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Macbeth: Act II, Scene 1

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Macbeth
Act II, Scene 1

Scene 1

The court of Macbeth’s castle.

  1. Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him.

Banquo

1
  1. How goes the night, boy?

Fleance

2
  1. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.

Banquo

3
  1. And she goes down at twelve.

Fleance

4
  1.                              I take’t, ’tis later, sir.

Banquo

5 - 12
  1. Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heaven,
  2. Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
  3. Gives him his belt and dagger.
  4. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
  5. And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
  6. Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
  7. Gives way to in repose!
  8. Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.
  9.                         Give me my sword.
  10. Who’s there?

Macbeth

13
  1. A friend.

Banquo

14 - 19
  1. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King’s a-bed.
    Apr 20, 2020 Miko
    in bed
  2. He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
  3. Sent forth great largess to your offices.
  4. This diamond he greets your wife withal,
  5. By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
  6. In measureless content.

Macbeth

20 - 22
  1.                         Being unprepar’d,
  2. Our will became the servant to defect,
  3. Which else should free have wrought.

Banquo

23 - 25
  1.                                      All’s well.
  2. I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
  3. To you they have show’d some truth.

Macbeth

26 - 29
  1.                                     I think not of them;
  2. Yet when we can entreat an hour to serve,
  3. We would spend it in some words upon that business,
  4. If you would grant the time.

Banquo

30
  1.                              At your kind’st leisure.

Macbeth

31 - 32
  1. If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,
  2. It shall make honor for you.

Banquo

33 - 36
  1.                              So I lose none
  2. In seeking to augment it, but still keep
  3. My bosom franchis’d and allegiance clear,
  4. I shall be counsell’d.

Macbeth

37
  1.                        Good repose the while!

Banquo

38
  1. Thanks, sir; the like to you!
  1. Exit Banquo with Fleance.

Macbeth

39 - 72
  1. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
  2. She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
  3. Exit Servant.
  4. Is this a dagger which I see before me,
  5. The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
  6. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
  7. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
  8. To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
  9. A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
  10. Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
  11. I see thee yet, in form as palpable
  12. As this which now I draw.
  13. Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going,
  14. And such an instrument I was to use.
  15. Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses,
  16. Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still;
  17. And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
  18. Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:
  19. It is the bloody business which informs
  20. Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half world
  21. Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
  22. The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates
  23. Pale Hecat’s off’rings; and wither’d Murder,
  24. Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
  25. Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
  26. With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
  27. Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
  28. Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
  29. The very stones prate of my whereabout,
  30. And take the present horror from the time,
  31. Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
  32. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
  33. A bell rings.
  34. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
  35. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell,
  36. That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Playbill for Macbeth

Playbill for Macbeth

Broadway Theatre, 1852

  1. Exit.
Henry Irving as Macbeth, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

Henry Irving as Macbeth, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

At the Lyceum Theatre, January 19, 1889

John Jellicoe, Herbert Railton

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