Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady ⌜Macbeth,⌝
Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.MACBETH You know your own degrees; sit down. At first And last, the hearty welcome.⌜They sit.⌝LORDS Thanks to your Majesty.MACBETH Ourself will mingle with society5 And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time We will require her welcome.LADY MACBETH Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends, For my heart speaks they are welcome.Enter First Murderer ⌜to the door.⌝MACBETH 10 See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks. Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst. Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure The table round. ⌜He approaches the Murderer.⌝ There’s blood upon thy face.MURDERER 15’Tis Banquo’s then.MACBETH ’Tis better thee without than he within. Is he dispatched?MURDERER My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him.MACBETH Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats,20 Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.MURDERER Most royal sir, Fleance is ’scaped.MACBETH, ⌜aside⌝ Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,25 As broad and general as the casing air. But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe?MURDERER Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenchèd gashes on his head,30 The least a death to nature.MACBETH Thanks for that. There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow35 We’ll hear ourselves again.Murderer exits.LADY MACBETH My royal lord, You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making, ’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;40 From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.MACBETH, ⌜to Lady Macbeth⌝ Sweet remembrancer!— Now, good digestion wait on appetite And health on both!LENNOX 45 May ’t please your Highness sit.MACBETH Here had we now our country’s honor roofed, Were the graced person of our Banquo present, Who may I rather challenge for unkindness Than pity for mischance.ROSS 50 His absence, sir, Lays blame upon his promise. Please ’t your Highness To grace us with your royal company?MACBETH The table’s full.
LENNOX 55 Here is a place reserved, sir.MACBETH Where?LENNOX Here, my good lord. What is ’t that moves your Highness?MACBETH Which of you have done this?LORDS 60 What, my good lord?MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝ Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake Thy gory locks at me.ROSS Gentlemen, rise. His Highness is not well.LADY MACBETH Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus65 And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat. The fit is momentary; upon a thought He will again be well. If much you note him You shall offend him and extend his passion. Feed and regard him not.⌜Drawing Macbeth aside.⌝70 Are you a man?MACBETH Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appall the devil.LADY MACBETH O, proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear.75 This is the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!80 Why do you make such faces? When all’s done, You look but on a stool.MACBETH Prithee, see there. Behold, look! ⌜To the Ghost.⌝ Lo, how say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.—85 If charnel houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites.⌜Ghost exits.⌝LADY MACBETH What, quite unmanned in folly?MACBETH If I stand here, I saw him.LADY MACBETH 90 Fie, for shame!MACBETH Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time, Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear. The ⌜time⌝ has been95 That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end. But now they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns And push us from our stools. This is more strange Than such a murder is.LADY MACBETH 100 My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you.MACBETH I do forget.— Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends. I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing105 To those that know me. Come, love and health to all. Then I’ll sit down.—Give me some wine. Fill full.Enter Ghost. I drink to th’ general joy o’ th’ whole table And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.110 Would he were here! To all, and him we thirst, And all to all.LORDS Our duties, and the pledge.⌜They raise their drinking cups.⌝MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝ Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee. Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold;
115 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with.LADY MACBETH Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other;120 Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.MACBETH, ⌜to the Ghost⌝ What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves125 Shall never tremble. Or be alive again And dare me to the desert with thy sword. If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mock’ry, hence!⌜Ghost exits.⌝130 Why so, being gone, I am a man again.—Pray you sit still.LADY MACBETH You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admired disorder.MACBETH 135 Can such things be And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe When now I think you can behold such sights140 And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks When mine is blanched with fear.ROSS What sights, my lord?LADY MACBETH I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.145 Question enrages him. At once, good night. Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once.LENNOX Good night, and better health Attend his Majesty.
LADY MACBETH 150A kind good night to all.Lords ⌜and all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth⌝ exit.MACBETH It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak. Augurs and understood relations have155 By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood.—What is the night?LADY MACBETH Almost at odds with morning, which is which.MACBETH How say’st thou that Macduff denies his person160 At our great bidding?LADY MACBETH Did you send to him, sir?MACBETH I hear it by the way; but I will send. There’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow165 (And betimes I will) to the Weïrd Sisters. More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know By the worst means the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,170 Returning were as tedious as go o’er. Strange things I have in head that will to hand, Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.LADY MACBETH You lack the season of all natures, sleep.MACBETH Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse175 Is the initiate fear that wants hard use. We are yet but young in deed.They exit.
