Blood-Ridden (part 2)
Pairing: Joel Miller x (firefly)male! Reader
Warnings: tiny tiny sexual theme, imagery of abuse, violence and gore, attempted suicide, intrusive thoughts and some throwing up 😉
Summary: Tommy's brother joel is over and after a argument and storming out you meet someone who makes you feel a way you haven't felt in 10 years.
(set 10 years after the first one, you're well acquainted with joel and tess)
(blue and red text is for thoughts reader has sort of like a angel and devil on each shoulder kind of deal)
Part 1: here
Part 3: here
....................................
It's been ten years since you first met Tommy, since he first introduced you to the fireflies and gave you what you considered to be a family and a home. The fireflies were your family, your not-so-little messed up family of wanted terrorists and you felt happy. Sometimes for a second you forget the problems with the world, everything for just a moment is good again.
But its always hard to forget the things you've done. The people you have killed, ten years ago you couldn't even shoot a gun and now... Well now you're some sort of monster, you can't look at yourself in the mirror without hating what you've become but you keep on killing? You think it's become some kind of natural reaction to danger or a threat to, slit their throat, beat them in with a wrench or... This one you liked to call a 'merciless macdonwald' where you do a shit job at slicing them from their abdomen to their cheeks and then... You need to stop thinking about this, it's not doing you any good for your guilty conscience, what's wrong with you, you freak, you monster, you fucking-
Your thoughts were broken by the door to you and Tommy's shared apartment opening, you jolted up to sit on the uncomfortable couch you were laying on- stupid thing all the springs are broken and theres a patch of damp on one of the pillows. You look up and see tommy with his brother, Joel what a dick he pisses you off so much you should just-
"hey y/n, we wake you?" Tommy asks with a soft smile. "No, no. I was awake, just thinking" you reply, returning the smile.
"Me and Joel are gonna hang out here for a while if thats alright?" You know he's only asking because he knows you and Joel don't tend to get on, but he also knows what you're going to say. "Yeah that's fine." You reply and he smiled back as a silent thank you.
You slowly stand up, getting off of the couch letting out a small groan. You've lost count of the amount of times you've been, hit, punched, scratched, cut, shot at... You could go on forever, but the main point is your body is spotted in bruises and cuts constantly. The bruises are only from people trying to protect themselves against you, they dont want to die you freak. No, no, most of the time they shot or swung first dont pin this on me like I'm some mindless sociopath! At this point you are! Am not! Oh yeah you are, sometimes you barely have the courteousy to put them out of the their misery! How is not actually killing them bad now? You like to watch them writhe around and scream for you to help them don't you, you get off on it! Yeah you do! Don't deny it!
"you gonna keep starin' at that wall or are you gonna answer me?" You quickly swung your neck around to see who was talking, it was joel. "What did you say?" You ask trying to be polite and answer whatever he had to say to you. "Jeez, someone's losin' it. Tommy's got rations." He remarks and walks away. Losing it? Losing it? You're not losing it! Hes losing it!
"I'm not losing it asshole. Can't a guy think anymore?" You bark back. "Guys! Don't do this now, lets just eat and be functional for just a second?" Tommy quickly says before Joel could get the chance to say something snarky back at you.
You grab your rations, a little too aggressively but only because Joel still has you riled up and angry, and you go sit on the couch again. The food is some disgusting tasteless jerky, honestly doesn't make you any less hungry and you wonder what it's made out of.
"you ever thought about leaving the fireflies" you overhear Joel asking Tommy. "No, we fight for a good cause. You don't like FEDRA either Joel, we're just using our hate into something productive. Y/n gets it." Tommy replies and you turn around to look at him. "Yeah." You say taking the last bite of the whatever-the-hell jerky you got given, with that you get up and go to the sink to get a drink. FEDRA might be fascist assholes but they do still give you running water..
"y/n only gets it because hes a firefly to. And you really believe killing people is productive?" Joel snaps back and tommy. "It was productive before, dont talk to me like you're innocent Joel." Tommy replies, he sounds like hes losing his mind here. "You're right, but at least i stopped."
"will you shut the fuck up Joel?! I swear to God you can't go a single second without saying something and being an asshole to anyone, it makes me want to-" you shut your mouth knowing your thoughts were about the get the better of you, you can't let that happen, you can't.
"want to what, y/n. Go on, what d'you wanna do to me?" Joel says, you can't tell what hes trying to do - is he trying to get a rise out of you? Make you say something you'll regret? You can't say what you're thinking Tommy will hate you! Tell him.
Tell him every last little thing you've dreamt of doing to him, all the disgusting images in your head of you killing him. Cmon dont be such a pussy-
You quickly storm out of the apartment, you can't, you can't let your thoughts get the best of you. Be stronger than your thoughts, they're in your head, they're harmless, nothing to worry about, they're -
Suddenly you bump into someone causing you both to stumble. "Shit, I'm so sorry! Here let me help you" you say quickly grabbing the persons hand and helping them up. Once they were up you finally got a good look at them, you'd bumped into a really handsome man- he had blonde hair and gorgeous blue/grey eyes you could just drown in. You felt yourself getting embarrassed.
"thankyou, hey it's no problem, things happen." He says with a bright smile, he reminded you of a golden retriever. "Hey uh... What's you're name?" You ask him, sounding quite timid against your own will. "Names Charlie, you?"
"y/n" you reply still admiring him.
------------------------------------------
Two years, you and Charlie had been attached by the hip he asked you to be his boyfriend a month after meeting him. Spending these two years with him is up their in the best times of your life, but the standards for that list dropped significantly at the start of the infection so just having a relationship with someone feels like heaven.
Though, recently he's started becoming distant. So, when Marlene asked the two of you to leave the QZ and search for supplies needed to create some more explosives you were over the moon, hoping it'll bring you two closer together again.
"y/n ans charlie, you two can go together to collect supplies." Marlene said pointing at the two of you. You smiled at Charlie, but he seemed disappointed "you're kidding right? You're putting him with me? Can't i go with Tommy or something?" Charlie pleaded. "What do you mean? Is working with me really that bad?" You ask, offended.
"stop, both of you. You're working together thats final." She ordered, then showing you the route on the map.
An hour later you and Charlie were outside the QZ, it was late and you still had a mile before the first rest stop. You decide asking Charlie about his reaction earlier might be a good idea. "Charlie." You begin.
"what do you want?" He replies with malice. "What the hell is your problem with me? We're supposed to be a couple but you're treating me like shit!"
"you ever thought maybe you're an annoying peice of shit and deserve to be treated like one?" Charlie says without hesitation. You go silent, confused why suddenly he hates your guts. But, you start thinking- he's always pushed limits with how he treats you, you were just blinded with love. You think back to a time where you were showering together, when he suddenly put his hand to your throat at first you laughed and thought he wanted to have a bit of fun. But then he applied some pressure, he just kept putting more and more pressure onto your throat until you couldn't breathe, when he pulled away he just left you in the bathroom with your neck already bruising.
