Feb 22, 2021

As Preparation for My Comments As to How to Teach Shakespeare, Read This Compressed Version of >Macbeth< That I Prepared for Banquet Performance

 

Shakespeare’s  The Tragedy of Macbeth

All original lines by William Shakespeare           

Compressed for Presentation at Spring 2019

New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet

 

by Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.                                                

 

Director, New Salem Educational Initiative

 

From Macbeth, Act I, Scene One                             

 

[A desert place]

 

[Thunder and lightning.  Enter three witches.]

 

First witch:                          

 

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

 

Second witch:                    

 

When the hurlyburly’s done

When the battle’s lost and won.

 

Third witch:                         

 

That shall be ere the set of sun.

 

First witch:                        

 

Where the place?                            

 

Second witch:                    

 

Upon the heath.

 

Third witch:                         

 

There to meet with Macbeth.

 

All:                                        

 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

 

[Exeunt.]

 

 

From Macbeth, Act I, Scene Three                          

 

[A heath near Forres]

 

[Thunder.  Enter the three witches.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

 

Banquo:                              

 

What are these

So wither’d and wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants of the earth,

And yet are on’t?                            

 

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:                              

 

Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favors nor your hate.

 

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.

 

First witch:                        

 

Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

                                                                                                                                           

[Witches move as if to exit.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.

Say why upon this blasted heath you stop our way

With such prophetic greeting?

 

[Witches vanish.]

 

[Enter Ross and Angus.]

 

Ross:                                    

 

The king hath happily received, Macbeth,

The news of thy success;

He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor.

 

Banquo:                              

 

What, can the devil speak true?

 

Macbeth:                           

 

The thane of Cawdor lives:  why do you dress me

In borrowed robes?

 

Angus:                                 

 

Under heavy judgment bears that life

Which he deserves to lose.

Treasons capital, confess’d and proved,

Have overthrown him.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

[Aside]

 

[I am already thane of] Glamis, and [now thane of] Cawdor [too]!

The greatest is behind.

                                               

[To Ross and Angus]

 

Thanks for your pains.

 

[Exit Ross and Angus.]

 

                                               

From Macbeth, Act I, Scene Four                             

 

[Forres.  The palace.]

 

[Enter Duncan]

 

                                               

Duncan:                              

 

[To Macbeth] 

 

Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labor

To make thee full of growing. 

 

[To Banquo] 

 

Noble Banquo,

That hast no less deserved, let me unfold thee

And hold thee to my heart.

                                               

[To All] 

               

Sons, kinsmen, thanes, know

We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

The Prince of Cumberland.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

[Aside] 

 

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 deep desires:

The eye wink at the hand;  yet let it be,

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

 

From Macbeth, Act I, Scene Five              [Inverness.  Macbeth’s castle.]

 

[Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.]

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

They made themselves air, into which they vanished.

Whiles I stood rapt in wonder of it,

came missives from the king,

who hailed me “Thane of Cawdor”; 

by which the title before, these weird sisters saluted

me, and referred me to the coming on of time

with “Hail, king that shalt be.”

 

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor;  and shalt be

What thou art promised;  yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full of the milk of human kindness.

Hie thee hither,

That I may pour spirits in thine ear;

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical doth seem

To have crown’d thee withal.

 

[Enter Macbeth]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

My dearest love, Duncan comes here tonight.

 

Lady Macbeth                  

 

And when goes hither?

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Tomorrow, as he purposes.

 

Lady Macbeth                  

 

O, never shall sun that morrow see!

To beguile the time, look like the time; 

bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue; 

look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under it. 

You shall put this night’s great business into my dispatch

Leave all the rest to me.

 

From Macbeth, Act I, Scene Seven         

 

[Macbeth’s castle.]

