Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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4.2 Enter Macduff’s Wife, her Son, and Ross

LADY MACDUFF

What had he done to make him fly the land?

ROSS

You must have patience, madam.

LADY MACDUFF

He had none.

His flight was madness. When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors.

Ross

You know not

Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.

LADY MACDUFF

Wisdom—to leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His mansion, and his titles in a place

From whence himself does fly? He loves us not,

He wants the natural touch, for the poor wren,

The most diminutive of birds, will fight,

Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.

All is the fear and nothing is the love;

As little is the wisdom, where the flight

So runs against all reason.

Ross

My dearest coz,

I pray you school yourself. But for your husband,

He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows

The fits o’th’ season. I dare not speak much further,

But cruel are the times when we are traitors

And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour

From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,

But float upon a wild and violent sea

Each way and none. I take my leave of you;

Shall not be long but I’ll be here again.

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward

To what they were before. My pretty cousin,

Blessing upon you!

LADY MACDUFF

Fathered he is, and yet he’s fatherless.

ROSS

I am so much a fool, should I stay longer

It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.

I take my leave at once.

Exit

LADY MACDUFF

Sirrah, your father’s dead,

And what will you do now? How will you live?

MACDUFF’S SON

As birds do, mother.

LADY MACDUFF What, with worms and flies?

MACDUFF’S SON

With what I get, I mean, and so do they.

LADY MACDUFF

Poor bird, thou’dst never fear the net nor lime,

The pitfall nor the gin.

MACDUFF’S SON

Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.

My father is not dead, for all your saying.

LADY MACDUFF Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father?

MACDUFF’S SON Nay, how will you do for a husband?

LADY MACDUFF Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.

MACDUFF’S SON Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.

LADY MACDUFF Thou speak‘st with all thy wit, and yet, i’faith, with wit enough for thee.

MACDUFF’S SON Was my father a traitor, mother?

LADY MACDUFF Ay, that he was.

MACDUFF’S SON What is a traitor?

LADY MACDUFF Why, one that swears and lies.

MACDUFF’S SON And be all traitors that do so?

LADY MACDUFF Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.

MACDUFF’S SON And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

LADY MACDUFF Every one.

MACDUFF’S SON Who must hang them?

LADY MACDUFF Why, the honest men.

MACDUFF’S SON Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

LADY MACDUFF Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?

MACDUFF’S SON If he were dead you’d weep for him. If you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.

LADY MACDUFF Poor prattler, how thou talk’st!

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGER

Bless you, fair dame. I am not to you known,

Though in your state of honour I am perfect.

I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.

If you will take a homely man’s advice,

Be not found here. Hence with your little ones!

To fright you thus methinks I am too savage,

To do worse to you were fell cruelty,

Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you.

I dare abide no longer.

Exit Messenger

LADY MACDUFF

Whither should I fly?

I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,

Do I put up that womanly defence

To say I have done no harm?

Enter Murderers

What are these faces?

A MURDERER Where is your husband?

LADY MACDUFF

I hope in no place so unsanctified

Where such as thou mayst find him.

A MURDERER

He’s a traitor.

MACDUFF’S SON

Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain.

A MURDERER (stabbing him)

What, you egg!

Young fry of treachery!

MACDUFF’S SON

He has killed me, mother.

Run away, I pray you.

⌈He dies.⌉ Exit Macduff’s Wife crying ‘Murder!’

followed by Murderers ⌈with the Son’s body⌉

4.3 Enter Malcolm and Macduff

MALCOLM

Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

MACDUFF

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men

Bestride our downfall birthdom. 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 and yelled out

Like syllable of dolour.

MALCOLM

What I believe I’ll wail,

What know believe; and what I can redress,

As I shall find the time to friend, I will.

What you have spoke it may be so, perchance.

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,

Was once thought honest. You have loved him well.

He hath not touched you yet. I am young, but

something

You may discern of him through me: and wisdom

To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb

T’appease an angry god.

MACDUFF I am not treacherous.

MALCOLM But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon.

That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose.

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,

Yet grace must still look so.

MACDUFF

I have lost my hopes.

MALCOLM

Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,

Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,

Without leave-taking? I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,

Whatever I shall think.

