60 | |
| 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 | ||
| 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 | |
| Cannot conceive nor name thee! | ||
| MACBETH | ||
| What's the matter. | 70 | |
| LENNOX | ||
| MACDUFF | Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! | |
| 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? | |
| 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! | ||
| Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake! | 80 | |
| 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, | ||
| 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, | |
| Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: | ||
| The repetition, in a woman's ear, | 91 | |
| Would murder as it fell. | ||
| Enter BANQUO. | ||
| O Banquo, Banquo, | ||
| Our royal master 's murder'd! | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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 | 100 | |
| 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. | ||
| 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 | ||
| Upon their pillows: | ||
| They stared, and were distracted; no man's life | 110 | |
| Was to be trusted with them. | ||
| MACBETH | O, yet I do repent me of my fury, | |
| That I did kill them. | ||
| 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, | ||
| 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, | 120 | |
| Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers | ||
| Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain, | ||
| 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. Why do we hold our tongues, | |
| That most may claim this argument for ours? | ||
| DONALBAIN | Aside to MALCOLM. What should be spoken here, | |
| 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. Nor our strong sorrow | |
| Upon the foot of motion. | 130 | |
| 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: | ||
| 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. | |
| MACBETH | Let's briefly put on manly readiness, | |
| And meet i' the hall together. | ||
| ALL | Well contented. | 140 |
| 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, | 150 | |
| But shift away: there's warrant in that theft | ||
| Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left. | ||
| Exeunt. |