Macbeth, William Shakespeare [good english books to read txt] 📗

ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;
The night is long that never finds the day.

[Exeunt.]


ACT V.

SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

[Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.]

DOCTOR.
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no
truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

GENTLEWOMAN.
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her
rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her
closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it,
afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this
while in a most fast sleep.

DOCTOR.
A great perturbation in nature, - to receive at once the
benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching - In this
slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual
performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

GENTLEWOMAN.
That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCTOR.
You may to me; and 'tis most meet you should.

GENTLEWOMAN.
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my
speech. Lo you, here she comes!

[Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.]

This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe
her; stand close.

DOCTOR.
How came she by that light?

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, good-night:
My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMAN.
Good-night, 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!
Where gott'st thou that goose look?

SERVANT.
There is ten thousand -

MACBETH.
Geese, villain?

SERVANT.
Soldiers, sir.

MACBETH.
Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

SERVANT.
The English force, so please you.

MACBETH.
Take thy face hence.

[Exit Servant.]

Seyton! - I am sick at heart,
When I behold - Seyton, I say!- This push
Will chair me ever or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Seyton! -

[Enter Seyton.]

SEYTON.
What's your gracious pleasure?

MACBETH.
What news more?

SEYTON.
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.

MACBETH.
I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.
Give me my armour.

SEYTON.
'Tis not needed yet.

MACBETH.
I'll put it on.
Send out more horses, skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear. - Give me mine armour. -
How does your patient, doctor?

DOCTOR.
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

MACBETH.
Cure her of that:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

DOCTOR.
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

MACBETH.
Throw physic to the dogs, - I'll none of it. -
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff: -
Seyton, send out. - Doctor, the Thanes fly from me. -
Come, sir, despatch. - If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again. - Pull't off, I say. -
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?

DOCTOR.
Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.

MACBETH.
Bring it after me. -
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exeunt all except Doctor.]

DOCTOR.
Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.]


SCENE IV. Country nearDunsinane: a Wood in view.

[Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward and his Son,
Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers,
marching.]

MALCOLM.
Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.

MENTEITH.
We doubt it nothing.

SIWARD.
What wood is this before us?

MENTEITH.
The wood of Birnam.

MALCOLM.
Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.

SOLDIERS.
It shall be done.

SIWARD.
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before't.

MALCOLM.
'Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFF.
Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

SIWARD.
The time approaches,
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have, and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate;
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
Towards which advance the war.

[Exeunt, marching.]


SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.

[Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers.]

MACBETH.
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, "They come:" our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.

[A cry of women within.]

What is that noise?

SEYTON.
It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[Exit.]

MACBETH.
I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
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 supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

[Re-enter Seyton.]

Wherefore was that cry?