The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Macbeth
William Shakespeare
Category: Drama
Genres: Tragedy,Psychological fiction,Horror
Level 9.362:01 h65.0 mb
Macbeth is a tragedy written by the greatest writer of all time. Shakespeare wrote the play that was performed in 1606. The story centers around a Scottish general, Macbeth, and his ambition to become king. The story contains witches, prophecies, murder, and deceit as Macbeth's dark destiny unfolds. What will Macbeth do to achieve his goal?

The Tragedy of Macbeth

by
William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Dramatis Personae

First Witch
Second Witch and Servant
Third Witch and Gentlewoman
Duncan, King of Scotland, Old Men and Lords

Malcolm, Son of Duncan, Sergeant,
Third Murderer and Soldiers
Lennox, Nobleman of Scotland
Ross, Nobleman of Scotland
Macbeth, General of the King's Army

Banquo, General of the King's Army,
and Siward, Earl of Northumberland, general of English forces
Angus, Nobleman of Scotland, and Second Murderer
Lady Macbeth
Messenger and Attendant

Fleance, a son to Banquo, and Young Siward, Siward's Son
Porter, Donalbain, Son of Duncan, and Cathness, Nobleman of Scotland
McDuff, Nobleman of Scotland
First Murderer
Hecate

Doctor
Apparitions
Lady McDuff
McDuff's Son
Menteth, Nobleman of Scotland,
and Seyton, Officer Attending on Macbeth
Narrator

Act I

Scene 1.
A Desert Place

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch. When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch. When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.

Third Witch. That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch. Where the place?

Second Witch. Upon the heath.

Third Witch. There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch. I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch. Paddock calls.

Third Witch. Anon.

All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt

Scene 2.
A Camp Near Forres

Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant

Duncan. What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.

Malcolm. This is the sergeant
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
‘Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.

Sergeant. Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald —
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him — from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show’d like a rebel’s whore: but all’s too weak:
For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name —
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix’d his head upon our battlements.

Duncan. O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

Sergeant. As whence the sun ‘gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seem’d to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had with valour arm’d
Compell’d these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
With furbish’d arms and new supplies of men
Began a fresh assault.

Duncan. Dismay’d not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

Sergeant. Yes;
As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorise another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

Duncan. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.
(Exit Sergeant, attended)
Who comes here?

Enter ROSS

Malcolm. The worthy thane of Ross.

Lennox. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.

Ross. God save the king!

Duncan. Whence camest thou, worthy thane?

Ross. From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm ‘gainst arm.
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.

Duncan. Great happiness!

Ross. That now Sweno, the Norways’ king, craves composition:
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colme’s inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

Duncan. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Ross. I’ll see it done.

Duncan. What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.

Exeunt

Scene 3.
A Heath Near Forres

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

First Witch. Where hast thou been, sister?

Second Witch. Killing swine.

Third Witch. Sister, where thou?

First Witch. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d:—
‘Give me,’ quoth I:
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Second Witch. I’ll give thee a wind.

First Witch. Thou’rt kind.

Third Witch. And I another.

First Witch. I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I’ the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.

Second Witch. Show me, show me.

First Witch. Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wreck’d as homeward he did come.

Drum within

Third Witch. A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.

All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm’s wound up.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO

Macbeth. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Banquo. How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these
So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

Macbeth. Speak, if you can: what are you?

First Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

Second Witch. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch. All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

Banquo. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I’ the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.

First Witch. Hail!

Second Witch. Hail!

Third Witch. Hail!

First Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Second Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier.

Third Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

First Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

Macbeth. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel’s death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

Witches vanish

Banquo. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?

Macbeth. Into the air; and what seem’d corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay’d!

Banquo. Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

Macbeth. Your children shall be kings.

Banquo. You shall be king.

Macbeth. And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?

Banquo. To the selfsame tune and words. Who’s here?

Enter ROSS and ANGUS

Ross. The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success; and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
In viewing o’er the rest o’ the selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence,
And pour’d them down before him.

Angus. We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.

Ross. And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
For it is thine.

Banquo. What, can the devil speak true?

Macbeth. The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow’d robes?

Angus. Who was the thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labour’d in his country’s wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess’d and proved,
Have overthrown him.

Macbeth. (Aside) Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind.
(To ROSS and ANGUS)
Thanks for your pains.
(To BANQUO)
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them?

Banquo. That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But ‘tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.
Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Macbeth. (Aside). Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.
(Aside) This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

Banquo. Look, how our partner’s rapt.

Macbeth. (Aside) If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.

Banquo. New horrors come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.

Macbeth. (Aside) Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Banquo. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

Macbeth. Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are register’d where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

Banquo. Very gladly.

Macbeth. Till then, enough. Come, friends.

Exeunt

Scene 4.
Forres. The Palace

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants

Duncan. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet return’d?

Malcolm. My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report
That very frankly he confess’d his treasons,
Implored your highness’ pardon and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As ‘twere a careless trifle.

Duncan. There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
(Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS)
O worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

Macbeth. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness’ part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour.