Macbeth — Act 2, Scene 1in modern English, side by side

Inverness. Court within the Castle · Banquo, Fleance, Macbeth, Servant

King Duncan is spending the night as a guest at Macbeth's castle at Inverness, and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have secretly resolved to murder him tonight. It's past midnight; Banquo — who heard the witches promise Macbeth the crown — is uneasy and can't sleep.

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Enter Banquo and Fleance with a torch before him

Banquo

How goes the night, boy?

How is the night going, boy?

Fleance

The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.

The moon has set, and I haven't heard the clock strike.

Banquo

And she goes down at twelve.

And the moon sets at midnight.

Fleance

I take’t, ’tis later, sir.

I'd say it's later than that, sir.

Banquo

Hold, take my sword.5

Here, hold my sword.

There’s husbandry in heaven;5

Their candles are all out.

Heaven is being thrifty tonight — all its candles are out.

Take thee that too.

Take this too.

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep.

Sleepiness is weighing on me like lead, and yet I don't want to sleep.

Merciful powers,

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature

Gives way to in repose!10

Merciful powers, hold back the cursed thoughts my mind slips into whenever it rests!

Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch

Banquo

Give me my sword.

Who’s there?

Who's there?

Macbeth

A friend.

Banquo

What, sir, not yet at rest?

What, sir — still up?

The King’s abed:

The King has gone to bed.

He hath been in unusual pleasure and

Sent forth great largess to your offices.15

He's been in unusually high spirits, and he sent generous gifts to your household staff.

This diamond he greets your wife withal,

By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up

In measureless content.

This diamond is his present for your wife — he calls her "the kindest of hostesses" — and he has gone to bed perfectly content.

Macbeth

Being unprepar’d,

Our will became the servant to defect,20

Because we had no warning of his visit, our hospitality fell short of what we wanted to offer.

Which else should free have wrought.

If we'd been prepared, our goodwill could have worked freely.

Banquo

All’s well.

Everything went well.

I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters:

I dreamed last night of the three Weird Sisters.

To you they have show’d some truth.

For you, at least, some of what they said has come true.

Macbeth

I think not of them:25

I don't think about them.

Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,

We would spend it in some words upon that business,

If you would grant the time.

Still, when we can find a spare hour, I'd like to spend it talking with you about that business — if you'll give me the time.

Banquo

At your kind’st leisure.

Whenever it's convenient for you.

Macbeth

If you shall cleave to my consent, when ’tis,30

It shall make honour for you.

If you stand with me when the moment comes, there will be honor in it for you.

Banquo

So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchis’d, and allegiance clear,

I shall be counsell’d.35

As long as I lose no honor in trying to gain more — as long as my conscience stays free and my loyalty stays clean — I'm willing to listen.

Macbeth

Good repose the while!

Sleep well in the meantime!

Banquo

Thanks, sir:

Thank you, sir.

the like to you.

The same to you.

_Exeunt Banquo and Fleance._

Macbeth

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

She strike upon the bell.

Go tell your mistress to strike the bell when my drink is ready.

Get thee to bed.

Then get yourself to bed.

_Exit Servant._

Macbeth

Is this a dagger which I see before me,40

The handle toward my hand?

Is this a dagger I see in front of me, its handle pointing toward my hand?

Come, let me clutch thee:—

Come, let me grab you. —

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

I can't hold you, and yet I still see you.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight?

Deadly vision, can't you be felt as well as seen?

or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,45

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

Or are you only a dagger of the mind — a false creation coming out of my fevered, overworked brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

I still see you, and you look as solid and real as this dagger I'm drawing now.

Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;

And such an instrument I was to use.50

You're leading me down the very road I was already going, with exactly the kind of weapon I meant to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest:

Either my eyes are being made fools of by my other senses, or they're seeing better than all the rest put together.

I see thee still;

And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,

Which was not so before.

I still see you — and now there are thick drops of blood on your blade and handle that weren't there before.

There’s no such thing.

No. There's no such thing.

It is the bloody business which informs55

Thus to mine eyes.

It's this bloody business ahead that's making my eyes see it.

Now o’er the one half-world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain’d sleep.

Right now, over one half of the world, nature seems dead, and wicked dreams torment sleepers behind their bed-curtains.

Witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate’s off’rings; and wither’d murder,

Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,60

Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost.

Witches are offering sacrifices to their pale goddess Hecate; and withered old Murder, woken by his lookout the wolf — whose howl is his signal — moves toward his victim with silent, stealthy steps, like Tarquin creeping toward his crime, gliding like a ghost.

Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,65

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.

You solid, firmly fixed earth, don't listen to my footsteps or notice which way they go, in case your very stones cry out where I am and break this dreadful silence — a silence that suits this moment so well.

Whiles I threat, he lives.

But while I stand here making threats, he goes on living.

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

Talk only cools the heat of action.

_A bell rings._

Macbeth

I go, and it is done.

I'm going now, and it's as good as done.

The bell invites me.

The bell is inviting me.

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell70

That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Don't hear it, Duncan — it's a funeral bell, calling you to heaven or to hell.

_Exit._

Famous lines in this scene

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” line 40

Alone at night, Macbeth hallucinates a floating dagger pointing him toward Duncan's room. He cannot tell whether it is a supernatural sign or "a dagger of the mind" produced by his overheated brain. It is the play's most famous image of a conscience buckling under the pressure of a crime not yet committed.

“Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.” line 70

The bell is Lady Macbeth's signal that everything is ready, but Macbeth hears it as Duncan's funeral bell. The rhymed couplet ends the scene with terrible finality — deliberation is over, and he exits to commit the murder, leaving open only where Duncan's soul will go: heaven or hell.

Confused by a different line? Paste any Shakespeare — any play, any edition — and get it in modern English.

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