MACBETH – Abridged
Act 1, Scene 1
In the middle of a frightening thunder storm, deep in the woods, deep into Scotland, three witches enter.
FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Where the place?
SECOND WITCH
Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
ALL THREE
Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.
[They exit]
Act 1, Scene 2
A bleeding captain enters, with King Duncan, his son, Malcolm, and others present.
DUNCAN
What bloody man is that?
MALCOLM
This is the sergeant who fought against my captivity. Say to the king the knowledge of the broil as thou didst leave it.
CAPTAIN
Brave Macbeth, disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel unseamed the enemy from the nave to th’ chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements. Then the Norweyan lord began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN
Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
CAPTAIN
Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion. But I am faint.
DUNCAN
Go get him surgeons.
[The captain is led off. Ross and Angus, nobles, enter.]
DUNCAN
Who comes here?
MALCOLM
The worthy Thane of Ross.
DUNCAN
Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane?
ROSS
From Fife, great king, where the Norweyan banners flout the sky. Norway, himself, was assisted by that most disloyal traitor, the Thane of Cawdor. And to conclude, the victory fell on us.
DUNCAN
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present death, and with his formal title greet Macbeth. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
[They exit.]
Act 1, Scene 3
Separately, the three witches are talking among themselves when Macbeth and Banquo enter.
MACBETH
Speak if you can. What are you?
FIRST WITCH
Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, though shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear your favors nor your hate.
THIRD WITCH
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo.
[The witches vanish.]
MACBETH (to Banquo)
By my father’s death I know I am Thane
Of Glamis, but how of Cawdor, the bane
Of all who would be king, a prosperous
Gentleman, who lives? Say from whence they owe
This most strange intelligence; why give us
Such prophetic greeting? Where did they go,
As breath into the wind? If this be ill,
Why do I feel success? If good, why fill
I my head with present fears that unfix
My hair and make my seated heart knock at
My ribs? My fearful thought of murder sticks
As to smother and shake my state, as that
Of one who functions not. But if I were
To be king, chance may crown me without stir.
BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner.
MACBETH
Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO
You shall be king.
MACBETH
And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?
BANQUO
To th’ selfsame tune and words. Who’s there?
[Ross and Angus enter.]
ROSS
The king hath happily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success.
ANGUS
We are sent to give thee from our royal master thanks.
ROSS
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor, most worthy thane, for it is thine.
MACBETH
The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?
ANGUS
Who was the Thane live yet, but under heavy judgment bears that life which he deserves to lose. Reasons capital, confessed and proved, have overthrown him.
MACBETH (aside to Banquo)
Do you not hope your children shall be kings when those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me promised no less to them?
BANQUO
But ‘tis strange. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH
Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten. Let us toward the king. Come, friends.
[They exit.]
Act 1, Scene 4
King Duncan and his sons and others enter.
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor?
MALCOLM
My liege, I have spoke with one who saw him die, who did report that very frankly he confessed his treasons and set forth a deep repentance. Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.
[Macbeth, Banquo, Ross and Angus enter.]
DUNCAN (To Macbeth)
O worthiest cousin, only I have left to say, more is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself.
DUNCAN
Noble Banquo, that hast no less deserved nor must be known no less to have done so.
BANQUO
There, if I grow, the harvest is your own.
DUNCAN
Sons, kinsmen, thanes know we will establish our estate upon our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter the Prince of Cumberland; which honor must not unaccompanied invest him only. From hence to Inverness and bind us further to you.
MACBETH
I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful the hearing of my wife with your approach.
MACBETH (Aside)
The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down or else o’erleap, for in my way it lies. Let not light see my black and deep desires.
[Macbeth and Banquo exits.]
DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant. It is a peerless kinsman.
[They exit.]
Act 1, Scene 5
Macbeth writes a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her of the encounter with the witches; how they called him Thane of Cawdor and told him he would be king. Lady Macbeth reads the letter. A messenger enters.
MESSENGER
The king comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Thou ‘rt mad, to say it. Is not thy master with him, who, were ‘t so, would have informed for preparation?
MESSENGER
So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming.
[He exits. Lady Macbeth talks to herself.]
