Audition packs - here they are

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – OVERVIEW

Performance Dates
o 6, 8 & 9 August at 7.30 pm
o 7,12 &13 August at 6.30 pm
o 14 – 16 August 7.30 pm

Auditions
25 May 2008
Elmwood Auditorium
Aikmans Road, Merivale
Times will be booked from 20 May, by appointment

· I will be auditioning Macbeth and Lady Macbeth actors together with each actor getting to read with at least two others.
· The witches will be auditioned in groups.

Above all I want people to give the type of audition that reflects the way they work… you can read up and prepare looking at background and the script OR turn up cold. Part of the audition is to find out how you like to work and what sort of actor you are.

For example I have worked with people who start rehearsals as blank canvasses and others who turn up to the first rehearsal with most of the character in place, with thinkers, intuitive actors, and others who are very physical in how they develop their characters.

Blog and production notes here - http://barcodemacbeth.blogspot.com/

Rehearsal times and dates
These have yet to be set but for principal roles 2 evenings and one session on the weekends during June, and early July moving to 3 evenings and one weekend till late July / early August.

Concept for the production
There is a continuum between performing Shakespeare exactly as written in the time in which it was set, and changing it to make it more accessible.
This production veers towards accessibility. Long scenes with very little information shared are being cut and some attempts are being made at the beginning toward making Macbeth more than just some Scottish guy hundreds of years ago. The audience needs to be with us and long clunky scenes with people questioning each other are not good entertainment.

This production will be reasonably traditional in most of the performance aspects, except that:
- There will be minimum set (chairs and a table), with black curtains, lighting, music and smoke
- There are significant cuts to reduce the performance time to 90 minutes
- Many smaller scenes with minor characters have been pruned
- Some scenes have been turned more into showing, rather than long speeches telling
- Following the ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ themeing the witches are not going to be old hags but good looking and attractive and entirely evil
- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are not going to be truly perfect heroic figures, rather having strengths, as they are often played. As well as the weaknesses of vaulting ambition –
o Macbeth is a great warrior but off the battlefield he is easily led and perhaps really doesn’t get how court politics work. This satisfies the imagery of not fitting the clothing of being King and explains why he never resorts to diplomacy to secure his throne.
o Lady Macbeth is very ambitious but small minded and shrewish toward her husband (this is demonstrated in the ‘screw your courage to the sticking place’ speech) and really she can’t foresee the costs of her urgings – perhaps seeing the short term goal but isn’t smart enough to see what will happen if you kill the King.
These basic characterisations also tend to support the idea that Macbeth has no use for Lady Macbeth after the Banquo’s ghost scene – he has just resorted to battlefield tactics of killing everything and she has nothing more to offer.
Another twist here is it might be interesting if the witches or Hecate are Lady Macbeth’s servants.
- The start and end of the play are set in contemporary times, Macbeth falls under the witches spells and so experiences the rest of the play as if it were circa 800 BC.


Macbeth

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Macbeth

Background

Macbeth is a great general and warrior. This is his thing – he is ferocious, fearless and an inspiring field commander.

Usually he is played as a great heroic character but with vaulting ambition, and power lust (and perhaps his wife) as his fatal weaknesses.

In this production we’re taking a harder look at why this ‘vaulting ambition’ leads to a bloodthirsty and insane coup d’etat betraying and murdering his leader, his best friend and destroying his country.

The line we will take is that he is a great general, but not a great politician. In fact off the battlefield he really is ‘in borrow’d clothes’. He is not up to being King. That’s peharps why Duncan didn’t make him Cumberland (crown prince).
His level of intelligence is up to the actor. Insightful soliloquy’s do not necessarily mean he’s bright.
The murders after Duncan show a Macbeth who falls back on what he knows- violent bloodshed – he turns the Kingdom into a battlefield because that’s what he understands.

The Elmwood Macbeth will be a mostly decent but flawed general who is perhaps reminiscent of a great sportsman who just doesn’t get the politics around his code.

So why does he kill Duncan?
· Yes he did think he should be King – he doesn’t know his limitations
· The witches cast a spell on him (a thrall) – which alters his perceptions
· Lady Macbeth is more ambitious than he is and is goading and pushing him
· He’s weak

The audition

The audition will involve – working with 2 auditionees for the role of Lady Macbeth (LM)
1. Some dialogue and movement with an auditionee for LM
2. A soliloquy
3. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the character and the play
4. The dialogue again with another actor as LM

Soliliquys - 2 to choose from:

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, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw.Mine eyes are made the 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 informsThus to mine eyes.
A bell rings
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Or

I have lived long enough: my way of lifeIs fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;And that which should accompany old age,As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,I must not look to have; but, in their stead,Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

Dialogue

Enter LADY MACBETH
MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour'd me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunkWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done to this.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journeySoundly invite him--his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warden of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA vessel only: when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males. Will it not be received,When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twoOf his own chamber and used their very daggers,That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,As we shall make our griefs and clamour roarUpon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show:False face must hide what the false heart doth know.


Lady Macbeth

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Lady Macbeth

Background

Lady Macbeth is arguably the greatest female Shakespearean role.
Usually she is played with one of 3 variants –
1 Strong and ruthless, dominating her husband
2 As very much in love and weaker but who makes herself strong to do what she thinks her husband really wants
3 As equal to her husband but trying to work with him to achieve greatness, partly out of her own ambition and partly just being in partnership with him.

In this production we’re taking a harder look at both her and Macbeth to understand why they embark on a bloodthirsty and insane coup d’etat betraying and murdering the King and plunging the country into terror and confusion.

Just because other women’s roles in Shakespeare aren’t great is no reason to make her dominating and strong unless we really believe she is. Although many people have introduced historical detail behind the real Lady Macbeth this isn’t that relevant to the script.

So why does she urge Macbeth to, and go ahead with, killing Duncan? My answers for discussion are:
· She is very ambitious and wants them to be King and Queen
· Her ambition outweighs her commonsense and ability to understand the consequences of her actions
· The witches cast a spell on her and her husband


The audition

The audition will involve – working with 2 auditionees for the role of Macbeth
1. Some dialogue and movement with an auditionee for Macbeth
2. A soliloquy
3. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the character and the play
4. The dialogue again with another actor as Macbeth


Soliliquys - 2 to choose from:

The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-fullOf direst cruelty! make thick my blood;Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,To cry 'Hold, hold!'

LADY MACBETH
Yet here's a spot.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, mylord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need wefear who knows it, when none can call our power toaccount?--Yet who would have thought the old manto have had so much blood in him.
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all withthis starting.
Here's the smell of the blood still: all theperfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this littlehand. Oh, oh, oh!


Dialogue

Enter LADY MACBETH
MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour'd me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunkWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done to this.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journeySoundly invite him--his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warden of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA vessel only: when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males. Will it not be received,When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twoOf his own chamber and used their very daggers,That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,As we shall make our griefs and clamour roarUpon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show:False face must hide what the false heart doth know.


The witches
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Witches

Background
When people think of Macbeth usually the witches are one of the first things they think of. Waiting outside to see productions of the play I have discussed with people how the witches will be played.

The key questions around any production and the witches are:
· Do they really enthral Macbeth?
· Are they just a prompt for Macbeth?
This production goes for real magic.

Usually the witches are played as hags – in this production we’re going to take the ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ and apply it by making the witches physically attractive and internally very ugly. On the production blog is a music video with the proposed style of the dresses.

Also these witches will be dancing so we’re looking for witches who can move. The first scene sees the witches coming out of a rave tanked up and full of party pills – they then enthral Macbeth and he plunges into a nightmare which he experiences as circa 800 AD.
At various points in the play where really awful things are happening the witches will never be far away and having a great time – and they may be Lady Macbeth’s attendants (which would explain an awful lot).

The audition
The audition will involve – working with 2 other auditionees for the witches
1. Some dialogue and movement
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.
First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;In the poison'd entrails throw.Toad, that under cold stoneDays and nights has thirty-oneSwelter'd venom sleeping got,Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,In the cauldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,Witches' mummy, maw and gulfOf the ravin'd salt-sea shark,Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,Liver of blaspheming Jew,Gall of goat, and slips of yewSilver'd in the moon's eclipse,Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,Finger of birth-strangled babeDitch-deliver'd by a drab,Make the gruel thick and slab:Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,For the ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,Then the charm is firm and good.
By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks,Whoever knocks!

Duncan

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Duncan

Background

Duncan is the perfect monarch, usually played as ‘older’.
Gravitas / authority will be key to this part. This usually means taller and distinguished.
The dialogue has been cut from the full version of the play.

The actor can double for other parts.

