Macbeth - Power and Corruption (Polanski's the Tragedy of Macbeth) Page #6

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- Her eyes are open.

- Ay, but their sense is shut.

- What is it she does now?

- An accustomed action.

To seem thus washing her hands.

Yet here's a spot.

Out, damned spot.

Out, I say!

One.

Two.

Why then 'tis time to do it.

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'd have thought the old man

to have so much blood in him?

Well, well!

The Thane of Fife had a wife.

Where is she now?

What, will these hands

ne'er be clean?

No more of that, my lord.

You mar all with this starting.

Go to. You have known

what you should not.

She has spoke what she should not,

I am sure of that.

Here's the smell of blood still.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not

sweeten this little hand.

What a sigh is there!

The heart is sorely charged.

Wash your hands,

put on your nightgown.

Look not so pale.

I tell you, Banquo's buried.

He cannot come out of his grave.

Even so?

To bed, to bed.

Come. Come.

Come, give me your hand.

What's done cannot be undone.

To bed, to bed.

More needs she the divine

than the physician.

God! God forgive us all.

Look after her. Remove from her means

of annoyance and keep eyes upon her.

- Good night.

- Good night, good doctor.

How does your patient, doctor?

Not so sick, as she's troubled with

fancies that keep her from her sleep.

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister

to a mind diseased?

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?

Raze out the written troubles

of the brain?

And with some sweet,

oblivious antidote...

...cleanse the bosom of that perilous

stuff which weighs upon the heart?

Therein the patient

must minister to himself.

Throw physic to the dogs.

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 pronounced me thus:

"Fear not. No man that's born of woman

shall e'er have power upon thee."

Then fly, false thanes...

...and mingle

with the English epicures!

Our country sinks beneath the yoke.

It weeps, it bleeds.

And each new day

a gash is added to her wounds.

Each new morn new widows howl,

new orphans cry.

New sorrows strike heaven

on the face...

...that it resounds as if

it felt with Scotland.

Who comes here?

A countryman

who seems a stranger to us.

My ever gentle cousin.

Welcome hither.

- Stands Scotland where it did?

- Alas, poor country.

Afraid to know itself. It cannot

be called our mother, but our grave.

- What's the newest grief?

- Each minute teems a new one.

- How does my wife?

- Well.

- And my children?

- Well too.

- The tyrant has not battered at them?

- No. They were well at peace.

Be not a niggard of speech.

How goes it?

Your eye in Scotland will create

soldiers, make our women fight.

We are coming thither.

Gracious England hath lent us

good Seyward and 10,000 men.

An older and a better soldier none

that Christendom gives out.

Would I could answer

this comfort with the like.

But I have words that

will be howled out...

...where hearing should not catch them.

- What concern they?

- The main part pertains to you.

If it be mine, keep it not from me.

Quickly, let me have it.

Your castle is surprised,

your wife and babes slaughtered.

Merciful heaven.

What, man!

Ne'er put your hat upon your brows.

Give sorrow words.

My children too?

Wife, children, servants.

All that could be found.

- And I must be from thence. My wife?

- I have said.

Be comforted. Let's make us

medicines of our great revenge...

...to cure this deadly grief.

He has no children.

All my pretty ones!

Did you say all?

Hell-kite! What, all my chickens

and their dam at one fell swoop?

Dispute it like a man.

I shall do so, but I must

also feel it as a man.

I cannot but remember

such things were...

...that were most precious to me.

Did the heaven look on

and would not take their part?

Sinful Macduff,

they were struck for thee.

Not for their own demerits, but for

mine, fell slaughter on their souls.

Heaven rest them now.

Be this the whetstone of your sword.

Let grief convert to anger.

Blunt not the heart, enrage it!

Gentle heavens,

cut short all intermission.

Front to front bring thou

this fiend of Scotland and myself.

Our power is ready.

Macbeth is ripe for shaking.

Within my sword's length set him.

If he escape, heaven forgive him too.

- What does the tyrant?

- Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.

Some say he's mad. Others, that

lesser hate him, call it valiant fury.

Those he commands move in command.

Nothing in love.

He feels his title

hang loose about him...

...like a giant's robe

upon a dwarfish thief.

All that is within him

does condemn itself.

The English power is near,

led by Malcolm, Seyward and Macduff.

Near Birnam Wood shall we meet them.

That way are they coming.

The devil damn thee black, thou loon!

Where gotst thou that goose look?

There is 10,000...

- Geese? Villain?

- Soldiers, sir.

Thou lily-livered boy.

What soldiers, patch?

Those linen cheeks of thine

are counsellors to fear.

What soldiers, whey-face?

The English force, so please you.

Seyton! Take thy face hence.

I am sick at heart, when I behold...

Seyton, I say!

I have lived long enough.

My way of life is fallen

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!

- What's your gracious pleasure?

- What news more?

- All is confirmed which was reported.

I'll fight till from my bones my flesh

be hacked! Give me my armour!

- 'Tis not needed yet.

- I'll put it on.

Send out more horses,

scour the country.

Hang those that talk of fear.

Come, put mine armour on,

give me my sword.

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 it off, I say.

What rhubarb, senna

or what purgative drug...

...would scour these English hence?

Hearst thou of them?

Ay, my good lord. Your royal

preparation makes us hear something.

I will not be afraid

of death or bane...

...till Birnam Forest come

to Dunsinane.

Were I from Dunsinane

away and clear...

...profit again should

hardly draw me here.

- What wood is this before us?

- The wood of Birnam.

"They met me in the day of success.

And I have learned by

the perfect'st report...

...they have more in them

than mortal knowledge.

While I stood rapt

in the wonder of it, came...

...missives from the king,

who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor...

...by which title, before,

these weird sisters saluted me...

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