DUNCAN – King of Scotland
MALCOLM, DONALBAIN – his sons
MACBETH, BANQUO – generals of the King’s army
MACDUFF, LENNOX, ROSS, MENTEITH, ANGUS, CAITHNESS – noblemen of Scotland
FLEANCE – son of BANQUO
SIWARD – Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces
YOUNG SIWARD – his son
Boy – son of Macduff
An English doctor, a Scotch doctor, a soldier, a porter, an old man
LADY MACBETH
LADY MACDUFF
Gentlewoman – attending on LADY MACBETH
HECATE and three witches
PLAY
In the end of the Fourth Act, in England; through the rest of the play, in Scotland; and chiefly at Macbeth’s castle.
ACT I
Scene i: An open place. Thunder and lightning.
Scene ii: A camp near Forres.
Scene iii: A heath.
Scene iv: Forres. A room in the palace.
Scene v: Inverness. A room in Macbeth’s castle.
Scene vi: The same. Before the castle.
Scene vii: The same. A lobby in the castle.
ACT II
Scene i: Inverness. Court within the castle.
Scene ii: The same. Without the castle.
ACT III
Scene i: Forres. A room in the palace.
Scene ii: The same. Another room in the palace.
Scene iii: The same. A park or lawn, with a gate leading to the palace.
Scene iv: The same. A room of state in the palace. A banquet prepared.
Scene v: The heath.
Scene vi: Forres. A room in the palace.
ACT IV
Scene i: A dark cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling.
Scene ii: Fife. A room in Macduff’s castle.
Scene iii: England. Before the King’s palace.
ACT V
Scene i: Dunsinane. A room in the castle.
Scene ii: The country near Dunsinane.
Scene iii: Dunsinane. A room in the castle.
Scene iv: Country near Dunsinane.
Scene v: Dunsinane. Within the castle.
Scene vi: The same. A plain before the castle.
Scene vii: The same. Another part of the plain.
Scene viii: The same. Another part of the plain.
Act II: Scene i
MACBETH: 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?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which I now draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. – There’s no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. – Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings; and wither’d murder,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. – Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The 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.