Now you see why Tommy only ever speaks to him when hes been forced to work with him, tommy realised much earlier how he was treating you, he tried to warn you why didnt you do anything? Stupid, stupid, stupid, maybe you wouldn't have fallen in love with him and you wouldn't be in this situation.
You kept your mouth shut until you got the the first rest point, Charlie flopped onto a shitty old couch while you got to work setting up a fire and your sleeping bags.
"why do you have such a problem with me?" You finally ask. "Dunno you just piss me off, stop asking questions." He spits. "What? No! I want to know what i ever did to you to deserve treatment like this!" You start feeling extremely pissed off.
Charlie jolts up and walks towards you "Maybe it's all these God damn fucking questions you keep asking thats making me treat you this way! I don't want to have to be such a dick! You're making me be this way!" He screams at you, some of his spit getting on your face. The argument gets progressively more heated before Charlie seemingly snaps and hits you around the face and pushes you to the ground with a strong grip on your throat. You're gasping for air while clawing at his hands.
Get out of his grip and rip him to fucking shreds, you want to you know you want to. He'll kill you if you dont kill him! Show him that side of you only Tommy's seen!
That was it, you kicked Charlie's crotch with all your might causing him to scream and jolt backwards. You quickly scrambled to your feet and grab a metal pipe laying in a scrap pile next to you. All you see is red as you close in on him. Blood splatters onto your torso and face, soon you were seeing a sight you were familiar with. A person on the floor Infront of you with their face bashed in - unrecognisable. When you came to your senses you started to hyperventilate, what had you done, you killed Charlie.
Your only idea was to grab your gun put it to your chin and fire. Your gun was in your back pocket, you grab it and put it to your chin, your hand shaking, your breathing frantic and tears leaving your eyes. Do it. And you fired.
You were still alive? What the hell was going on? It all came to you as you felt you face and saw your own blood on your hand, and then a suddenly twang of pain on your face. You had missed, you had missed and the bullet just left a wound up your face. Fuck. Idiot how the hell do you miss your own head?!
You pack your stuff up leaving every peice of Charlie's belongings there and quickly went in the direction of the QZ, you thought if you run fast enough it'll still be dark when you get through.
A couple hours later you had made it through and into the QZ, the sun was rising as you entered you and Tommy's apartment. Joel was asleep on the couch, you coming through the door didnt wake him so he had clearly taken something to fall asleep. You woke Tommy though and as you were catching your breath against the door a frightened Tommy stood opposite to you.
"shit, y/n what the fuck happened." He asks with his face covered in worry. He took a few steps towards you. You can't even fucking trust yourself not to kill him, your best friend, you're deranged don't go near him. "Don't! Just don't! Stay there!" Tears started to escape from your eyes again when you couldn't catch your breath. You directed yourself to the sink and immediately washed your hands and face, you kept trying to catch your breath but ended up just vomiting into the sink letting all of the anxiety, regret and worry out. Only then were you able to gasp and catch your breath and you collapsed to the floor leaning against the cabinet behind you and your face in your hands. Don't act like you feel guilty, you enjoyed bashing his skull in.
Tommy approached you. "Can i come closer?" You only nodded and he sat next to you. "Can i ask? I was thinkin' if i know to i can help tell Marlene once you've slept." You sat there in silence for a moment longer. Why did you let him get closer? Who knows what you'll do.
"i killed him" you blurted out. "Who? Charlie?" You nodded. "He, hit me. He put his hands on my neck he tried to - " you quickly took a deep breath not wanting to freak yourself out again. "He try to kill you?" You nodded. Yeah thats right you killed him it's all your fault.
Tommy went silent before asking "are you worried Marlene is going to react bad?" You just nod again, worrying any words that come out are going to be accompanied with tears. "She wont, trust me y/n. She tends to be pretty reasonable and she damn well likes you I'll tell ya that." He reassured you. Hes lying to make you feel better, Marlene is going to hate you just like everyone else."Right." You finally say. "Well that slice on your face is pretty bad, let me see what i can do." Tommy grabbed the box of smuggled in first aid supplies and managed to give you a couple stitches and patch up most of it, though it was awkward with the direction the bullet went in. It meant the wound was deep and bleeding quite a bit and patching it up is awkward and difficult. "Sure is gonna leave a nasty scar." He mentions. "I know." You say simply. "Well you should rest up, wake me if you need anything. Please." "Alright Tommy." And with that you both went to bed, but you barely slept, all you saw was Charlie's bashed in skull.
The next day you explained to Marlene what happened, not letting a single emotion slip infront of her. Tommy was right, she was very reasonable and you appreciated it but she had to send Tommy and a newer firefly out to get the supplies you failed to get meaning you'd be alone in the apartment for at least a day. You'll figure out a way to keep your head occupied. It'll be okay, Marlene took the situation well and Tommy is only away for a day. Or you could try again.. do it right this time.
You wished tommy the best of luck as he set off with the younger man and then made your way back to your apartment flopping onto the couch.
Shit it was quiet. Occupying your head was going to be a bit more difficult than you thought. You got up and got onto your hands and knees pulling up a floor board, under it was smuggled medications and weapons but also some books. You'd managed to smuggle in some random books you must've read over a thousand times. You picked up a book that was written by love craft, you remember finding this one in a vintage bookstore you and tommy set up shop in one time on a supply run, the innards of the book made you chuckle so you let your wants get the best of you and took it. Reading that book for the first time it was so strange it really made you laugh, read that! It'll make you feel much better! Do it. Try again.
You let out a small chuckle as you put the floor board back and sat on the couch opening the book up. Once you'd settled in reading the book the door suddenly opened to show a pretty soggy Joel, you hadn't noticed that it was raining outside. Joel! Now you're not so lonely this will be nice! Make it a murder suicide, you hate him, you could kill him and then yourself!
"wheres Tommy?" He asks out of breath.
"out on a supply run, why? Something happen?" You ask getting worried but he just shakes his head. "No, im just getting old is all." He closes the door and walks over to the countertop to grab the cloth and attempt to dry off his hair. "The hell happened to your face?" He asks setting the cloth down. "Just dont ask, not in the mood." You reply still trying to read your book.
Joel went quiet and the room was filled with an awkward silence.
"y'know, five years ago... I tried to... Well." Joel finally says. You turn around to look at him. "Yeah?" "Yeah. I guess, it was a mix of everything I'd lost and... Not seeing any kind of future for myself in here." You felt a twang of anxiety, not used to the honestly joel was showing you. "Basically i know what you're goin' through" he finishes. "I, uh. Thanks joel." The room went silent again but this time more comfortable than the last. This is nice, he really seems to like you.