The audition
The audition will involve –
1. Some dialogue
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue

SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.
Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, and Attendants
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are notThose in commission yet return'd?
MALCOLM
My liege,They are not yet come back. But I have spokeWith one that saw him die: who did reportThat very frankly he confess'd his treasons,Implored your highness' pardon and set forthA deep repentance: nothing in his lifeBecame him like the leaving it; he diedAs one that had been studied in his deathTo throw away the dearest thing he owed,As 'twere a careless trifle.
DUNCAN
There's no artTo find the mind's construction in the face:He was a gentleman on whom I builtAn absolute trust.
Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS
O worthiest cousin!Would thou hadst less deserved,That the proportion both of thanks and paymentMight have been mine! only I have left to say,More is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe,In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' partIs to receive our duties; and our dutiesAre to your throne and state children and servants,Which do but what they should, by doing every thingSafe toward your love and honour.
DUNCAN
Welcome hither:Noble Banquo,That hast no less deserved.

My plenteous joys,Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselvesIn drops of sorrow.

Sons, kinsmen, thanes,And you whose places are the nearest, knowWe will establish our estate uponOur eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafterThe Prince of Cumberland; which honour mustNot unaccompanied invest him only,But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shineOn all deservers. From hence to Inverness,And bind us further to you.

MACBETH
[Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a stepOn which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;Let not light see my black and deep desires:The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

The rest is labour, which is not used for you:I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyfulThe hearing of my wife with your approach;So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN
My worthy Cawdor!
Exit
DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,And in his commendations I am fed;It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:It is a peerless kinsman.
Flourish. Exeunt

The Porter
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Porter

Background

The porter is often seen as the ‘light relief’ in Macbeth.
He is clearly a metaphor for the porter to the gates of hell and I suppose that porter would need a sense of humour.

I have no firm idea of how this part should be played but it is a great part for someone of have fun with.

The actor may be asked to double – perhaps for the doctor or be the same person as Seyton who appears later.

The audition
The audition will involve –
1. Some dialogue
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue
Porter
Here's a knocking indeed! If aman were porter of hell-gate, he should haveold turning the key.
Knocking within
Knock,knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name ofBeelzebub?
Knocking within
Knock,knock! Who's there, in the other devil'sname? Faith, here's an equivocator, that couldswear in both the scales against either scale;who committed treason enough for God's sake,yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, comein, equivocator.
Knocking within
Knock,knock, knock! Who's there?
Knocking within
Knock, knock; What are you? Butthis place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porterit no further:
Knocking within
Anon, anon! I pray you.
Opens the gate
Enter MACDUFF and Ross
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,That you do lie so late?
Porter
'Faith sir, we were carousing till thesecond cock: and drink, sir, is a greatprovoker of three things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, andurine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;it provokes the desire, but it takesaway the performance: therefore, much drinkmay be said to be an equivocator with lechery:it makes him, and it mars him; it setshim on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,and disheartens him; makes him stand to, andnot stand to; in conclusion, equivocates himin a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
That it did, sir

All other parts
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Miscellaneous parts

Background

The Elmwood production of Macbeth will be both traditional and modern with the play starting in modern times and moving into circa 800 AD.

We will be working to get Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s motivation as plausible other than them being very heroic but with a vaulting ambition that makes them kill Duncan and leads to chaos, bloodshed and evil.

The cast will operate as a team with some doubling of roles. There have been many cuts Macduff, Banquo, Malcolm, Ross and Angus are still substantial but many other miscellaneous thanes have vanished. Depending on the cast one or two can be retrieved by reclaiming their lines. Seyton is now the chief murderer.

The Old Man, young Macduff, Fleance, Donalbain, both Siwards, Menteith, the English Doctor, and some of the murderers have gone.

Given the setting of the play there is room for a female thane (the idea is that Macbeth is a contemporary military commander experiencing a dark ages nightmare so a woman General or Colonel is possible).

Lady Macduff, the Gentlewoman and Hecate now only have a few lines. These combined with other servants leaves room for doubling roles. Some scenes have been cut so that the play will be showing people rather than telling them what is happening.

There will be little set; black drapes, a table and some chairs, smoke and light. Oh and lots of blood.

The audition
The audition will involve – working with other auditionees:
1. Some dialogue and movement
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play


Dialogue and soliloquy’s

BANQUO
What are theseSo wither'd and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aughtThat man may question? You seem to understand me,By each at once her chappy finger layingUpon her skinny lips: you should be women,And yet your beards forbid me to interpretThat you are so.

