ACT II
SCENE III. The same.
[Enter a Porter. Knocking within.]
PORTER
Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock. Who’s there, i’ th’ name of Belzebub? 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.] Knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ 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.] 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.] 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 th’ everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] 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.
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 awak’d him; here he comes.
LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir!
MACBETH
Good morrow, both!
MACDUFF
Is the King stirring, worthy thane?
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 Macduff.]
LENNOX
Goes the King hence today?
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,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confus’d events,
New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour’d the live-long 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.
[Enter Macduff.]
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH, LENNOX
What’s the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o’ th’ 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! 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!
[Alarum-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,
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 anywhere.—
Dear Duff, I pr’ythee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so.
[Enter Macbeth and Lennox with Ross.]
MACBETH
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv’d 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.
[Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.]
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.
LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seem’d, had done’t:
Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood;
So were their daggers, which, unwip’d, we found
Upon their pillows. They star’d, 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.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate, and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac’d 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,
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
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN
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
Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
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 undivulg’d pretence I fight Of treasonous malice.
MACBETH
Let’s briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i’ th’ hall together.
[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.]