"what ya reading?" Joels asks you as he picks up the cloth again to try and dry off his clothes as well as possible. You get up and walk over placing the book on the counter top. "Lovecraft, found it in a vintage bookstore on a supply run with Tommy." You give him a smug look which he chuckles at. "You can borrow it if you want, not sure if you're a big reader, i sure wasn't but man it passes time." You push the book a bit closer to him, he accepts. "Alright, I'll try it out but if its bad im pinning it on you." You both laugh. Wow he's just incredible, he has a lovely smile and a lovely laugh.
For a second you forgot how much you hated him, you kind of felt a bit warm inside when talking to him. It felt almost like butterflies but, you'd feel to guilty to admit that to yourself you just killed your ex boyfriend it would be sick to move on just like that. Then plus, Joel isn't gay, he hated your guts before now so theres no real chance.
"i would've done the same." Joel says. "What do you mean?" You look at him confused. "I overheard a few things when you had that conversation with Tommy. I would've done the same."
You look at the ground, do you really want to have this conversation right now? "You dont have to say anythin' but just so you know, i think you did the right thing, noone who thinks treating a person they're meant to love like that is right deserves that and worse." He puts a hand on your shoulder making you shiver. You look at him, he had his usual cold stare but you could sort of see some kind of care behind his gaze it made you feel warm again and fuzzy.
You couldn't help pull him into an embrace which he reciprocated almost instantly, you can't imagine how touch starved he must be so this hug might've just been what both of you needed...
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A/n: ANOTHER long one sorry bout that, just would like to take my time with this series and make sure its pretty damn detailed. the last thing I'd ever want is for someone to read my work not knowing something is in it and accidentally getting triggered- so also if i have missed any warnings PLEASE tell me 🙇
Also tysm all of you for the support, was fully expecting part 1 to flop y'all got me giggling and kicking my feet fr 🤭 hope you enjoyed.
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ACT 1
Scene 1
Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.
FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH
When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH I come, Graymalkin.
SECOND WITCH Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
They exit.
Scene 2Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm,
Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding
Captain.
DUNCAN
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
MALCOLM This is the sergeant
Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
’Gainst my captivity.—Hail, brave friend!
Say to the King the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
CAPTAIN Doubtful it stood,
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald
(Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.
DUNCAN
O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
CAPTAIN
As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
Shipwracking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seemed to
come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN
Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and
Banquo?
CAPTAIN
Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks,
So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell—
But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:
They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons.
The Captain is led off by Attendants.
Enter Ross and Angus.
Who comes here?
MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Ross.
LENNOX
What a haste looks through his eyes!
So should he look that seems to speak things
strange.
ROSS God save the King.
DUNCAN Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane?
ROSS From Fife, great king,
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor,
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict,
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapped in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point, rebellious arm ’gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit. And to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
DUNCAN Great happiness!
ROSS That now Sweno,
The Norways’ king, craves composition.
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursèd at Saint Colme’s Inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present
death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS I’ll see it done.
DUNCAN
What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
They exit.
Scene 3
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
FIRST WITCH Where hast thou been, sister?
SECOND WITCH Killing swine.
THIRD WITCH Sister, where thou?
FIRST WITCH
A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap
And munched and munched and munched. “Give
me,” quoth I.
“Aroint thee, witch,” the rump-fed runnion cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger;
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.
SECOND WITCH
I’ll give thee a wind.
FIRST WITCH
Th’ art kind.
THIRD WITCH
And I another.
FIRST WITCH
I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow;
All the quarters that they know
I’ th’ shipman’s card.
I’ll drain him dry as hay.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid.
He shall live a man forbid.
Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.
Look what I have.
SECOND WITCH Show me, show me.
FIRST WITCH
Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wracked as homeward he did come.Drum within.
THIRD WITCH
A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL, dancing in a circle
The Weïrd Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace, the charm’s wound up.
Enter Macbeth and Banquo.
MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is ’t called to Forres?—What are these,
So withered, and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth
And yet are on ’t?—Live you? Or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand
me
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH Speak if you can. What are you?
FIRST WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
SECOND WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
THIRD WITCH
All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
Are you fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly you show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal. 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.
FIRST WITCH Hail!
SECOND WITCH Hail!
THIRD WITCH Hail!
FIRST WITCH
Lesser than Macbeth and greater.
SECOND WITCH
Not so happy, yet much happier.
THIRD WITCH
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH
Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.
By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis.
But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives
A prosperous gentleman, and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish.
BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?
MACBETH
Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted,
As breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!
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 here?
Enter Ross and Angus.
ROSS
The King hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success, and, when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,
In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as tale
Came post with post, and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,
And poured them down before him.
ANGUS We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks,
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
ROSS
And for an earnest of a greater honor,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor,
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,
For it is thine.
BANQUO What, can the devil speak true?
MACBETH
The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me
In borrowed robes?
ANGUS Who was the Thane lives yet,
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was
combined
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not;
But treasons capital, confessed and proved,
Have overthrown him.
MACBETH, aside Glamis and Thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind. To Ross and Angus. Thanks
for your pains.
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 That, trusted home,
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange.
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s
In deepest consequence.—
Cousins, a word, I pray you.They step aside.
MACBETH, aside Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.
Aside. This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man
That function is smothered in surmise,
And nothing is but what is not.
BANQUO Look how our partner’s rapt.
MACBETH, aside
If chance will have me king, why, chance may
crown me
Without my stir.
BANQUO New honors come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold
But with the aid of use.
MACBETH, aside Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
BANQUO
Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH
Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
Aside to Banquo. Think upon what hath chanced,
and at more time,
The interim having weighed it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO Very gladly.
MACBETH
Till then, enough.—Come, friends.
They exit.
Scene 4
Flourish. Enter King Duncan, Lennox, Malcolm,
Donalbain, and Attendants.
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet returned?
MALCOLM My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die, who did report
That very frankly he confessed his treasons,
Implored your Highness’ pardon, and set forth
A deep repentance. Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As ’twere a careless trifle.
DUNCAN There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.
O worthiest cousin,
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! 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. Your Highness’ part
Is to receive our duties, and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and servants,
Which do but what they should by doing everything
Safe toward your love and honor.
DUNCAN Welcome hither.
I have begun to plant thee and will labor
To make thee full of growing.—Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserved nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee
And hold thee to my heart.
BANQUO There, if I grow,
The harvest is your own.
DUNCAN My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.—Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, 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,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers.—From hence to Inverness
And bind us further to you.
MACBETH
The rest is labor which is not used for you.
I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach.
So humbly take my leave.
DUNCAN My worthy Cawdor.
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. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
He exits.
DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo. He is full so valiant,
And in his commendations I am fed:
It is a banquet to me.—Let’s after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.
It is a peerless kinsman.
Flourish. They exit.
Scene 5Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone, with a letter.
LADY MACBETH, reading the letter They met me in the
day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st
report they have more in them than mortal knowledge.
When I burned in desire to question them further, they
made themselves air, into which they vanished.
Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it came missives
from the King, who all-hailed me “Thane of Cawdor,”
by which title, before, these Weïrd Sisters saluted me
and referred me to the coming on of time with “Hail,
king that shalt be.” This have I thought good to deliver
thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou
might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant
of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy
heart, and farewell.
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst
highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false
And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou ’dst have, great
Glamis,
That which cries “Thus thou must do,” if thou have
it,
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
Enter Messenger.
What is your tidings?
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.
One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH Give him tending.
He brings great news.Messenger exits.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry “Hold, hold!”
Enter Macbeth.
Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,
Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy 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, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent
flower,
But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night’s great business into my dispatch,
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
MACBETH
We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH Only look up clear.
To alter favor ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me.
They exit.
Scene 6
Hautboys and Torches. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm,
Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and
Attendants.
DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
BANQUO This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have
observed,
The air is delicate.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
DUNCAN See, see our honored hostess!—
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
How you shall bid God ’ild us for your pains
And thank us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH All our service,
In every point twice done and then done double,
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honors deep and broad wherewith
Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,
And the late dignities heaped up to them,
We rest your hermits.
DUNCAN Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?
We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose
To be his purveyor; but he rides well,
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath helped
him
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest tonight.
LADY MACBETH Your servants ever
Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in compt
To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure,
Still to return your own.
DUNCAN Give me your hand.
Taking her hand.
Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.
They exit.
Scene 7
Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants
with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter
Macbeth.
MACBETH
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly. If th’ assassination
Could trammel up the consequence and catch
With his surcease success, that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—
Enter Lady Macbeth.
How now, what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has 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 Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?
MACBETH Prithee, peace.
I dare do all that may become a man.
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH What beast was ’t,
then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
They have made themselves, and that their fitness
now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
MACBETH If we should fail—
LADY MACBETH We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking place
And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep
(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey
Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
Their drenchèd 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 Bring forth men-children only,
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. 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
Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him.
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.
BANQUO
Hold, take my sword.He gives his sword to Fleance.
There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose.
Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.
Give me my sword.—Who’s
there?
MACBETH A friend.
BANQUO
What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s abed.
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices.
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
In measureless content.
He gives Macbeth a jewel.
MACBETH Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect,
Which else should free have wrought.
BANQUO All’s well.
I dreamt last night of the three Weïrd Sisters.
To you they have showed some truth.
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,
If you would grant the time.
BANQUO At your kind’st leisure.
MACBETH
If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,
It shall make honor for you.
BANQUO So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counseled.
MACBETH Good repose the while.
BANQUO Thanks, sir. The like to you.
Banquo and Fleance exit.
MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Servant exits.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.He draws his dagger.
Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s off’rings, and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his
design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
A bell rings.
I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
He exits.
Scene 2Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me
bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
Hark!—Peace.
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good-night. He is about it.
The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged
their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them
Whether they live or die.
MACBETH, within Who’s there? what, ho!
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
And ’tis not done. Th’ attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark!—I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done ’t.
Enter Macbeth with bloody daggers.
My husband?
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH When?
LADY MACBETH Now.
MACBETH As I descended?
LADY MACBETH Ay.
MACBETH Hark!—Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?
LADY MACBETH Donalbain.
MACBETH This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
MACBETH
There’s one did laugh in ’s sleep, and one cried
“Murder!”
That they did wake each other. I stood and heard
them.
But they did say their prayers and addressed them
Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH There are two lodged together.
MACBETH
One cried “God bless us” and “Amen” the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands,
List’ning their fear. I could not say “Amen”
When they did say “God bless us.”
LADY MACBETH Consider it not so deeply.
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”?
I had most need of blessing, and “Amen”
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
LADY MACBETH What do you mean?
MACBETH
Still it cried “Sleep no more!” to all the house.
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore
Cawdor
Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there. Go, carry them and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH I’ll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done.
Look on ’t again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures. ’Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.
She exits with the daggers. Knock within.
MACBETH Whence is that
knocking?
How is ’t with me when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.Knock.
I hear a knocking
At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.Knock.
Hark, more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.
Knock.
Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou
couldst.
They exit.
Scene 3
Knocking within. Enter a Porter.
PORTER Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were
porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the
key. (Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’
th’ name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged
himself on th’ expectation of plenty. Come in time!
Have napkins enough about you; here you’ll sweat
for ’t. (Knock.) Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’
other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator
that could swear in both the scales against either
scale, who committed treason enough for God’s
sake yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in,
equivocator. (Knock.) Knock, knock, knock! Who’s
there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for
stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. Here
you may roast your goose. (Knock.) Knock, knock!
Never at quiet.—What are you?—But this place is
too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further. I had
thought to have let in some of all professions that go
the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire. (Knock.)
Anon, anon!
The Porter opens the door to Macduff and Lennox.
I pray you, remember the porter.
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed
That you do lie so late?
PORTER Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second
cock, and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three
things.
MACDUFF What three things does drink especially
provoke?
PORTER Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes
the desire, but it takes away the performance.
Therefore much drink may be said to be an
equivocator with lechery. It makes him, and it
mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it
persuades him and disheartens him; makes him
stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates
him in a sleep and, giving him the lie, leaves
him.
MACDUFF I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
PORTER That it did, sir, i’ th’ very throat on me; but I
requited him for his lie, and, I think, being too
strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime,
yet I made a shift to cast him.
MACDUFF Is thy master stirring?
Enter Macbeth.
Our knocking has awaked him. Here he comes.
Porter exits.
LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the King stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him.
I have almost slipped the hour.
MACBETH I’ll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you,
But yet ’tis one.
MACBETH
The labor we delight in physics pain.
This is the door.
MACDUFF I’ll make so bold to call,
For ’tis my limited service.Macduff exits.
LENNOX Goes the King hence today?
MACBETH He does. He did appoint so.
LENNOX
The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of
death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamored the livelong night. Some say the Earth
Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH ’Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
Enter Macduff.
MACDUFF O horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH AND LENNOX What’s the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence
The life o’ th’ building.
MACBETH What is ’t you say? The life?
LENNOX Mean you his Majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak.
See and then speak yourselves.
Macbeth and Lennox exit.
Awake, awake!
Ring the alarum bell.—Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain, Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself. Up, up, and see
The great doom’s image. Malcolm, Banquo,
As from your graves rise up and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror.—Ring the bell.
