Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 1
Court of Macbeth’s castle.
Banquo : At your kind'st leisure.
Macbeth : If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,
[p]It shall make honour
for you.
Banquo : So I lose none
[p]In seeking to augment it, but still keep
[p]My bosom
franchised and allegiance clear,
[p]I shall be counsell'd.
Macbeth : Good repose the while!
Banquo : Thanks, sir: the like to you!
Macbeth : Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
[p]She strike upon the
bell. Get thee to bed.
[p][Exit Servant]
[p]Is this a dagger which I
see before me,
[p]The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee.
[p]I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
[p]Art thou not,
fatal vision, sensible
[p]To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
[p]A
dagger of the mind, a false creation,
[p]Proceeding from the
heat-oppressed brain?
[p]I see thee yet, in form as palpable
[p]As
this which now I draw.
[p]Thou marshall'st me the way that I was
going;
[p]And such an instrument I was to use.
[p]Mine eyes are made
the fools o' the other senses,
[p]Or else worth all the rest; I see
thee still,
[p]And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
[p]Which
was not so before. There's no such thing:
[p]It is the bloody business
which informs
[p]Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one
halfworld
[p]Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
[p]The
curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
[p]Pale Hecate's offerings, and
wither'd murder,
[p]Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
[p]Whose
howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
[p]With Tarquin's
ravishing strides, towards his design
[p]Moves like a ghost. Thou sure
and firm-set earth,
[p]Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for
fear
[p]Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
[p]And take the
present horror from the time,
[p]Which now suits with it. Whiles I
threat, he lives:
[p]Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath
gives.
[p][A bell rings]
[p]I go, and it is done; the bell invites
me.
[p]Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
[p]That summons thee to
heaven or to hell.
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. There's husbandry in heaven;
[p]Their candles are
all out. Take thee that too.
[p]A heavy summons lies like lead upon
me,
[p]And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers,
[p]Restrain in me
the cursed thoughts that nature
[p]Gives way to in repose!
[p][Enter
MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch]
[p]Give me my sword.
[p]Who's
there?
Macbeth : A friend.
Banquo : What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:
[p]He hath been in
unusual pleasure, and
[p]Sent forth great largess to your
offices.
[p]This diamond he greets your wife withal,
[p]By the name of
most kind hostess; and shut up
[p]In measureless content.
Macbeth : Being unprepared,
[p]Our will became the servant to defect;
[p]Which
else should free have wrought.
Banquo : All's well.
[p]I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
[p]To
you they have show'd some truth.
Macbeth : I think not of them:
[p]Yet, when we can entreat an hour to
serve,
[p]We would spend it in some words upon that business,
[p]If
you would grant the time.
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Next: Act 2 - Scene 2
