MACBETH      We hear our bloody cousins are bestowed In England and in Ireland, not confessing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention. But of that tomorrow, When therewithal we shall have cause of state Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse. Adieu Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you? BANQUO        Ay, […]

MACBETH      Ride you this afternoon? BANQUO        Ay, my good lord. MACBETH      We should have else desired your good advice, Which still hath been both grave and prosperous, In this day’s council. But we’ll talk tomorrow. Is’t far you ride? BANQUO        As far, my lord, as will fill up the time ’Twixt this and supper. Go not […]

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady [as Queen], Lennox, Ross, Lords, and attendants MACBETH      Here’s our chief guest. LADY              If he had been forgotten, It had been as a gap in our great feast, And all-thing unbecoming. MACBETH     [to Banquo] Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir, And I’ll request your presence. BANQUO        Let your […]

Enter Banquo BANQUO        Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all As the weyard women promised, and I fear Thou played’st most foully for’t. Yet it was said It should not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from them (As upon […]

ROSS               Then ’tis most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. MACDUFF      He is already named, and gone to Scone To be invested. ROSS               Where is Duncan’s body? MACDUFF      Carried to Colmcille, The sacred storehouse of his predecessors And guardian of their bones. ROSS               Will you to Scone? MACDUF        No, cousin; I’ll to Fife. ROSS   […]

Enter Macduff ROSS   Here comes the good Macduff.— How goes the world, sir, now? MACDUFF      Why, see you not? ROSS   Is’t known who did this more than bloody deed? MACDUFF      Those that Macbeth hath slain. ROSS   Alas the day! What good could they pretend? MACDUFF      They were suborned. Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons, […]

OLD MAN                   ’Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. ROSS               And Duncan’s horses, a thing most strange and certain, Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, […]

Enter Ross with an Old Man OLD MAN       Threescore and ten I can remember well, Within the volume of which time I have seen Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night Hath trifled former knowings. ROSS   Ha, good father, Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, Threatens his bloody stage. By […]

MALCOLM      What will you do? Let’s not consort with them. To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England. DONALBAIN  To Ireland, I. Our separated fortune Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are, There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the nea’er in blood, The nearer bloody. […]

BANQUO        And when we have our naked frailties hid That suffer in exposure, let us meet, And question this most bloody piece of work To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us. In the great hand of God I stand, and thence Against the undivulged pretence I fight Of treasonous malice. MACDUFF      And so […]