Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Macbeth: Act I, Scene 5

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Macbeth
Act I, Scene 5

Inverness. Macbeth’s castle.

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

John Singer Sargent, 1889

  1. Enter Macbeth’s Wife alone, with a letter.

Lady Macbeth

1 - 29
  1. Reads.
  2. “They met me in the day of success; and I have learn’d by
  3. the perfect’st report, they have more in them than mortal
  4. knowledge. When I burnt in desire to question them further,
  5. they made themselves air, into which they vanish’d. Whiles I
  6. stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King,
  7. who all-hail’d me “Thane of Cawdor,” by which title, before,
  8. these weird sisters saluted me, and referr’d me to the
  9. coming on of time with “Hail, King that shalt be!” This have
  10. I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of
  11. greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing
  12. by being ignorant of what greatness is promis’d thee. Lay it
  13. to thy heart, and farewell.”
  14. Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
  15. What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature,
  16. It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
  17. To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
  18. Art not without ambition, but without
  19. The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
  20. That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
  21. And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou’ldst have, great Glamis,
  22. That which cries, “Thus thou must do,” if thou have it;
  23. And that which rather thou dost fear to do
  24. Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
  25. That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
  26. And chastise with the valor of my tongue
  27. All that impedes thee from the golden round,
  28. Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
  29. To have thee crown’d withal.
  30. Enter Macbeth’s Messenger.
  31.                              What is your tidings?

Macbeth’s Messenger

30
  1. The King comes here tonight.

Lady Macbeth

31 - 33
  1.                              Thou’rt mad to say it!
  2. Is not thy master with him? Who, were’t so,
  3. Would have inform’d for preparation.

Macbeth’s Messenger

34 - 37
  1. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming.
  2. One of my fellows had the speed of him,
  3. Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
  4. Than would make up his message.

Lady Macbeth

38 - 61
  1.                                 Give him tending,
  2. He brings great news.
  3. Exit Macbeth’s Messenger.
  4.                       The raven himself is hoarse
  5. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
  6. Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
  7. That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
  8. And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
  9. Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
  10. Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
  11. That no compunctious visitings of nature
  12. Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
  13. Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
  14. And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
  15. Wherever in your sightless substances
  16. You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
  17. And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
  18. That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
  19. Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
  20. To cry, “Hold, hold!”
  21. Enter Macbeth.
  22.                       Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!
  23. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
  24. Thy letters have transported me beyond
  25. This ignorant present, and I feel now
  26. The future in the instant.
Sarah Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth

Sarah Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth

Paul Nadar, circa 1900

Macbeth

62 - 63
  1.                            My dearest love,
  2. Duncan comes here tonight.

Lady Macbeth

64
  1.                            And when goes hence?

Macbeth

65
  1. Tomorrow, as he purposes.

Lady Macbeth

66 - 76
  1.                           O, never
  2. Shall sun that morrow see!
  3. Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
  4. May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
  5. Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
  6. Your hand, your tongue; look like th’ innocent flower,
  7. But be the serpent under’t. He that’s coming
  8. Must be provided for; and you shall put
  9. This night’s great business into my dispatch,
  10. Which shall to all our nights and days to come
  11. Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macbeth

77
  1. We will speak further.

Lady Macbeth

78 - 80
  1.                        Only look up clear:
  2. To alter favor ever is to fear.
  3. Leave all the rest to me.
  1. Exeunt.
Lady Macbeth with the letter

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 promis’d thee.

Lady Macbeth with the letter

Johann Heinrich Ramberg, 1829

© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons