SCENE V
Dunsinane.
Malcolm, seated, with Macduff, Suitor, Suitor’s Father and Attendants.
SUITOR’S FATHER My liege, my daughter would make the
finest bride in all of Scotland. Her beauty is sung of—
MALCOLM It is apparent.
SUITOR’S FATHER Thank him.
SUITOR Thank you, my lord.
SUITOR’S FATHER My lord, she is a most obedient and de-
voted subject, and would—
MALCOLM Would you like to speak?
SUITOR I am yours, my lord.
MALCOLM Thank you for gracing us with your beauty and
charm. We shall call on you.
SUITOR’S FATHER My lord, ’twould be such an honor—
MACDUFF We shall call on you.
Exit Suitor and Suitor’s Father.
MALCOLM What think you, Macduff?
MACDUFF She’s fine of form,
and her eyes shine with intelligence.
She would make a fine bride for Scotland.
MALCOLM I am not certain. If it were—
Enter two Messengers, followed by Siward, Seyton, Lennox and Angus.
MESSENGER ONE My king,
your brother has breached our shores.
MESSENGER TWO He doth approach
with army fierce.
SIWARD Traitor!
SEYTON Villain!
MALCOLM From whence?
MESSENGER ONE Through the shades of Birnam Wood.
MALCOM (aside) Thus comes
the prophecy to pass. Yet I’ll be touched
by none but Cawdor.
MESSENGER TWO More, my lord. Ross rides at his side.
MALCOLM What, Ross?
ANGUS ’Tis not possible.
SEYTON ’Tis treachery!
LENNOX Rush not to judge. Ne’er was Ross’s honor
held in doubt.
MACDUFF Ross would not raise a hand
against your throne. Perhaps they come in peace.
SIWARD What? An army come in peace?
SEYTON My lord,
I have heard your errant brother means
to petition for a title.
MALCOLM Title? What title?
SEYTON As you already claim that of king and hold
no need for titles lesser, Donalbain aims
to acquire “Cawdor.”
MALCOLM (aside) Can it be? Is not
all Ireland enough? Sisters: your riddles
twist to life. Birnam Wood would mark
the way. So it does. Only Cawdor
can harm me. So he aspires. Is there no pause
between prophecy and consequence?
No gestation for augury?
Is the world below more expedient?
Or did my very summoning create
the act? Would I had never visited
that bog!
MACDUFF My lord, I pray you, patience—
SEYTON Patience? Whilst
an army advances?
MALCOLM Patience is a luxury
not suited to every time. I summoned my brother
for a private audience; I must
then view his outward show of arms in but
one light. I love my brother dearly—yet
it seems that not all love is requited.
The prince forgets, he is no seed of Banquo.
He is but the second-loved brother,
who must now be first to die. Forgive
me, Father: to save one son, I must
kill your other.
Exeunt.
SCENE VI
Birnam Wood.
Enter Donalbain, Ross, Soldiers.
DONALBAIN How deeply this Scottish air stirs me. ‘Tis
mighty strange.
Never have I felt as content.
SOLDIER ONE Nor I
as lost. I can’t recall such ghastly fog.
ROSS ’Tis like the very breath of hell.
DONALBAIN I think
we are in Birnam Wood, but know not for
this vapor.
SOLDIER ONE Sire, we are. See there? The fog
begins to lift.
SOLDIER TWO So it does.
Now the sun.
DONALBAIN Such a sudden shift
of light I have not ever seen.
ROSS Sire!
Look there! Your brother.
DONALBAIN So it is! May God
be blessed. How it warms my heart to see
my flesh again!
Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Seyton, Lennox, Angus and Soldiers.
The two armies stop before each other.
Donalbain dismounts, as does Malcolm. The two brothers approach each
other on foot. Donalbain reaches for a scroll.
DONALBAIN Dear brother!
Malcolm stabs him. Donalbain falls.
DONALBAIN Alas! Am I slain by my self?
Now I know why I felt contentment here:
it is to be my resting place. What better
place to die than at a brother’s side.
If to be killed by a hand so close, ’tis safer
not to live at all.
Donalbain dies.
ROSS Shadow of Macbeth! What vile act
is this? Your noble brother approached in peace,
and you met his embrace with murder.
MALCOLM He reached
for his sword; I answered with mine.
ROSS He reached
for a scroll!
Ross dismounts, and takes a scroll from
Donalbain’s hand and hands it to Malcolm.
ROSS He brought you news of Norway’s attack. He brought
you men to help defend it!
Malcolm reads, and sinks to his knees beside Donalbain.
ROSS You have killed
the better half of Duncan.
Ross remounts.
ROSS You have won
the day, but not the time. You now outrank
this friendly group, but Donalbain shall be
avenged. On that day you will earn his blood.
Lennox, with Soldiers, rides to Ross’s side.
LENNOX I am with Ross!
Angus, with Soldiers, rides to Ross’s side.
ANGUS And I!
Exeunt Ross, Lennox, Angus and all their Soldiers.
SIWARD My liege, they flee! We must pursue!
SEYTON We must
strike now, before their army multiplies!
MALCOLM What a cruel and callous butcher am I.
Dear, dear brother. How I missed your face
e’en as I struck; I watched my hand perform
the deed e’en as I wished it wouldn’t. O, Donalbain!
SEYTON My lord, the fog returns. We must pursue!
MALCOLM The sisters thus speak true. Donalbain
has vanquished Malcolm, worse than a thousand Norways.
SIWARD My lord—
MALCOLM Peace! There will be no more death
on this day. More days will follow, if none
with any worth.
Exeunt.
SCENE VII
A graveyard.
Enter Malcolm, who sits beside the corpse of Donalbain.
Enter Woman.
MALCOLM Nothing now can harm you further. Not
the slings of fortune, not the touch of a brother’s
love. I will have you borne to Colmekill
upon a thousand gilded horses; no place
more befits, for more a king are you
than I. I, a coward who wears a crown,
a crown planted in haste, loosed by our father’s
death. On him it should have stayed; then,
on you. For what grants me the right? Being
firstborn? What virtue lies in that? What hand
had I in that? We ’magine that by this custom
a second brother is the lesser; yet this day
proves otherwise.
“I to England.” “And to Ireland I.”
If only we’d switched paths that fateful day.
You would now be Scotland, and these hands, so tainted,
could be free of fratricide. If only
we’d avenged our Duncan while in restless
death he lay; if only we’d looked more deeply
into the bloody deed. But we forsook
our father’s lonely corpse, and on ourselves
drew suspicion. “Our separated
fortune shall keep us both the safer.” Not safe
enough from a brother’s embrace. “Where we
are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Would
I had greeted you with such a smile.
What’s there? A phantom? The ghost of my mother, come
to rebuke? No, it is too serene….
Sirrah!
Enter Attendant.
Inquire what lady stands thither.
ATTENDANT Yes, my lord.
Attendant rushes off, and returns.
ATTENDANT She would not give her name.
MALCOLM Would not?
ATTENDANT “’Tis a name not to be given,”
is what she said.
MALCOLM Not to be given? What sort
of mystery is this? Who dares not give
what at birth was given free? Inquire
whom she mourns.
ATTENDANT Yes, sire.
Exit Attendant.
MALCOLM Uncanny sight. Such beauty in such a place.
Such beauty anywhere!
Enter Attendant.
ATTENDANT My lord, she would not tell.
MALCOLM Not tell?
ATTENDANT She said,
“It is a private matter.”
MALCOLM Private? Whose death
can be so private? Are we not all catalogued
in that great book of heaven and hell? Is not
one’s absence on this globe so duly noted
that privacy ’scapes even the most unloved
of souls? Cryptic woman! So beautiful.
So solemn. Such a mix I have ne’er seen.
Perchance she is a seraph, dispatched to test
my welcome. Then, as Abraham, I shall
not delay.
Malcolm approaches.
MALCOLM My lady, I beg, why
do you speak so?
WOMAN Why do you inquire
of what is no concern to you?
MALCOLM Death
concerns us all.
WOMAN Some more than others.
MALCOLM How does
it you?
WOMAN It did not until some threescore weeks
ago. ’Twas then I was informed of both
my parents’ deaths, and have come here to mourn
for them.
MALCOLM What, the death of them both?
WOMAN On this very day.
MALCOLM Bloody anniversary!
But how did you not know sooner?
WOMAN My home
is a monastery, far from the news
of the world, and from these parents I never
met.
MALCOLM Never! Alas! But this should make
their death the slighter.
WOMAN Or heavier. Sometimes
’tis better to know a thing than to wonder
what’s been missed.
MALCOLM (aside) This lady’s words distract.
Forgive me, Donalbain; my heart, so filled
with grief, now wells with something else.
(to Lady) Whence
came you?
WOMAN From the black church. On the isle
of Iona.
MALCOLM Black? How so?
WOMAN So named for the
garments of our nuns. It is thought
to be God’s chosen color.
MALCOLM You rebuke me with
the mention.
WOMAN Of God? How so? ’Tis a blessing,
not a rebuke—unless you have rebuked
Him.
MALCOLM O! I have. There lies the corpse
that was my brother, rendered thus by
this very hand.
WOMAN O! Most horrible Cain!
MALCOLM I knew not he came in peace.
WOMAN How could
a brother come otherwise? How heavy a sin
you have committed. You must atone.
MALCOLM I desire
nothing more. But, lady, I do not espy
the graves of your parents. Perhaps we were
acquainted.
WOMAN I pray not.
MALCOLM Pray not? Wherefore?
WOMAN I’ve been told that it was safer to be
from them distant.
MALCOLM Safer? How so?
WOMAN My lord,
press no further. I have come to grieve
in silence.
MALCOLM Art thou an apparition come
to rebuke? I spy no graves here, save for that
crooked cross marking the pit of the Macbeths.
WOMAN I have spoken, my lord.
MALCOLM Tell me at least
your name.
WOMAN For what purpose?
MALCOLM Purpose? Need I
purpose? Know you not that I am king
of all this land?
WOMAN Titles do not sway
me. There sits a greater king than you.
MALCOLM Greater than me? Who? England? Ireland?
WOMAN The Lord who has made you.
MALCOLM (aside) Her piety pierces my soul, rubbing salt
on a heart freshly torn. O bitter
physic! I should leave her; and yet I cannot
tear away.
(to her) Lady, I must know your name.
WOMAN It is
a name I cannot speak. For so uttered,
it would split the air asunder.
MALCOLM Then write it.
WOMAN The letters spelt would burn the parchment.
MALCOLM What name
could do such harm when it doth name so beauteous
a thing?
WOMAN I pray you, good day, my lord.
MALCOLM Stay!
As king, I command.
WOMAN I am not your subject.
MALCOLM You tread on my soil.
WOMAN A cemetery
belongs to the dead. Are you king of the dead?
MALCOLM Answer! Answer I say!!
He shakes her.
WOMAN You have already
pronounced.
MALCOLM Pronounced? I? How? Do not
speak in riddles!
WOMAN Pronounce again, so please
you. The crooked cross stares back.
MALCOLM Macbeth?
How does this concern you?
WOMAN I am their issue.
ATTENDANT What! Ho!
Attendant rushes off.
MALCOLM A child? Of Macbeth?
WOMAN I wish that it were other.
Enter Seyton, Siward, Macduff, various Nobles, Guards,
Attendants, and a Crowd.
SEYTON Can it be?
SIWARD Another Macbeth?
CROWD 2 She’s much too beautiful.
CROWD 3 Far too humble.
CROWD 4 Yet her age is right.
CROWD 5 I spot Cawdor in her eyes.
CROWD 6 Is’t true?!
ALL CROWD We demand to be satisfied! Speak!
MALCOLM Speak, my lady. Is it true?
MACBETH It is.
I have been branded with a name in which
there is no hope for penance.
NOBLES Cursed seed!
CROWD 1 Stone her where she stands!
Malcolm draws.
MALCOLM Back! All of you! You’ll take no action
but by my command.
MACDUFF My lord, we must
at least imprison. She is an enemy
to the state. If we do not, this mob,
or some other, will tear her apart.
SEYTON He speaks wisely, my lord.
MALCOLM Take her to Dunsinane. Secure her in the tower.
The Guards carry her off, and the crowd cheers.
Exeunt all but Malcolm.
MALCOLM Imprison her, I shall, but only that she
not flee. My wife have I found, another
Macbeth or no.
Exit Malcolm.
ACT II