Bell rings.
Enter Lady Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH What’s the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
MACDUFF O gentle lady,
’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak.
The repetition in a woman’s ear
Would murder as it fell.
Enter Banquo.
O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master’s murdered.
LADY MACBETH Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
BANQUO Too cruel anywhere.—
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself
And say it is not so.
Enter Macbeth, Lennox, and Ross.
MACBETH
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessèd time; for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.
All is but toys. Renown and grace is dead.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.
DONALBAIN What is amiss?
MACBETH You are, and do not know ’t.
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.
MACDUFF
Your royal father’s murdered.
MALCOLM O, by whom?
LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done ’t.
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood.
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows. They stared and were distracted.
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amazed, temp’rate, and furious,
Loyal, and neutral, in a moment? No man.
Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature
For ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers,
Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make ’s love known?
LADY MACBETH Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM, aside to Donalbain Why do we hold our
tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN, aside to Malcolm
What should be spoken here, where our fate,
Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?
Let’s away. Our tears are not yet brewed.
MALCOLM, aside to Donalbain
Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO Look to the lady.
Lady Macbeth is assisted to leave.
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 pretense I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF And so do I.
ALL So all.
MACBETH
Let’s briefly put on manly readiness
And meet i’ th’ hall together.
ALL Well contented.
All but Malcolm and Donalbain exit.
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 near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM This murderous shaft that’s shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse,
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking
But shift away. There’s warrant in that theft
Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left.
They exit.
Scene 4
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 th’ clock ’tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.
Is ’t night’s predominance or the day’s shame
That darkness does the face of earth entomb
When living light should kiss it?
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, flung out,
Contending ’gainst obedience, as they would
Make war with mankind.
OLD MAN ’Tis said they eat each
other.
ROSS
They did so, to th’ amazement of mine eyes
That looked upon ’t.
Enter Macduff.
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,
Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.
ROSS ’Gainst nature still!
Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up
Thine own lives’ means. 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 Colmekill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors
And guardian of their bones.
ROSS Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF
No, cousin, I’ll to Fife.
ROSS Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF
Well, may you see things well done there. Adieu,
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new.
ROSS Farewell, father.
OLD MAN
God’s benison go with you and with those
That would make good of bad and friends of foes.
All exit.
ACT 3
Scene 1
Enter Banquo.
BANQUO
Thou hast it now—king, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the Weïrd 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 thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.
Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady
Macbeth, Lennox, Ross, Lords, and Attendants.
MACBETH
Here’s our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast
And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH
Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,
And I’ll request your presence.
BANQUO Let your Highness
Command upon me, to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
Forever knit.
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 take tomorrow.
Is ’t far you ride?
BANQUO
As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
’Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
MACBETH Fail not our feast.
BANQUO My lord, I will not.
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, my good lord. Our time does call upon ’s.
MACBETH
I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,
And so I do commend you to their backs.
Farewell.Banquo exits.
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night. To make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till suppertime alone. While then, God be with you.
Lords and all but Macbeth and a Servant exit.
Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men
Our pleasure?
SERVANT
They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
MACBETH
Bring them before us.Servant exits.
To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be feared. ’Tis much he
dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear; and under him
My genius is rebuked, as it is said
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me
And bade them speak to him. Then, prophet-like,
They hailed him father to a line of kings.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
And put a barren scepter in my grip,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so,
For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered,
Put rancors in the vessel of my peace
Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man
To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
And champion me to th’ utterance.—Who’s there?
Enter Servant and two Murderers.
To the Servant. Now go to the door, and stay there
till we call.Servant exits.
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
MURDERERS
It was, so please your Highness.
MACBETH Well then, now
Have you considered of my speeches? Know
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self. This I made good to you
In our last conference, passed in probation with you
How you were borne in hand, how crossed, the
instruments,
Who wrought with them, and all things else that
might
To half a soul and to a notion crazed
Say “Thus did Banquo.”
FIRST MURDERER You made it known to us.
MACBETH
I did so, and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature
That you can let this go? Are you so gospeled
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave
And beggared yours forever?
FIRST MURDERER We are men, my liege.
MACBETH
Ay, in the catalogue you go for men,
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels,
curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept
All by the name of dogs. The valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike. And so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i’ th’ worst rank of manhood, say ’t,
And I will put that business in your bosoms
Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
SECOND MURDERER I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Hath so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
FIRST MURDERER And I another
So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it or be rid on ’t.
MACBETH Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
MURDERERS True, my lord.
MACBETH
So is he mine, and in such bloody distance
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my near’st of life. And though I could
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For certain friends that are both his and mine,
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
Who I myself struck down. And thence it is
That I to your assistance do make love,
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.
SECOND MURDERER We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.
FIRST MURDERER Though our lives—
MACBETH
Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at
most
I will advise you where to plant yourselves,
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ th’ time,
The moment on ’t, for ’t must be done tonight
And something from the palace; always thought
That I require a clearness. And with him
(To leave no rubs nor botches in the work)
Fleance, his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart.
I’ll come to you anon.
MURDERERS We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH
I’ll call upon you straight. Abide within.
Murderers exit.
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
He exits.
Scene 2
Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant.
LADY MACBETH Is Banquo gone from court?
SERVANT
Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the King I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
SERVANT Madam, I will.He exits.
LADY MACBETH Naught’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Enter Macbeth.
How now, my lord, why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard. What’s done is done.
MACBETH
We have scorched the snake, not killed it.
She’ll close and be herself whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds
suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave.
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH Come on, gentle my lord,
Sleek o’er your rugged looks. Be bright and jovial
Among your guests tonight.
MACBETH So shall I, love,
And so I pray be you. Let your remembrance
Apply to Banquo; present him eminence
Both with eye and tongue: unsafe the while that we
Must lave our honors in these flattering streams
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH You must leave this.
MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.
LADY MACBETH
But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.
MACBETH
There’s comfort yet; they are assailable.
Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown
His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH What’s to be done?
MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.—Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do
rouse.—
Thou marvel’st at my words, but hold thee still.
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So prithee go with me.
They exit.
Scene 3
Enter three Murderers.
FIRST MURDERER
But who did bid thee join with us?
THIRD MURDERER Macbeth.
SECOND MURDERER, to the First Murderer
He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers
Our offices and what we have to do
To the direction just.
FIRST MURDERER Then stand with us.—
The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.
Now spurs the lated traveler apace
To gain the timely inn, and near approaches
The subject of our watch.
THIRD MURDERER Hark, I hear horses.
BANQUO, within Give us a light there, ho!
SECOND MURDERER Then ’tis he. The rest
That are within the note of expectation
Already are i’ th’ court.
FIRST MURDERER His horses go about.