 

[Enter Macbeth and Lady Macbeth]

 

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                  

 

What beast was it, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

 

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---

his two chamberlains

Will I with wine and wassail so convince

That memory, the warder of the brain,

Shall be a fume:  when in swinish sleep

Their drenched natures lie as in death,

What cannot you and I perform upon

the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon

His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Will it not be received

When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy two

Of his chamber and used their very daggers,

That they have done it?

                                                                                

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 hide what the false heart doth know.

 

From Macbeth, Act II, Scene Two                            

[Court of Macbeth’s castle.]

[Enter Macbeth and Lady Macbeth]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

I have done the deed.  

[Looking at his hands]  This is a sorry sight.

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

Go get some water,

And wash up 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 look on 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.

 

[Exit.  Knocking within]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Whence is that knocking?

How is it with me when every noise I hear 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?

 

[Reenter Lady Macbeth.]

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

My hands are of your color;  but I shame

To wear a heart so white.

 

[Knocking within]

 

I hear a knocking at the south entry:  retire we to our chamber:

a little water clears us of this deed:  How easy it is, then!

 

[Knocking within]

 

Hark!  More knocking. 

Get on your nightgown. 

Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts

                                               

Macbeth:                           

 

To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself.

 

[Knocking within]

 

Wake Duncan with thy knocking!  I wish thou couldst!                                 

 

 

From Macbeth, Act II, Scene Three                         

 

[Court of Macbeth’s castle.]

 

[Porter lets Macduff and Lennox into the castle and leads them to Macbeth]

               

Lennox:                                               

 

[To Macbeth] Good morrow, noble sir.

               

Macduff:                            

 

Is the king stirring, worthy thane?

                                               

Macbeth:                           

 

Not yet.   

 

Macduff:                            

 

He did tell me to call timely on him:

I have almost slipped the hour.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

I’ll bring you to him.  This is the door.

 

[Macduff enters Duncan’s chamber]

 

Lennox:                                               

 

The night has been unruly:  where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down; 

strange screams of death;

the obscure bird clamored the livelong night.

Some say the earth was feverous and did shake.

               

Macbeth:                           

 

‘Twas a rough night.

                                               

[Re-enter Macduff]

 

Macduff:                            

 

O horror, horror, horror!  Tongue

nor heart

Cannot conceive nor name thee.

                                               

Macbeth & Lennox:       

 

What’s the matter?

 

Macduff:                            

 

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence

the life of the building!

 

Lennox:                                               

 

Mean you his majesty?

 

Macduff:                            

 

Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight.

 

[Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox]

 

[Enter Lady Macbeth]

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

What’s the business?  Speak, speak!

 

Macduff:                            

 

Oh 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]

 

Macduff:                            

 

Oh, Banquo, Banquo,

Our royal master’s dead.             

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

Woe, alas!  What, in our house?

 

Banquo:                              

 

Too cruel anywhere.     

 

[Reenter Macbeth, with Lennox and Ross; 

enter Donalbain and Malcolm,

just a bit later, and behind them]

 

Donalbain:                         

 

What’s 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.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

O, yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

 

[All look at Macbeth in puzzled disbelief.]

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

Help me, hence, ho!

 

Macduff:                            

 

Look to the lady.

 

[Lady Macbeth is carried out.]

 

Banquo:                              

 

Let us meet, and question this most bloody piece of work,

To know it further.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Let’s briefly put on manly readiness,

And meet in the hall together.

 

[Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.]

 

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 safer:  where we are,

There’s daggers in men’s eyes.

 

[Malcolm and Donalbain bid each other goodbye.  Exeunt.]

               

                 

From Macbeth, Act III, Scene One                           

 

[Forres.  The palace.]

 

[Enter Macbeth]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Our fears in Banquo stick deep.

They hail’d him father to a line of kings:

If’t be so, for Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;

For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered.

 

[Enter two Murderers.]

 

Well, then, have you considered of my speeches?

Know that it was he who in the times past which held you

So under fortune?

This I made good to you, 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.

 

Second Murderer:          

I am one, my liege,

Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world

Have so incensed that I am reckless what

I do to spite the world.