MACDUFF

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy

wrongs;

The title is affeered. Fare thee well, lord.

I would not be the villain that thou think’st

For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp,

And the rich east to boot.

MALCOLM

Be not offended.

I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash

Is added to her wounds. I think withal

There would be hands uplifted in my right,

And here from gracious England have I offer

Of goodly thousands. But for all this,

When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head,

Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country

Shall have more vices than it had before,

More suffer, and more sundry ways, than ever,

By him that shall succeed.

MACDUFF

What should he be?

MALCOLM

It is myself I mean, in whom I know

All the particulars of vice so grafted

That when they shall be opened black Macbeth

Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state

Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.

MACDUFF

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned

In evils to top Macbeth.

MALCOLM

I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name. But there’s no bottom, none,

In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,

Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up

The cistern of my lust, and my desire

All continent impediments would o’erbear

That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth

Than such an one to reign.

MACDUFF

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny. It hath been

Th’untimely emptying of the happy throne,

And fall of many kings. But fear not yet

To take upon you what is yours. You may

Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty

And yet seem cold. The time you may so hoodwink.

We have willing dames enough. There cannot be

That vulture in you to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,

Finding it so inclined.

MALCOLM

With this there grows

In my most ill-composed affection such

A staunchless avarice that were I king

I should cut off the nobles for their lands,

Desire his jewels and this other’s house,

And my more having would be as a sauce

To make me hunger more, that I should forge

Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,

Destroying them for wealth.

MACDUFF

This avarice

Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root

Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been

The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear.

Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will

Of your mere own. All these are portable,

With other graces weighed.

MALCOLM

But I have none. The king-becoming graces,

As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,

Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,

I have no relish of them, but abound

In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

MACDUFF

O Scotland, Scotland!

MALCOLM

If such a one be fit to govern, speak.

I am as I have spoken.

MACDUFF

Fit to govern?

No, not to live. O nation miserable,

With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered,

When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,

Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction stands accursed

And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father

Was a most sainted king. The Queen that bore thee,

Oft‘ner upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she lived. Fare thee well.

These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself

Hath banished me from Scotland. O, my breast—

Thy hope ends here!

MALCOLM

Macduff, this noble passion,

Child of integrity, hath from my soul

Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts

To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth

By many of these trains hath sought to win me

Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me

From over-credulous haste; but God above

Deal between thee and me, for even now

I put myself to thy direction and

Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure

The taints and blames I laid upon myself

For strangers to my nature. I am yet

Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,

Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,

At no time broke my faith, would not betray

The devil to his fellow, and delight

No less in truth than life. My first false-speaking

Was this upon myself. What I am truly

Is thine and my poor country’s to command,

Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,

Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men,

Already at a point, was setting forth.

Now we’ll together; and the chance of goodness

Be like our warranted quarrel!—Why are you silent?

MACDUFF

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once

’is hard to reconcile.

Enter a Doctor

MALCOLM

Well, more anon. (To the Doctor) Comes the King

forth, I pray you?

DOCTOR

Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls

That stay his cure. Their malady convinces

The great essay of art, but at his touch,

Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,

They presently amend.

MALCOLM

I thank you, doctor. Exit Doctor

MACDUFF

What’s the disease he means?

MALCOLM

’is called the evil—

A most miraculous work in this good King,

Which often since my here-remain in England

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven

Himself best knows, but strangely visited people,

All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere despair of surgery, he cures,

Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,

Put on with holy prayers; and ’is spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,

And sundry blessings hang about his throne

That speak him full of grace.

Enter Ross

MACDUFF

See who comes here.

MALCOLM

My countryman, but yet I know him not.

MACDUFF

My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MALCOLM

I know him now. Good God betimes remove

The means that makes us strangers!

Ross

Sir, amen.

MACDUFF

Stands Scotland where it did?

Ross

Alas, poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing

But who knows nothing is once seen to smile;

Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air

Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems

A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell

Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives

Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying or ere they sicken.

MACDUFF

O relation

Too nice and yet too true!

MALCOLM

What’s the newest grief?

ROSS

That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

MACDUFF

How does my wife?

ROSS

Why, well.

MACDUFF

And all my children?

Ross

Well, too.

MACDUFF

The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

ROSS

No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.