THIRD MURDERER
Almost a mile; but he does usually
(So all men do) from hence to th’ palace gate
Make it their walk.
Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch.
SECOND MURDERER A light, a light!
THIRD MURDERER ’Tis he.
FIRST MURDERER Stand to ’t.
BANQUO, to Fleance It will be rain tonight.
FIRST MURDERER Let it come down!
The three Murderers attack.
BANQUO
O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge—O slave!
He dies. Fleance exits.
THIRD MURDERER
Who did strike out the light?
FIRST MURDERER Was ’t not the way?
THIRD MURDERER There’s but one down. The son is
fled.
SECOND MURDERER We have lost best half of our
affair.
FIRST MURDERER
Well, let’s away and say how much is done.
They exit.
Scene 4Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth,
Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.
MACBETH
You know your own degrees; sit down. At first
And last, the hearty welcome.They sit.
LORDS Thanks to your Majesty.
MACBETH
Ourself will mingle with society
And play the humble host.
Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,
For my heart speaks they are welcome.
Enter First Murderer to the door.
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks.
Both sides are even. Here I’ll sit i’ th’ midst.
Be large in mirth. Anon we’ll drink a measure
The table round. He approaches the Murderer. There’s
blood upon thy face.
MURDERER ’Tis Banquo’s then.
MACBETH
’Tis better thee without than he within.
Is he dispatched?
MURDERER
My lord, his throat is cut. That I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats,
Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance.
If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.
MURDERER
Most royal sir, Fleance is ’scaped.
MACBETH, aside
Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air.
But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe?
MURDERER
Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenchèd gashes on his head,
The least a death to nature.
MACBETH Thanks for that.
There the grown serpent lies. The worm that’s fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for th’ present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow
We’ll hear ourselves again.Murderer exits.
LADY MACBETH My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold
That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making,
’Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.
Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place.
MACBETH, to Lady Macbeth Sweet remembrancer!—
Now, good digestion wait on appetite
And health on both!
LENNOX May ’t please your Highness sit.
MACBETH
Here had we now our country’s honor roofed,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present,
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance.
ROSS His absence, sir,
Lays blame upon his promise. Please ’t your
Highness
To grace us with your royal company?
MACBETH
The table’s full.
LENNOX Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH Where?
LENNOX
Here, my good lord. What is ’t that moves your
Highness?
MACBETH
Which of you have done this?
LORDS What, my good lord?
MACBETH, to the Ghost
Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
ROSS
Gentlemen, rise. His Highness is not well.
LADY MACBETH
Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus
And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well. If much you note him
You shall offend him and extend his passion.
Feed and regard him not.Drawing Macbeth aside.
Are you a man?
MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appall the devil.
LADY MACBETH O, proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear.
This is the air-drawn dagger which you said
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,
You look but on a stool.
MACBETH
Prithee, see there. Behold, look! To the Ghost. Lo,
how say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.—
If charnel houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.Ghost exits.
LADY MACBETH What, quite unmanned in folly?
MACBETH
If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH Fie, for shame!
MACBETH
Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ th’ olden time,
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been performed
Too terrible for the ear. The time has been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end. But now they rise again
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is.
LADY MACBETH My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lack you.
MACBETH I do forget.—
Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me. Come, love and health to
all.
Then I’ll sit down.—Give me some wine. Fill full.
Enter Ghost.
I drink to th’ general joy o’ th’ whole table
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.
Would he were here! To all, and him we thirst,
And all to all.
LORDS Our duties, and the pledge.
They raise their drinking cups.
MACBETH, to the Ghost
Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee.
Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.
LADY MACBETH Think of this, good
peers,
But as a thing of custom. ’Tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
MACBETH, to the Ghost What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or th’ Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again
And dare me to the desert with thy sword.
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mock’ry, hence!Ghost exits.
Why so, being gone,
I am a man again.—Pray you sit still.
LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good
meeting
With most admired disorder.
MACBETH Can such things be
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe
When now I think you can behold such sights
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks
When mine is blanched with fear.
ROSS What sights, my
lord?
LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.
Question enrages him. At once, good night.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
LENNOX Good night, and better health
Attend his Majesty.
LADY MACBETH A kind good night to all.
Lords and all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth exit.
MACBETH
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
Stones have been known to move, and trees to
speak.
Augurs and understood relations have
By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought
forth
The secret’st man of blood.—What is the night?
LADY MACBETH
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
MACBETH
How say’st thou that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH
I hear it by the way; but I will send.
There’s not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee’d. I will tomorrow
(And betimes I will) to the Weïrd Sisters.
More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know
By the worst means the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.
LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
MACBETH
Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
We are yet but young in deed.
They exit.
Scene 5Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.
FIRST WITCH
Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.
HECATE
Have I not reason, beldams as you are?
Saucy and overbold, how did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death,
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part
Or show the glory of our art?
And which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.
But make amends now. Get you gone,
And at the pit of Acheron
Meet me i’ th’ morning. Thither he
Will come to know his destiny.
Your vessels and your spells provide,
Your charms and everything beside.
I am for th’ air. This night I’ll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
Great business must be wrought ere noon.
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vap’rous drop profound.
I’ll catch it ere it come to ground,
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear.
And you all know, security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.
Music and a song.
Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.Hecate exits.
Sing within “Come away, come away,” etc.
FIRST WITCH
Come, let’s make haste. She’ll soon be back again.
They exit.
Scene 6
Enter Lennox and another Lord.
LENNOX
My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
Which can interpret farther. Only I say
Things have been strangely borne. The gracious
Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.
And the right valiant Banquo walked too late,
Whom you may say, if ’t please you, Fleance killed,
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? Damnèd fact,
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight
In pious rage the two delinquents tear
That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely, too,
For ’twould have angered any heart alive
To hear the men deny ’t. So that I say
He has borne all things well. And I do think
That had he Duncan’s sons under his key
(As, an ’t please heaven, he shall not) they should
find
What ’twere to kill a father. So should Fleance.
But peace. For from broad words, and ’cause he
failed
His presence at the tyrant’s feast, I hear
Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?
LORD The son of Duncan
(From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth)
Lives in the English court and is received
Of the most pious Edward with such grace
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
Is gone to pray the holy king upon his aid
To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward
That, by the help of these (with Him above
To ratify the work), we may again
Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,
Do faithful homage, and receive free honors,
All which we pine for now. And this report
Hath so exasperate the King that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.
LENNOX Sent he to Macduff?
LORD
He did, and with an absolute “Sir, not I,”
The cloudy messenger turns me his back
And hums, as who should say “You’ll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.”
LENNOX And that well might
Advise him to a caution t’ hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England and unfold
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accursed.
LORD
I’ll send my prayers with him.
They exit.
ACT 4
Scene 1
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
FIRST WITCH
Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.