Lady Macbeth to herself, No. 1
Thou shalt be what thou are promised, yet do
I fear thy lack cruelness; that thou art too
Full o’ th’ milk of human kindness to
Take this dire need. Glamis, thou wouldst be
Great, art not without ambition, but do
Lack the illness should attend it. What thee
Fear more to do than wishest should be
Undone. Bear fair welcome; let him not see
What’s inside your book. Let not your face call
Your mind. Look the flower of innocence
But be the serpent under’t. Leave all
The rest to me. With the fatal entrance
Of Duncan, here ‘neath my battlements be,
Never shall he the sun that morrow see.
[Macbeth enters.]
LADY MACBETH
Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, greater than both by the all-hail hereafter. The letters have transported me beyond this ignorant present, and I feel now the future in the instant.
MACBETH
My dearest love, Duncan comes here tonight.
LADY MACBETH
And when goes hence?
MACBETH
Tomorrow. We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH
To alter favor ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me.
[They exit.]
Act 1, Scene 6
King Duncan and entourage arrive at Inverness.
DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses.
[Lady Macbeth enters.]
DUNCAN
See, see our honored hostess!
LADY MACBETH
All our service were poor and single business to contend against those honors deep and broad wherewith your Majesty loads our house.
DUNCAN
Where’s the Thane of Cawdor? Fair and noble hostess, we are your guest tonight. Give me your hand. We love him highly and shall continue our graces towards him.
[They exit.]
Act 1, Scene 7
Along on the stage, Macbeth thinks through what his wife has planned for him.
MACBETH
If it were done when ‘tis done, then, ‘twere well it were done quickly.
Macbeth to himself, No. 1
If we know th’ assassination might
Be the be-all and end-all here this night,
In this brief shoal of time, we’d jump the life
To come. Teaching a bloody lesson can
Return to plague th’ teacher, being rife
With risk. He’s here in double trust: kinsman
I, his subject and his host. O, what’s more
I should ‘gainst his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife! Duncan hath borne his skill
So meek and hath been in his office so
Clear. Rushing tears from this horrid deed will
Drown the wind; trumpet-tongued angels will crow
His virtues. Vaulting ambition may be
Here my intent, but could ball back on me.
MACBETH
I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition.
[Lady Macbeth enters.]
LADY MACBETH
He hath almost supped. Why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he asked for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honored me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon.
Lady Macbeth (to Macbeth)
Was the hope drunk when ambition did flow,
Waking now green and pale having dreamed so
Freely? Art thou afeard to be the same
In valor as thou art in desire? Would
Thou havest that ornament or in shame
Live a coward in thine own esteem? Could
You break this enterprise to me? When you
Durst do it, you were a man; and to do
More than what you planned, you’d be so much more
The man. Time and place have now made themselves;
Why their fitness unmake you when before
They not adhere? The prophecy foretells.
Never would I default had I doth rail
And swear to this as you. We shall not fail.
LADY MACBETH
Screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep, his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory shall be a fume. When in swinish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death, what cannot you and I perform upon th’ unguarded Duncan? What not put upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?
MACBETH
Will it not be received, when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and used their very daggers, that they have done ‘t?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other, as we shall make our griefs and clamor roar upon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
[They exit.]
Act 2, Scene 1
Banquo and his son Fleance are on stage.
BANQUO
How goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE
The moon is down. I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO
And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE
I take ‘t ‘tis later, sir.
[Macbeth and a servant enter.]
BANQUO
Give me my sword. Who goes there?
MACBETH
A friend.
BANQUO
What, sir, not yet at rest? The king’s abed. This diamond he greets your wife withal, by the name of most kind hostess.
[He gives Macbeth a diamond.]
BANQUO
I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters.
MACBETH
I think not of them. Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, we would spend it in some words upon that business.
BANQUO
At your kind’st leisure.
[Banquo and Fleance exit.]
MACBETH (to his servant)
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, she strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
[Servant exits.]
Macbeth to himself, No. 2
Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle to my hand? Let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, or art thou an imagined
Dagger, as palpable as this I will
Now draw. Thou marshall’st me as I planned
To go, with such a tool I plan to use.
And now blood on the blade! Is this a ruse
To mine eye or a sign of the bloody
Business ahead? Hear not my sure steps; one
Loose stone tells of me. The bell invites me
To this horror. I go and it is done.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
[Macbeth exits]
Act 2, Scene 2
Lady Macbeth is on the stage alone, waiting for Macbeth’s return.
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. What hath quenched them hath given me fire. He is about it. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, and ‘tis not done. I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ‘em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done ‘t.
[Macbeth enters with bloody daggers.]
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not her a noise?