ACT 2 SCENE 1 Enter a Fairy at one door, and PUCK at another
PUCK
How now spirit! whither wander you?
Fairy
Over hill, over dale, through bush, through briar,
Over park, over pale, through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere, swifter than the Moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen, to dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats, spots you see;
Those be Rubies, Fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
Our Queen and all our elves come here anon.
PUCK
The King doth keep his Revels here to-night,
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian King;
She never had so sweet a changeling;
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the Forests wild.
But she (perforce) withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their Elves for fear
Creep into Acorn-cups and hide them there.
Fairy
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish spirit
Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
PUCK
Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal,
And sometime lurk I in a Gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the Ale.
The wisest Aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough.
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear,
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But room Fairy, here comes Oberon.
Fairy
And here my Mistress. Would that he were gone.
Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers
OBERON
Ill met by Moonlight, Proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairy skip hence.
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON
Tarry rash Wanton: am not I thy Lord?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy Lady: but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of Corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd Mistress and your Warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity.
OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta?
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy,
And never, since the middle Summer's spring
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs: which falling in the land
Have every petty river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the Moon (the governess of floods)
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoared-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my Henchman.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
The Fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a Votaress of my order,
And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind:
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire)
Would imitate, and sail upon the Land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our Round
And see our Moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy Fairy Kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay.
Exit TITANIA with her train
OBERON
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck come hither. Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
PUCK
I remember.
OBERON
That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold Moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
Exit
OBERON
Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
(As I can take it with another herb)
I'll make her render up her Page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him
DEMETRIUS
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood;
And here am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA
You draw me, you hard-hearted Adamant,
But yet you draw not Iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS
Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?
HELENA
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you,
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
(Unworthy as I am) to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,
(And yet a place of high respect with me)
Than to be used as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much,
To leave the City and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night
And the ill counsel of a desert place
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA
Your virtue is my privilege: for that
It is not night when I do see your face.
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you in my respect are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS
I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The Dove pursues the Griffin; the mild Hind
Makes speed to catch the Tiger. Bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
DEMETRIUS
I will not stay thy questions; let me go:
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA
Ay, in the Temple, in the Town, the Field,
You do me mischief. Fie Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be woo’d and were not made to woo.
Exit DEMETRIUS
I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Exit
OBERON
Fare thee well Nymph: ere he do leave this grove,
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Re-enter PUCK
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON
I pray thee, give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where Oxlips and the nodding Violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with Eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian Lady is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes,
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the Lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first Cock crow.
PUCK
Fear not, my Lord, your servant shall do so.
ExeunT
SCENE III. A heath
Thunder. Enter the three Witches
Drum within
Third Witch
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL
The weyward 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...
ANGUS
We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks;…
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….
MACBETH
Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind. Thanks for your pains.
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
Two truths are told,
As happy Prologues to the swelling act
Of the Imperial Theme. I thank you Gentlemen.
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
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
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
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
PUCK
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide:
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallow'd house:
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
Act2 Scene2
LADY MACBETH
My husband!
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
MACBETH
Hark!
Who lies i' the second chamber?
LADY MACBETH
Donalbain.
MACBETH
This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
MACBETH
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried 'Murder!'
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH
There are two lodged together.
MACBETH
One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'
When they did say 'God bless us!'
LADY MACBETH
Consider it not so deeply.
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?
I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,-LADY MACBETH
What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH
I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.
Exit. Knocking within
MACBETH
Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red. Re-enter Lady MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
Knocking within
I hear a knocking
At the south entry: retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.
Knocking within
Hark! more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself. Knocking within
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! Exeunt