Macbeth — Act 1, Scene 7in modern English, side by side
The same. A Lobby in the Castle · Macbeth, Lady Macbeth
Duncan is feasting inside Macbeth's castle while Macbeth slips out alone to think through the murder — and talks himself out of it. Lady Macbeth comes after him to find out why he has left the table.
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Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over, a Sewer and divers
Servants with dishes and service. Then enter Macbeth
Macbeth
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.
If it were really finished once it's done, then it would be best to do it quickly.
If th’ assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all—here,5
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come.
If the assassination could sweep up all its consequences in a net, and with Duncan's death catch success — if this one blow could be the be-all and the end-all right here — then here, on this narrow sandbank in the river of time, I'd gladly gamble away the life to come.
But in these cases
We still have judgement here;
But in cases like this, we're still judged here in this world.
that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor.10
We give lessons in bloodshed, and once they're learned, they come back to torment the teacher.
This even-handed justice10
Commends th’ ingredience of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.
This even-handed justice lifts the cup we ourselves poisoned to our own lips.
He’s here in double trust:
He's here under a double trust.
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed;
First, I'm his kinsman and his subject — both strong arguments against the deed.
then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,15
Not bear the knife myself.
Then, I'm his host — the man who should bolt the door against his murderer, not carry the knife myself.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;20
Besides, this Duncan has used his royal powers so gently, and has been so incorruptible in his great office, that his virtues will plead like trumpet-tongued angels against the deep damnation of killing him;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, hors’d
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.25
and pity, like a naked newborn baby striding the storm-wind, or like heaven's cherubim riding the invisible horses of the air, will blow the horrible deed into every eye until tears drown the wind.
—I have no spur25
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—
I have no spur to drive my plan forward — only vaulting ambition, which leaps so high over the saddle that it crashes down on the other side—
Enter Lady Macbeth
Macbeth
How now!
Well?
what news?
What news?
Lady Macbeth
He has almost supp’d.30
He's nearly finished his supper.
Why have you left the chamber?30
Why did you leave the dining hall?
Macbeth
Hath he ask’d for me?
Has he asked for me?
Lady Macbeth
Know you not he has?
You know perfectly well he has.
Macbeth
We will proceed no further in this business:
We're going no further with this business.
He hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,35
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
He has just honored me, and I've earned golden opinions from all kinds of people — opinions that should be worn now, while they're new and shining, not thrown away so soon.
Lady Macbeth
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress’d yourself?
Was the hope you dressed yourself in drunk, then?
Hath it slept since?
Has it been sleeping it off since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale40
At what it did so freely?
And is it waking up now, green and sick, looking at what it did so eagerly?
From this time
Such I account thy love.
From now on, that's what I'll consider your love to be worth.
Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire?
Are you afraid to be the same man in action and courage that you are in your desires?
Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,45
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage?
Would you have the thing you call the crown jewel of life, and yet live as a coward in your own eyes — letting 'I don't dare' trail along behind 'I want to,' like the poor cat in the old story, who wanted the fish but wouldn't wet her paws?
Macbeth
Pr’ythee, peace!
Please — enough!
I dare do all that may become a man;50
I dare do everything that's fitting for a man.
Who dares do more is none.
Whoever dares do more is no man at all.
Lady Macbeth
What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
Then what kind of beast was it that made you reveal this plan to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
When you dared to do it — that's when you were a man.
And, to be more than what you were, you would55
Be so much more the man.
And to be more than you were then, you'd be that much more a man.
Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
Back then, neither the time nor the place was right, and yet you were ready to force them both into place.
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you.
Now they've fallen into place on their own — and their very readiness is unmanning you.
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:60
I have nursed a baby, and I know how tender it is to love the child at my breast.
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 you
Have done to this.
But even while it was smiling up into my face, I would have pulled my nipple out of its soft, toothless gums and dashed its brains out — if I had sworn to do it the way you have sworn to do this.
Macbeth
If we should fail?65
But if we fail?
Lady Macbeth
We fail?
We — fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail.
Just screw your courage tight to its notch, like a crossbow string, and we will not fail.
When Duncan is asleep
(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey
Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains70
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only:
When Duncan is asleep — and his hard day's journey will make sure he sleeps soundly — I'll flood his two personal attendants with so much wine and partying that memory, the brain's guard, will turn to fumes, and the vessel that holds their reason will be nothing but a still, cooking vapor.
when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,75
When they lie in their pig-like sleep, soaked and dead to the world,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th’ unguarded Duncan?
what can't you and I do to the unguarded Duncan?
what not put upon
His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
And what can't we pin on his sponge-soaked officers, who will carry the guilt of our great killing?
Macbeth
Bring forth men-children only;80
Have nothing but sons!
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.
A spirit as fearless as yours should produce nothing but males.
Will it not be receiv’d,
When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us’d their very daggers,
That they have done’t?85
Once we've smeared blood on the two sleeping servants of his own bedchamber, and used their own daggers to do it, won't everyone accept that they were the killers?
Lady Macbeth
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
Who would dare take it any other way, once we've set our grief and outcry roaring over his death?
Macbeth
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.90
I'm resolved. Every muscle in my body is bent to this terrible act.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
Let's go — and fool the world with the friendliest of faces:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
a false face must hide what the false heart knows.
_Exeunt._
Famous lines in this scene
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.” line 1
The opening of Macbeth's great soliloquy: if the murder could be truly finished — over, with no consequences — the moment it's committed, he would do it fast. The whole speech tests that 'if' and finds it false: violence teaches 'bloody instructions' that come back to plague the person who invented them.
“Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’ other—” line 27
Macbeth's honest verdict on his own motive: he has no real grievance against Duncan — 'only' ambition, pictured as a rider who vaults so eagerly into the saddle that he tumbles over the far side. It is the play's central image of self-destroying ambition and the standard evidence for naming Macbeth's tragic flaw.
“I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none.” line 50
Macbeth's definition of manhood: real courage has moral limits, and whoever crosses them stops being a man at all. Lady Macbeth instantly turns the word against him — 'When you durst do it, then you were a man' — making this exchange the key evidence for the play's running debate over what being a man means.
“But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail.” line 67
Lady Macbeth's answer to Macbeth's 'If we should fail?' The image is of winding a crossbow string or tuning peg tight to its notch: fix your courage at full tension and hold it there. Her confidence closes the argument, and the phrase has entered everyday English for steeling yourself to do something frightening.
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