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Home > Macbeth > ACT II - SCENE III. The same.

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ACT II - SCENE III. The same.
Knocking within. Enter a Porter

Porter
1    Here's a knocking indeed! If a
2    man were porter of hell-gate, he should have
3    old turning the key.
Knocking within
4    Knock,
5    knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of
6    Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged
7    himself on the expectation of plenty: come in
8    time; have napkins enow about you; here
9    you'll sweat for't.
Knocking within
10   Knock,
11   knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
12   name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
13   swear in both the scales against either scale;
14   who committed treason enough for God's sake,
15   yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
16   in, equivocator.
Knocking within
17   Knock,
18   knock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an
19   English tailor come hither, for stealing out of
20   a French hose: come in, tailor; here you may
21   roast your goose.
Knocking within
22   Knock,
23   knock; never at quiet! What are you? But
24   this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter
25   it no further: I had thought to have let in
26   some of all professions that go the primrose
27   way to the everlasting bonfire.
Knocking within
28   Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.
Opens the gate

Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX

MACDUFF
29   Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
30   That you do lie so late?
Porter
31   'Faith sir, we were carousing till the
32   second cock: and drink, sir, is a great
33   provoker of three things.
MACDUFF
34   What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
35   Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
36   urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
37   it provokes the desire, but it takes
38   away the performance: therefore, much drink
39   may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
40   it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
41   him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
42   and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
43   not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
44   in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF
45   I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
46   That it did, sir, i' the very throat on
47   me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I
48   think, being too strong for him, though he took
49   up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast
50   him.
MACDUFF
51   Is thy master stirring?
Enter MACBETH
52   Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
LENNOX
53   Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
54   Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
55   Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
56   Not yet.
MACDUFF
57   He did command me to call timely on him:
58   I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH
59   I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
60   I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
61   But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
62   The labour we delight in physics pain.
63   This is the door.
MACDUFF
64   I'll make so bold to call,
65   For 'tis my limited service.
Exit

LENNOX
66   Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH
67   He does: he did appoint so.
LENNOX
68   The night has been unruly: where we lay,
69   Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
70   Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
71   And prophesying with accents terrible
72   Of dire combustion and confused events
73   New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
74   Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
75   Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH
76   'Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
77   My young remembrance cannot parallel
78   A fellow to it.
Re-enter MACDUFF

MACDUFF
79   O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
80   Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH
81   What's the matter.
MACDUFF
82   Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
83   Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
84   The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
85   The life o' the building!
MACBETH
86   What is 't you say? the life?
LENNOX
87   Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF
88   Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
89   With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;
90   See, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX
91   Awake, awake!
92   Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!
93   Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
94   Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
95   And look on death itself! up, up, and see
96   The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
97   As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
98   To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.
Bell rings

Enter LADY MACBETH

LADY MACBETH
99   What's the business,
100  That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
101  The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
MACDUFF
102  O gentle lady,
103  'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
104  The repetition, in a woman's ear,
105  Would murder as it fell.
Enter BANQUO
106  O Banquo, Banquo,
107  Our royal master 's murder'd!
LADY MACBETH
108  Woe, alas!
109  What, in our house?
BANQUO
110  Too cruel any where.
111  Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
112  And say it is not so.
Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS

MACBETH
113  Had I but died an hour before this chance,
114  I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
115  There 's nothing serious in mortality:
116  All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
117  The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
118  Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN

DONALBAIN
119  What is amiss?
MACBETH
120  You are, and do not know't:
121  The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
122  Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
MACDUFF
123  Your royal father 's murder'd.
MALCOLM
124  O, by whom?
LENNOX
125  Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
126  Their hands and faces were an badged with blood;
127  So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
128  Upon their pillows:
129  They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
130  Was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
131  O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
132  That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
133  Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
134  Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
135  Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
136  The expedition my violent love
137  Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
138  His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
139  And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
140  For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
141  Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
142  Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
143  That had a heart to love, and in that heart
144  Courage to make 's love known?
LADY MACBETH
145  Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF
146  Look to the lady.
MALCOLM
Aside to DONALBAIN
147   Why do we hold our tongues,
148  That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN
Aside to MALCOLM
149   What should be spoken here,
150  where our fate,
151  Hid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
152  Let 's away;
153  Our tears are not yet brew'd.
MALCOLM
Aside to DONALBAIN
154   Nor our strong sorrow
155  Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO
156  Look to the lady:
LADY MACBETH is carried out
157  And when we have our naked frailties hid,
158  That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
159  And question this most bloody piece of work,
160  To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
161  In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
162  Against the undivulged pretence I fight
163  Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF
164  And so do I.
ALL
165  So all.
MACBETH
166  Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
167  And meet i' the hall together.
ALL
168  Well contented.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain

MALCOLM
169  What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
170  To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
171  Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
DONALBAIN
172  To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
173  Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
174  There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
175  The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM
176  This murderous shaft that's shot
177  Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
178  Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
179  And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
180  But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
181  Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
Exeunt

< (Previous) ACT II, SCENE IIACT II, IV (Next) >
Scene Index
ACT I
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI
  • SCENE VII


  • ACT II
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV


  • ACT III
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI


  • ACT IV
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III


  • ACT V
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI
  • SCENE VII
  • SCENE VIII

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