SECOND WITCH
Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined.
THIRD WITCH
Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time!”
FIRST WITCH
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot.
The Witches circle the cauldron.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake.
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
THIRD WITCH
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravined salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron
For th’ ingredience of our cauldron.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Cool it with a baboon’s blood.
Then the charm is firm and good.
Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.
HECATE
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains.
And now about the cauldron sing
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
Music and a song: “Black Spirits,” etc. Hecate exits.
SECOND WITCH
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
Enter Macbeth.
MACBETH
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is ’t you do?
ALL A deed without a name.
MACBETH
I conjure you by that which you profess
(Howe’er you come to know it), answer me.
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches, though the yeasty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up,
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown
down,
Though castles topple on their warders’ heads,
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations, though the
treasure
Of nature’s germens tumble all together
Even till destruction sicken, answer me
To what I ask you.
FIRST WITCH Speak.
SECOND WITCH Demand.
THIRD WITCH We’ll answer.
FIRST WITCH
Say if th’ hadst rather hear it from our mouths
Or from our masters’.
MACBETH Call ’em. Let me see ’em.
FIRST WITCH
Pour in sow’s blood that hath eaten
Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten
From the murderers’ gibbet throw
Into the flame.
ALL Come high or low;
Thyself and office deftly show.
Thunder. First Apparition, an Armed Head.
MACBETH
Tell me, thou unknown power—
FIRST WITCH He knows thy
thought.
Hear his speech but say thou naught.
FIRST APPARITION
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff!
Beware the Thane of Fife! Dismiss me. Enough.
He descends.
MACBETH
Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks.
Thou hast harped my fear aright. But one word
more—
FIRST WITCH
He will not be commanded. Here’s another
More potent than the first.
Thunder. Second Apparition, a Bloody Child.
SECOND APPARITION Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!—
MACBETH Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.
SECOND APPARITION
Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.He descends.
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,
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.
Thunder. Third Apparition, a Child Crowned, with a tree
in his hand.
What is this
That rises like the issue of a king
And wears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty?
ALL Listen but speak not to ’t.
THIRD APPARITION
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.He descends.
MACBETH That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements, good!
Rebellious dead, rise never till the Wood
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing. Tell me, if your art
Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever
Reign in this kingdom?
ALL Seek to know no more.
MACBETH
I will be satisfied. Deny me this,
And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know!
Cauldron sinks. Hautboys.
Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this?
FIRST WITCH Show.
SECOND WITCH Show.
THIRD WITCH Show.
ALL
Show his eyes and grieve his heart.
Come like shadows; so depart.
A show of eight kings, the eighth king with a glass in
his hand, and Banquo last.
MACBETH
Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
A third is like the former.—Filthy hags,
Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes!
What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom?
Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more.
And yet the eighth appears who bears a glass
Which shows me many more, and some I see
That twofold balls and treble scepters carry.
Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true,
For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me
And points at them for his.
The Apparitions disappear.
What, is this so?
FIRST WITCH
Ay, sir, all this is so. But why
Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites
And show the best of our delights.
I’ll charm the air to give a sound
While you perform your antic round,
That this great king may kindly say
Our duties did his welcome pay.
Music. The Witches dance and vanish.
MACBETH
Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursèd in the calendar!—
Come in, without there.
Enter Lennox.
LENNOX What’s your Grace’s will?
MACBETH
Saw you the Weïrd Sisters?
LENNOX No, my lord.
MACBETH
Came they not by you?
LENNOX No, indeed, my lord.
MACBETH
Infected be the air whereon they ride,
And damned all those that trust them! I did hear
The galloping of horse. Who was ’t came by?
LENNOX
’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH Fled to England?
LENNOX Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH, aside
Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits.
The flighty purpose never is o’ertook
Unless the deed go with it. From this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and
done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise,
Seize upon Fife, give to th’ edge o’ th’ 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.
But no more sights!—Where are these gentlemen?
Come bring me where they are.
They exit.
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Lost (Ben Solo X Reader) - Chapter 40
A/N: Warning: Mature Content included. Does get quite smutty in some ways... ...and this is no dream in the story, whatsoever... 😛🤪😘🤫😂😀
Under 13s, please keep off this unless you feel absolutely ready to read something like dis... besides, this is ideally a 15+ story after all...
Alex, Ben & Y/N's Pov
After Alex had turned on his beautiful yellow lightsaber along with Ben's blue lightsaber and his envious, malicious face like a volcano ready to erupt.
Suddenly, both bursted out clashing each other's lightsabers against one another's. You just watched, not able to say a word. Why was Ben so mad even though you two had broken up over a year ago?
"It's too late for you Ben, she's all mine now. I can sense it through the Force, and that's only the truth" Alex began.
"BIG LIAR!" Ben screeched like Lara, "HOW DARE YOU TOUCH SOMETHING THAT'S MINE! YOU'VE JUST COMMITTED TOXIC THIEVERY!"
"Welp, I'm not afraid of you Ben. And I personally feel as though you want to turn to Lara's side even though she's dead."
"SHUT UP! I HATE THAT BITCH OF ALL BITCHES GIRL! I'VE ALWAYS HATED SUCH A BULLY, LIAR AND UGLY, UNWORTHY PIECE OF F***ING TRASH! GIVE ME BACK WHAT I OWE RIGHT NOW OR I'LL KILL YOU!"
Out of pure anger of hearing Ben's words, you turned on your green lightsaber you had in your pocket and felt ready to fight. And you knew exactly who you wanted to fight against...
"Welp, she's all mine. And you'll never get her back cus all you did was abandon her and you literally stole her from me in the first place, Ben Solo-Wolo!"
"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME THAT!" Ben screamed while attacking Alex and almost zapping him through his neck, "YOU'RE BECOMING LIKE THAT STUPID BRATTY FATTY BITCHY LARA GIRL AND YOU'VE TURNED Y/N INTO ONE TOO ALONG WITH QUEENIE AND EVERYONE ELSE! YOU STOLE HER!"
Your lightsaber crashed onto Ben's in such raging, powerful infuriation.
"Leave us alone, Ben. Now!" You snapped angrily at him loudly, "we don't want you here so just leave us both alone, you fricking idiot!"
In atrocious shock, Ben couldn't believe what he'd just heard from that once, quiet, sweet, naive, unique, unbitchy, empathetic, understanding, supportive, shy, beautiful girl he had over a year ago. Yes, it was his fault to why they split up, but his overpossissiveness was making him want to force her to come back to him. His dark side had taken over him and he felt as though he wanted to unfairly punish her and make up with her. And the way he would do that is by clinging her to the walls in such a threatening way, ripping all her clothes off, biting her neck, then thrusting himself inside of her. And he so badly wanted to do that now that he was fifteen years old. He was to turn sixteen in a few more months anyway so yeah, he was a good enough age.