********

ROSS
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him:I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH
I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physics pain.This is the door.
MACDUFF
I'll make so bold to call,For 'tis my limited service.
Exit
ROSS
Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH
He does: he did appoint so.
ROSS
The night has been unruly: where we lay,Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,And prophesying with accents terribleOf dire combustion and confused events
MACBETH
'Twas a rough night.
Re-enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heartCannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH / ROSS
What's the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!Most sacrilegious murder hath broke opeThe Lord's anointed temple, and stole thenceThe life o' the building!
MACBETH
What is 't you say? the life?
ROSS
Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sightSee, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt MACBETH and ROSS
Awake, awake!Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!Awake!Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,And look on death itself! up, up, and seeThe great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

********

SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle.
Enter ROSS and MACDUFF
ROSS
Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
MACDUFF
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
ROSS
Alas, the day!What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF
They were suborn'd:Malcolm the king's son,Is stol'n away and fled; which puts upon himSuspicion of the deed.
ROSS
'Gainst nature still!Then 'tis most likeThe sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
MACDUFF
He is already named, and gone to SconeTo be invested.
ROSS
Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF
No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
ROSS
Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF
Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
ROSS
Farewell, cousin

********

HECATE
Have I not reason, beldams as you are,Saucy and overbold? How did you dareTo trade and traffic with MacbethIn riddles and affairs of death;And I, the mistress of your charms,The close contriver of all harms,Was never call'd to bear my part,Or show the glory of our art?And, which is worse, all you have doneHath been but for a wayward son,Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,Loves for his own ends, not for you.But make amends now: get you gone.

********


MACDUFF
Let us ratherHold fast the mortal sword, and like good menBestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn
MALCOLM
Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.Why in that rawness left you wife and child,Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,Without leave-taking? I pray you,
MACDUFF
Bleed, bleed, poor country!Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thouthy wrongs;The title is affeer'd! Fare thee well, lord:I would not be the villain that thou think'stFor the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,And the rich East to boot.
MALCOLM
Be not offended:I speak not as in absolute fear of you.I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gashIs added to her wounds.
MACDUFF
Not in the legionsOf horrid hell can come a devil more damn'dIn evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLM
I grant him bloody,
********

MACDUFF
See, who comes here?
MALCOLM
My countryman; but yet I know him not.
MACDUFF
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
ROSS
Sir.
MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSS
Alas, poor country!Almost afraid to know itself. It cannotBe call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the airAre made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seemsA modern ecstasy; the dead man's knellIs there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's livesExpire before the flowers in their caps,Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF
O, relationToo nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLM
What's the newest grief?
ROSS
That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF
How does my wife?
ROSS
Why, well.
MACDUFF
And all my children?
ROSS
Well too.
MACDUFF
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
ROSS
No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
Now is the time of help; your eye in ScotlandWould create soldiers, make our women fight,To doff their dire distresses.
MALCOLM
Be't their comfortWe are coming thither: gracious England hathLent us good Siward and ten thousand men;An older and a better soldier noneThat Christendom gives out.
ROSS
Would I could answerThis comfort with the like! But I have wordsThat would be howl'd out in the desert air,Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF
What concern they?The general cause? or is it a fee-griefDue to some single breast?
ROSS
No mind that's honestBut in it shares some woe; though the main partPertains to you alone.
MACDUFF
If it be mine,Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSS
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,Which shall possess them with the heaviest soundThat ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF
I guess at it.
ROSS
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babesSavagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,To add the death of you.
MALCOLM
Merciful heaven!Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
MACDUFF
My children too?
ROSS
Wife, children, servants, allThat could be found.
MACDUFF
And I must be from thence!My wife kill'd too?
ROSS
I have said.
MALCOLM
Be comforted:Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF
He has no children. All my pretty ones?Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let griefConvert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;Our lack is nothing but our leave; MacbethIs ripe for shaking, and the powers abovePut on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:The night is long that never finds the day.

********

Doctor
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceiveno truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gentlewoman
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seenher rise from her bed, throw her night-gown uponher, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and againreturn to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
Doctor
A great perturbation in nature, to receive at oncethe benefit of sleep, and do the effects ofwatching! In this slumbery agitation, besides herwalking and other actual performances, what, at anytime, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman
That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Gentlewoman
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness toconfirm my speech.
Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise;and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doctor
How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman
Why, it stood by her: she has light by hercontinually; 'tis her command.
Doctor
You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman
Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thuswashing her hands: I have known her continue inthis a quarter of an hour.