Macbeth Page #4

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I conjure you, by that which you profess,

howe'er you come to know it,

answer me.

Speak, I charge you.

Be lion-mettled, proud,

and take no care who chafes,

who frets, or where conspirers are.

Macbeth shall never vanquished be.

Until Great Birnam Wood

to high Dunsinane Hill

shall come against him.

(Soldier) Beware Macduff.

Beware the Thane of Fife.

Dismiss me, enough.

- Beware Macduff.

- Beware Macduff.

- Beware the Thane of Fife.

- Beware Macduff.

Beware the Thane of Fife.

- Beware the Thane of Fife.

- Beware Macduff.

Beware the Thane of Fife.

Be bloody,

bold, and resolute.

Laugh to scorn the power of man,

for none of woman born

shall harm Macbeth.

Then live, Macduff.

What need I fear of thee?

But yet I'll make assurance double sure

and take a bond of fate:

thou shalt not live.

(Rumble of thunder)

Saw you the Weird Sisters?

No, my Lord.

Came they not by you?

No, indeed, my Lord.

Infected be the air whereon they ride

and damned all those that trust them!

(Whoops)

(Macbeth) 'Who was't came by?'

'Tis two or three, my Lord,

that bring you word.

Macduff has fled to England.

- Fled to England?

- Ay, my good Lord.

The flighty purpose never is overtook

unless the deed go with it.

The very firstlings of my heart

shall be the firstlings of my hand.

Be it thought and done.

Hell is murky.

What's done cannot be undone.

Skirr the country round.

Hang those that talk of fear.

The castle of Macduff I will surprise,

seize upon Fife,

give to the edge of the sword

his wife, his babes,

and all unfortunate souls

that trace him in his line.

No boasting like a fool.

This deed I'll do

before this purpose cool.

(Sobbing)

(Lady Macduff) Murder!

Murder!

Murder!

I have done no harm!

I have done no harm!

Murder!

(Screaming)

Murder!

No!

No, please, my babies!

No!

(Macbeth) 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 consequence

have pronounced me thus:

"Fear not, Macbeth.

"No man that's born of woman

shall e'er have power upon thee."

Then fly, false thanes,

and mingle with the English epicures.

Why are you silent?

(Lady Macduff) This tyrant,

whose sole name blisters our tongues,

was once thought honest.

Now is the time of help.

Your eye in Scotland

would create soldiers,

make our women fight

to doff their dire distresses.

Be it their comfort

we are coming thither.

I have words

that would be howled in the desert air

where hearing should not latch them.

My ever gentle cousin.

Stands Scotland where it did?

Alas, poor country,

it's almost afraid to know itself.

It cannot be called our mother

but our graves.

What's our newest grief?

Let not your ears despise my tongue

which shall possess them

with the heaviest sound

that ever yet they heard.

How does my wife?

Your castle is surprised,

your wife and babes

savagely slaughtered.

What man, hm?

What man?

My children too?

Wife, children, servants,

all that could be found.

(Macduff) He has no children!

All my pretty chickens

and their dam,

in one fell swoop?

Dispute it like a man.

Oh...

Oh, I will do so.

But I will also feel it as a man.

Sinful Macduff!

They were all struck for thee.

Be this the whetstone of your sword.

Let grief convert to anger.

Blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Gracious England hath lent us

ten thousand men.

Our power is ready.

Our lack is nothing but our leave.

Front to front

you bring thou

this fiend of Scotland and myself,

and within my sword's length

you set him.

If he scape,

heaven forgive him too.

(Lennox) 'Great Dunsinane

he strongly fortifies.

'Some say he's mad.

'Others, lesser, that hate him

'do call it valiant fury.'

But, for certain,

he cannot buckle his distempered cause

within the belt of rule.

Those he commands

move only in command.

'Nothing in love.

'Now does he feel

'his secret murders

sticking on his hands.'

(Lady Macbeth) Yet here's a spot.

Out, damned spot!

Out, I say!

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 would have thought

the old man to have had

so much blood in him?

The Thane of Fife had a wife.

Where is she now?

What?

Will these hands ne'er be clean?

No more o' that, my Lord.

No more o' that.

You mar all with this starting.

Here's the smell of the blood still.

All the perfumes of Arabia

will not sweeten this little hand.

Wash your hands.

Put on your nightgown.

Look not so pale.

To bed.

To bed.

There's knocking at the gate.

Come.

Come.

Come, come,

give me your hand.

What's done cannot be undone.

To bed.

To bed.

To bed.

To bed.

To bed.

To bed.

(Singing)

The devil damn thee black,

thou cream-faced loon.

Where got'st thou that goose look?

There's ten thousand.

Geese, villain?

Soldiers, sir.

Go, prick thy face

and over-red thy fear,

thou lily-livered boy.

What soldiers, patch?

The English force, so please you.

Hang out our banners

on the outward walls.

The cry is still, "They come!"

Our castle's strength

will laugh a siege to scorn.

Here let them lie

till famine and the ague eat them up.

Doctor.

The thanes fly from me.

What rhubarb, cyme

or what purgative drug

would scour these English hence?

Hear'st thou of them?

Ay, my good Lord.

Your royal preparation

makes us hear something.

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.

The Queen, my Lord, is dead.

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time

for such a word.

Tomorrow,

and tomorrow,

and tomorrow

creeps in this petty pace

from day to day

to the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

the way to dusty death.

Out.

Out, brief candle.

Life's but a walking shadow,

a poor player

that struts and frets

his hour upon the stage

and then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot,

full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing.

(Sobbing and wailing)

What is that noise?

It is the cry of women, my good Lord.

I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

The time has been

my senses would have cooled

to hear a night-shriek

and my fell of hair

would, at a dismal treatise,

rouse and stir

as life were in't.

I have supped full with horrors.

Direness, familiar

to my slaughterous thoughts,

cannot once start me.

(Footsteps approaching)

Thy story, quickly.

(Messenger) Gracious my Lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

but know not how to do it.

Seyton!

I am sick at heart when I behold.

Seyton, I say!

This push will chair me ever

or dis-seat me now.

I have lived long enough.

My way of life is fallen into the sere,

the yellow leaf.

And that which should

accompany old age as...

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