"THAT'S THAT!" Ben yelled at Alex after attacking him and nearly beheading him. He wanted to kill him so badly. Oh yes, he did! He wanted to give him a very very very violent death just like Macbeth gave to MacDonwald... !
You faught Ben back but then he pushed you away through the Force, making sure you couldn't move...
Your lightsaber went off too and you were suffering...
But then, Alex's amazing talent pushed Ben out the open window and then he dropped and fell to the ground. You were thankfully alright after all that pain you felt. Alex also had Ben's lightsaber too after making his hand let go of it too!
Alex closed and locked both the door and all windows, then he started snogging you again. Really hardly and passionately. Which unfortunately eventually lead to something during that entire night...
No, it wasn't smut, definitely not, but you and Alex were sure the hell thinking about it. But what really happened was that after a lot of rolls and snogging along with a lot of neck and forehead kiss, hair and back massages and even Alex sucking your nipples a little (A/N: I am desperately sorry if this makes you cringe... it's my first time ever writing stuff like this online so please don't judge me for it), you slept together while cuddling. Dreaming of you both making out, feeling the best sensual and sexual feelings you two have ever felt in your entire lives. Ben never found out thankfully in those dreams you two shared.
Like ever since you got to know each other better over a year ago, he began to help you become a lot more self-confident and energetic. You both shared a lot in common through your smart Jedi skills and your love for learning as well as being a brave, supportive friend. You also had family members who were once among the Dark Side too...
So both of you secretly, although it was obvious too, began to fall deeply but slowly in love with each other. And now the time eventually arrived for them both. Could they make out the next day?
Alex definitely hoped it would happen soon as long as Y/N's period didn't come along soon. Thankfully, it had ended a couple of days ago so hopefully she'd be alright. Ben would certainly have a huge temper tantrum though that he may destroy the entire place...
When you two women up, you two both kissed passionately good morning then felt highly tempted to do more...
However, after being thrown out the window, you two had no idea that Ben managed to save himself so he could sense everything that would happen through his smart Jedi skills of the Force. He was very Force-Sensitive after all and had just recently found out that his ancestor was this horrible Darth Vader...
"Alex," you moaned while the handsome blonde kissed and licked your neck, "may we, erm..."
Ben began to rush up the stairs to lightsaber the door off. Yes, he had stolen his uncle's lightsaber.
Fortunately for you but unknown to Ben, Alex agreed to what you so badly wanted to do. And that's what happened. (A/N: I won't go into a lot of detail on this as I cannot write stuff like that in such a mature contented way. I'm under 20 years of age anyway. I'm also sooo sorry if this upsets you... under 15s in particular, please keep away from this if you really seriously cannot put up with it...)
You just lost your virginity with Alex while making out for a short time. It was the best feeling you two had both ever had. Hopefully, it was highly unlikely that you'd get pregnant but all you did while smutting was kissing, rocking and thrusting.
However, you never knew about him smutting with Lara while pretending to be her fake boyfriend, Tom Riddle!
After it had finished, you both got dressed then down to breakfast to meet Queenie and Clara. You spoke while walking and holding hands.
"Alex," you began to ask him, "if you don't mind me asking, but what exactly did your mother do after her parents split up?"
"Well, she was seventeen back then and carried on with her Jedi Training. Yes, of course she was heartbroken but she carried on. When they were just friends, my father cheered her up then when they were both twenty-three, they ended up getting married. Then at aged twenty-six, they had me and three years later, my brother."
It was quick for Alex to sob at the mention of his brother as he was now dead. All cus of that sh***y girl Lara and her big ass gang of dark people! You patted his back then gave his cheek a kiss and reminded him of the morning while whispering it in his ear.
"Ben shouldn't know if he just so happens to still be alive, besides, I really don't like him anymore and I've changed dramatically since we split up anyway. Probably just as well we did then."
"You're absolutely... stunning, Y/N. Beautiful. Attractive. You finally look like a woman now. You're body is just... fab. Delicious," he whispered to you.
"I'd say the same about yours too," you whispered back to him while he suddenly grabbed himself around you and kissed you hardly on the lips. He then pinned you to the wall nearby and you both enjoyed a passionate snog until Queenie squealed and screamed with delight tha you two were know together. Hugging you both immediately after you both finished kissing.
"Congratulations you two! Just what I dreamed of! Clara is here too. Hey, guess what Clara? Alex and Y/N are together now! Finally! After all this time!" Queenie squealed excitedly and joyfully. She had never felt this happy in her whole life due to her history.
"Oh! Well done you two! Horray! Let's celebrate and set up a perfect date for you two!" Clara squealed with the same tone and expression as Queenie.
Unfortunately, while all of you were celebrating and Alex lifted you up in his arms, someone came over unexpectedly and looked so ready to destroy the Jedi Temple with a double, evil, malevolent look. As a highly Force-Sensitive boy, he knew immediately that Alex and Y/N had lost each others' virginity with one another. This was the worst of what he expected.
Now his love for Y/N really was non-existent that he wanted to rape her then maybe even kill her... sooooo badly...
His lightsaber went on and he ran super fast to the group while screaming until you pushed him away with the Force and laughed with Alex at that. The Force had told you that he survived as he fell in a lake, coincidentally! Uh oh... he had never ever been this unhappy before despite everything he had been through...
The Force he felt himself allowed him to stop you from controlling him through it. He was very successful over everyone else, including the new version of yourself, bold and bright Alex as well as smart and sneaky Queenie. So what would it be? A fight between new you, brave Alex, clever Queenie, caring Clara versus miserable Ben Solo who was actually the smartest and most skilled person put of all of you. He was also terrific at sports too.
So what was it to be? Another fight? Or what else? Could it be something far worse than this? Ben's emotions were undescribable even for the author of 'Lost' to talk about. That was that. It was time for Ben to punish Y/N and rape her then maybe kill her in the end... time for Ben to turn to the Dark Side... time for him to destroy the Jedi Temple and everyone there... and no one could even sense through the Force his dark and deepest plans due to his pure, raging, petrifying anger......
You and all your friends turned on your lightsabers too and Alex kissed you hardly in front of Ben... and that was that.
"That's that Ben. She's mine." Alex calmly stated, but that just pushed the salt into the wound...
A/N: Arghhhhh, idk whether to regret writing all dis mature content and it's my first time too. But just to warn you that the next chapter will be a long detailed fight scene along with a bit of mature content too. So be prepared for a surprise but btw, I only wrote a smut between Y/N and Alex as it creates plot in the story to make Ben angry. I'm deeply sorry if I've upset you in any way. But thanks for reading dis though.
P.S. Yayyyy! Role 4 is now completed!
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