act three scene four

SCENE IV. The same. Hall in the palace.

A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants

MACBETH

You know your own ranks, so you know where to sit. Sit down. From the highest to the lowest of you, I bid you a hearty welcome.

Lords

Thanks to your majesty. 

MACBETH

I will walk around and mingle with all of you, playing the humble host. My wife will stay in her royal chair, but at the appropriate time I will have her welcome you all.

LADY MACBETH

Go welcome our friends from me. They are all welcome in my heart

MACBETH

And they respond to you with their hearts as well. The table is full on both sides. I will sit here in the middle. Be free and happy. Soon we will toast around the table.

First Murderer

It must be Banquos.

MACBETH

I’d rather see his blood splattered on your face than flowing through his veins. Did you finish him off?

First Murderer

My lord, his throat is cut. I did that for him.

MACBETH

You are the best of the cutthroats. But whoever did the same to Fleance must also be good. If you cut both their throats, then you are the absolute best.

First Murderer

Most royal sir, Fleance escaped.

MACBETH

Now I’m scared again. Otherwise I would have been perfect, as solid as a piece of marble, as firm as a rock, as free as the air itself. But now I’m all tangled up with doubts and fears. But Banquo’s been taken care of?

First Murderer

Yes good lord, he’s lying dead in a ditch.With twenty gashes any which one would have been enough to kill him 

MACBETH

Thanks for that. The adult snake lies in the ditch. The young snake that escaped will in time become poisonous and threatening, but for now he has no fangs. Get out of here. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.

Exit Murderer

LADY MACBETH

 Go and entertain the guests and make them feel welcome or else this dinner party won’t be fun for them.

MACBETH

It’s nice of you to remind me. (raising a glass to toast his guests) Since good digestion requires a good appetite, and good health requires both of those, here’s to good appetites, good digestion, and good health!

LENNOX

Please have a seat, your highness!

The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH’s place

MACBETH

We would have all the nobility of Scotland gathered under one roof, if only Banquo were here. I hope it turns out that he’s late out of rudeness, and not because something bad has happened to him.

ROSS

His absense means he has broken his promise. Come and sit with us if you would like your highness.

MACBETH

The table’s full.

LENNOX

Here is a place for you, sir.

MACBETH

Where?

LENNOX

Here, my good lord. What disturbing you highness?

MACBETH

Which of you have done this?

Lords

What, my good lord?

MACBETH

You can’t say I did it. Don’t shake your bloody head at me.

ROSS

Stand up gentlemen, the king is not well

LADY MACBETH

Stay seated friends he gets like this and has since he was a kid,stay seated and he will be better now ignore him because he will get offended if you pay him attention. 

MACBETH

Yes, and a brave one, who dares to look at something that would frighten the devil.

LADY MACBETH

Oh, that’s nonsense! This is just another one of the hallucinations you always get when you’re afraid. This is like that floating dagger you said was leading you toward Duncan. These outbursts of yours don’t even look like real fear. They’re more like how you would act if you were a woman telling a scary story by the fireside in front of her grandmother. Shame on you! Why are you making these faces? When the vision passes, you’ll see that you’re just looking at a stool.

MACBETH

Please, just look over there. Look! Look! See! (to the GHOST) What do you have to say? What do I care? If you can nod, then speak too. If the dead are going to return from their graves, then there’s nothing to stop the birds from eating the bodies. So there’s no point in our burying people.

GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes

LADY MACBETH

What is this foolishness 

MACBETH

As sure as I’m standing here, I saw him.

LADY MACBETH

nonsence

MACBETH

In ancient times, before there were laws to make the land safe and peaceful, a lot of blood was spilled. Yes, and since then murders have been committed that are too awful to talk about. It used to be that when you knocked a man’s brains out he would just die, and that would be it. But now they rise from the dead with twenty fatal head wounds and push us off our stools. This haunting business is even stranger than murder.

LADY MACBETH

Your friends what you to come back

MACBETH

I forgot about them. (to the guests) Don’t be alarmed on my account, my most worthy friends. I have a strange disorder, which no longer shocks those who know me well. (raising his glass to toast the company) Come, let’s drink a toast: love and health to you all. Now I’ll sit down. Give me some wine. Fill up my cup.

Lords

Hear, hear

Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO

MACBETH

Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

LADY MACBETH

Think of it as a a odd habit and nothing more its a shame it has spoilt our night.

MACBETH

I am as brave as any other man. Come at me in the form of a rugged Russian bear, an armor-plated rhinoceros, or a tiger from Iran. Take any shape other than the one you have now and I will never tremble in fear. Or come back to life again and challenge me to a duel in some deserted place. If I tremble then, you can call me a little girl. Get out of here, you horrible ghost, you hallucination. Get out!

LADY MACBETH

You have ruined our good cheer and disrupted the gathering by making a spectacle of yourself.

MACBETH

Can things like this happen so suddenly without making us all astonished? You make me feel like I don’t know myself, when I see you looking at these terrible things and keeping a straight face, while my face has gone white with fear.

ROSS

What things, my lord?

LADY MACBETH

Please don’t talk to him. He is getting worse and worse. All these questions are making him angry. Goodnight to all of you, right now! No need to leave in social ranking – just go quickly!

LENNOX

Good night, and I hope his majesty is in better health soon!

LADY MACBETH

A kind good night to all of you!

Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH

MACBETH

There’s an old saying: the dead will have their revenge. Gravestones have been known to move, and trees to speak, to bring guilty men to justice. The craftiest murderers have been exposed by the mystical signs made by crows and magpies. How late at night is it?

LADY MACBETH

It is right at the divide between morning and night.

MACBETH

What do you think about the fact that Macduff refuses to come to me when I command him?

LADY MACBETH

Did you send for him, sir?

MACBETH

I’ve heard about this indirectly, but I will send it to him. In every one of the lords’ households I have a servant paid to spy for me. Tomorrow, while it’s still early, I will go see the witches. They will tell me more, because I’m determined to know the worst about what’s going to happen. My own safety is the only important thing now. I have walked so far into this river of blood that even if I stopped now, it would be as hard to go back to being good as it is to keep killing people. I have some schemes in my head that I’m planning to put into action. I have to do these things before I have a chance to think about them.

LADY MACBETH

You really need some sleep.

MACBETH

Yes, let’s go to sleep. My strange self-delusions just come from inexperience. We’re still just beginners when it comes to crime.

Exeunt