MACDUFF

Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes’t?

ROSS

When I came hither to transport the tidings

Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour

Of many worthy fellows that were out,

Which was to my belief witnessed the rather

For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.

Now is the time of help. (To Malcolm) Your eye in

Scotland

Would create soldiers, make our women fight

To doff their dire distresses.

MALCOLM

Be’t their comfort

We are coming thither. Gracious England hath

Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;

An older and a better soldier none

That Christendom gives out.

Ross

Would I could answer

This comfort with the like. But I have words

That would be howled out in the desert air

Where hearing should not latch them.

MACDUFF

What concern they—

The general cause, or is it a fee-grief

Due to some single breast?

Ross

No mind that’s honest

But in it shares some woe, though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

MACDUFF

If it be mine,

Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.

ROSS

Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,

Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

MACDUFF

H’m, I guess at it.

ROSS

Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes

Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner

Were on the quarry of these murdered deer

To add the death of you.

MALCOLM

Merciful heaven!

(To Macduff) What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon

your brows.

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak

Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.

MACDUFF

My children too?

Ross

Wife, children, servants, all

That could be found.

MACDUFF

And I must be from thence!

My wife killed too?

ROSS

I have said.

MALCOLM

Be comforted.

Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge

To cure this deadly grief.

MACDUFF

He has no children. All my pretty ones?

Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

At one fell swoop?

MALCOLM Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF 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 heaven look on

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits but for mine

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now.

MALCOLM

Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief

Convert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it.

MACDUFF

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes

And braggart with my tongue! But gentle heavens

Cut short all intermission. Front to front

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself.

Within my sword’s length set him. If he scape,

Heaven forgive him too.

MALCOLM

This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the King. Our power is ready;

Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:

The night is long that never finds the day. Exeunt

5.1 Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman

DOCTOR I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

GENTLEWOMAN Since his majesty went into the field I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed, yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

DOCTOR A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation besides her walking and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say?

GENTLEWOMAN That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCTOR You may to me; and ’tis most meet you should.

GENTLEWOMAN Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper

Lo you, here she comes. This is her very guise, and,

upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her. Stand close.

DOCTOR How came she by that light?

GENTLEWOMAN Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually. ’Tis her command.

DOCTOR You see her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMAN Ay, but their sense are shut.

DOCTOR What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMAN It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETH Yet here’s a spot.

DOCTOR Hark, she speaks. I will set down what comes from her to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

LADY MACBETH Out, damned spot; out, I say. One, two,—why, then ’tis time to do’t. 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?

DOCTOR Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH 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.

DOCTOR Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.

GENTLEWOMAN She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETH Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!

DOCTOR What a sigh is therel The heart is sorely charged.

GENTLEWOMAN I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

DOCTOR Well, well, well.

GENTLEWOMAN Pray God it be, sir.

DOCTOR This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

LADY MACBETH Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried. He cannot come out on’s grave.

DOCTOR Even so?

LADY MACBETH 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.

Exit

DOCTOR Will she go now to bed?

GENTLEWOMAN Directly.

DOCTOR

Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

More needs she the divine than the physician.

God, God forgive us all! Look after her.

Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night.

My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.

I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMAN

Good night, good doctor.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, soldiers, with a drummer and colours

MENTEITH

The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.

Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes

Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm

Excite the mortified man.

ANGUS

Near Birnam Wood

Shall we well meet them. That way are they coming.

CAITHNESS

Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

LENNOX

For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file

Of all the gentry. There is Siward’s son,

And many unrough youths that even now 10

Protest their first of manhood.

MENTEITH

What does the tyrant?

CAITHNESS

Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.

Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him

Do call it valiant fury; but for certain

He cannot buckle his distempered cause

Within the belt of rule.

ANGUS

Now does he feel

His secret murders sticking on his hands.

Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach.

Those he commands move only in command,

Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENTEITH

Who then shall blame

His pestered senses to recoil and start

When all that is within him does condemn

Itself for being there?

CAITHNESS

Well, march we on

To give obedience where ’tis truly owed.

Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,

And with him pour we in our country’s purge,

Each drop of us.

LENNOX

Or so much as it needs

To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.

Make we our march towards Birnam.

Exeunt, marching