 

First Murderer:                

 

And I another,

So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune,

That I would set my life on any chance,

To mend it, or be rid on’t.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Both of you know that Banquo was your enemy.

 

Both Murderers:             

 

True, my lord.

 

Second Murderer:          

 

We shall, my lord, perform what you command us.

 

First Murderer:                

 

We are resolved, my lord.

                               

Macbeth:                           

 

I’ll call upon you straight.  Abide within.

 

[Exeunt Murderers.]

 

[Macbeth alone, lines delivered to audience)

 

Banquo, thou soul’s flight,

If it find heaven, must find it tonight.

 

[Exit.]

                                                                           

From Macbeth, Act III, Scene Four                           [Hall in the palace]

 

[A banquet prepared.  Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.]

 

[First Murderer appears at the door.  Macbeth sees him and moves toward the door, anxious but

affecting a calm demeanor and trying to attract as little notice as possible.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Is he dispatched?

 

First Murderer:                

 

My lord, his throat is cut;  that I did for him.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Thou art the best of the cutthroats.

 

First Murderer:                

 

Fleance is escaped.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Then comes my fit again.

Get thee gone. 

Tomorrow we’ll hear ourselves again.

 

[Exit First Murderer]

 

[As Macbeth prepares to take his seat at the banquet table,

the ghost of Banquo appears and sits in Macbeth’s place ]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Which of you have done this?

 

Lords:                                   

 

What, my good lord?

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Thou canst not say I did it:

never shake your gory locks at me

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

Sit, worthy friends;  my lord is often thus.

 

[Ghost vanishes.  Macbeth relaxes a bit.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Come, love and health to all;  then I’ll sit down.

 

[Reenter Ghost.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Avaunt, and quit my sight!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

 

[Ghost vanishes.] 

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Then I am a man again

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

You have displaced the mirth,

broke the meeting,

With most admired disorder.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

You make me strange

When now I think how 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.

A kind good night to all

                                                                    

[Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.] 

 

Macbeth:                           

 

I will tomorrow to the weird sisters.

More shall they speak;  for now I am bent to know,

By the worst means, the worst.

I am in blood stepp’d in so far that,

should I wade no more, 

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

We are but young in deed.

 

                                                                    

[Exeunt all but Macbeth] 

 

From Macbeth, Act IV, Scene One                          

 

[A cavern.  In the middle, a boiling cauldron.]

                               

[Thunder.  Enter the three witches.]

 

First Witch:                       

 

Thrice the bridle cat hath mew’d.

 

Second Witch:                 

 

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

 

Third Witch:                      

 

Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ‘tis time.

 

All:                                        

 

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

How now, you secret, midnight hags?

I conjure you, by that which you profess,

answer me to what I ask you.

 

First Witch:                       

 

Speak.

 

Second Witch:                            

 

Demand.

 

Third Witch:                                                  

 

We’ll answer.

 

First Witch:                       

 

Say, if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths,

Or from our masters.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Call ‘em;  let me see ‘em.           

 

All:                                        

 

Come, high or low;

Thyself and office deftly show.

 

[Thunder.  First Apparition:  an armed Head]

 

First Apparition:              

 

Beware Macduff;  beware the thane of Fife.     

 

[Descends.]

 

[Thunder.  Second Apparition:  A Bloody Child]

 

Second Apparition:        

 

Laugh to scorn the power of man,

For none of woman born

Shall harm Macbeth.                     

 

[Descends.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Then 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.

 

[Thunder.  Third Apparition:  a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand.]

               

Third Apparition:            

 

Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until

Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill

Shall come against him.                               

 

[Descends.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

That will never be:

Who can impress the forest, bid the tree

Unfix his earthbound root?  Sweet bodements!  Good!

 

[All] Witches:                   

 

Show his eyes and grieve his heart;

Come like shadows, so depart!

