Macbeth quotes

When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

When the hurlyburly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won.

That will be ere the set of sun.

The weird 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.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these So wither’d and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught That man may question?

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.

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them.

Whither are they vanish’d?

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.

Aside.

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

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.

There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face

: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.

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. Exit.

This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst 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’ the 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:

Give him tending; He brings great news. Exit Messenger. 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 the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it!

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.

My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night.

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 the 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.

I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other.

He has almost supp’d: why have you left the chamber?

We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honour’d 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.

Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress’d 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.

From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour 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’ the adage?

Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.

Prithee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.

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.

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:

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Exit Servant.

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-oppressed brain?

Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, 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. Exit.

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. Exit.

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.

Exit.

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast

—

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.

Whence is that knocking? How is’t with me, when every noise appals 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 in incarnadine, Making the green one red.

Whence is that knocking? How is’t with me, when every noise appals 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 in incarnadine, Making the green one red.

My hands are of your colour; 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 is it, then!

My hands are of your colour; 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 is it, then!

Your constancy Hath left you unattended. Knocking within. 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.

How easy is it, then! Your constancy Hath left you unattended. Knocking within. 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.

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

Knocking within. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst! Exeunt.

O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee!

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence The life o’ the building!

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.

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.

Bring them before us. Exit Attendant.

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 fear’d: ’tis much he dares; And, to that dauntless temper of his mind, He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety.

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.

We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it: She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth.

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.

We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it

: She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth.

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 honours in these flattering streams, And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are.

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.

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 the rooky wood:

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still: Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. So, prithee, go with me. Exeunt.

Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still:

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

So, prithee, go with me. Exeunt.

A kind good night to all! Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady 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 magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?

I will to-morrow, And betimes I will, to the weird 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 Stepp’d 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 scann’d.

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.

Exeunt.

And that distill’d 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 He hopes ’bove wisdom, grace and fear:

And you all know, security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

Music and a song within: “Come away, come away,” etc. Hark! I am call’d; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. Exit.

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 blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, …

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.

Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down! Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls. 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 the 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 two-fold balls and treble scepters carry: Horrible sight! Now, I see, ’tis true;

Time, thou anticipatest 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;

I take my leave of you: Shall not be long but I’ll be here again: Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before. My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you!

Father’d he is, and yet he’s fatherless.

I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, It would be my disgrace and your discomfort: I take my leave at once. Exit.

Yes, he is dead: how wilt thou do for a father?

Nay, how will you do for a husband?

Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.

Who must hang them?

Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.

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

But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon; That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose:

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so.

I have lost my hopes.

Merciful heaven! What, man! ne’er pull your hat upon your brows;

Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.

Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.

He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?

Dispute it like a man.

Did heaven look on, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! naught that I am, Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword’s length set him; if he ’scape, Heaven forgive him too!

This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the king; our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:

The night is long that never finds the day.

Exeunt.

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

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

—One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?

Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?—What, will these hands ne’er be clean?—No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.

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

Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

Oh, oh, oh!

To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand.

What’s done cannot be undone.

—To bed, to bed, to bed! Exit.

Will she go now to bed?

Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:

More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all! Look after her; Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night: My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.

Take thy face hence. Exit Servant. Seyton!—I am sick at heart, When I behold—Seyton, I say!—This push Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.

I have lived long enough: my way of life Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain

And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?

Therein the patient Must minister to himself.

Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it.

Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff. Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me. Come, sir, dispatch.

It is the cry of women, my good lord. Exit.

I have almost forgot the taste of fears:

The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;

There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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 an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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 an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

“Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane:” and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.

I gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.

Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back. Exeunt.

Another part of the field.

They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course.

What’s he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.

Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back; my soul is too much charged With blood of thine already.

I have no words: My voice is in my sword

: thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out! They fight.

Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow’d my better part of man!

And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.

I’ll not fight with thee.

Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield.

Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Exeunt, fighting. Alarums.