 

[A show of Eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand;  Banquo’s Ghost following.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo;  down!

Thy crown does sear my eyeballs.

 

[Apparitions and witches vanish.]

 

 

 Macbeth:                          

 

Where are they?  Gone?

Let this pernicious hour stand accursed in the calendar!

 

 

From Macbeth, Act IV, Scene Three                       

[England.  Before the King’s palace.]

 

[Enter Malcolm, Macduff, and Ross]

 

Macduff:                            

 

Stands Scotland where it did?

 

Ross:                                    

 

Alas, poor country!  Almost afraid to know itself.

 

Macduff:                            

 

How does my wife---   

and all my children?

 

Ross:                                    

 

Your castle is surprised; 

your wife and babes

Savagely slaughter’d.

 

Macduff:                            

 

My children too?

 

Ross:                                    

 

Wife, children, all that could be found!

 

Malcolm:                            

 

Dispute it like a man!

 

Macduff:                            

 

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man.

Heavens, cut short all intermission;  front to front

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland to myself.

                                               

From Macbeth, Act V, Scene One                            

[Dunsinane.  Anteroom in the castle.]

[Enter Lady Macbeth.]

 

Lady Macbeth:                 

 

Out, spot---  out, I say! 

What need we fear who knows it,

when none can call our power to account?

Here’s the smell of blood still:

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten     

this little hand.  Oh, oh, oh!

 

Wash your hands, put on your nightgown;

Look not so pale.

There’s knocking at the gate:

Come, come, come, come,

give me your hand.

 

What’s done cannot be undone

To bed, to bed, to bed!                

 

[Exit]

 

From Macbeth, Act V, Scene Four                            [Country near Birnam Wood.]

 

[Drum and colors.  Enter Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, Macduff, Mentieth, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and soldiers, marching.]

 

Malcolm:                            

 

Let every soldier hew him down a bough

And bear’t before him:   thereby shall we shadow          

The numbers of our host and make discovery

Err in report of us.

 

From Macbeth, Act V, Scene Five                            

 

[Dunsinane.  Within the castle.]

 

[Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colors.]

 

[The cry of women within.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Wherefore was that cry?

 

Seyton:                                               

 

The queen, my lord, is dead.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

She should have died thereafter;

There would have been time for such a word.

Tomorrow , and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.  Out, out brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more;  it is a tale

Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. 

 

[Enter a messenger.]

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Thou comest to use thy tongue;  thy story quickly.

 

Messenger:                       

 

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

I look’d toward Birnam, and, anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

If thy speech is sooth

I begin to doubt the equivocation of the fiend

That lies like truth:  ‘Fear not, till Birnam Wood

Do come to Dunsinane.’  And now a wood

Comes toward Dunsinane.

Arm, arm, and out!

 

From Macbeth, Act V, Scene Eight                          

 

[The battlefield.]

 

[Enter Macbeth, with Macduff close behind.]

 

Macduff:                            

 

Turn, hell-hound, turn!

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Thou losest labor.

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.

 

Macduff:                            

 

Despair thy charm;

And let the angel whom thou still hast served

Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb

untimely ripp’d.

 

Macbeth:                           

 

Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,

For it hath cowed my better part of man!

And be these juggling fiends no more believed,

That palter with us in a double sense.

 

Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last.  Lay on, Macduff.

 

[Exeunt, fighting.  Alarums.]

 

[Retreat.  Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors,

Malcolm, old Siward, Ross, the other Thanes, and soldiers.

                               

[Reenter Macduff, with Macbeth’s head.]

 

Macduff:                            

 

Hail, king!  For so thou art;  behold, where stands

The usurper’s cursed head.

Hail, King of Scotland!

                                         

All:                                        

 

Hail, King of Scotland!

 

Malcolm:                            

 

We shall not spend a large expense of time

Before we reckon with your several loves.

And make us even with you.

So thanks to all at once and to each one,

Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.

 

[Flourish.  Exeunt.]

 

 

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