Macbeth — Act 2, Scene 3in modern English, side by side
The same · Porter, Macduff, Lennox, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, Malcolm, Donalbain
In the small hours, Macbeth has murdered King Duncan in his sleep, and Lady Macbeth has planted the bloody daggers on the King's drugged guards — no one else knows. As dawn breaks, Macduff and Lennox knock at the castle gate, sent to wake the King.
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Enter a Porter. Knocking within
Porter
Here’s a knocking indeed!
Now that's what I call knocking!
If a man were porter of hell gate, he should
have old turning the key.
If a man were porter at the gate of hell, he'd certainly be kept busy turning the key.
[_Knocking._] Knock, knock, knock.
[Knocking] Knock, knock, knock!
Who’s
there, i’ th’ name of Belzebub?
Who's there, in Beelzebub's name?
Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on
the expectation of plenty:
Ah — a farmer who hanged himself because he expected a bumper harvest and prices collapsed.
come in time;
You've come at just the right time.
have napkins enow about you;
here you’ll sweat for’t.5
I hope you brought plenty of handkerchiefs, because you'll sweat for it in here.
[_Knocking._] Knock, knock!5
[Knocking] Knock, knock!
Who’s there, i’5
th’ other devil’s name?
Who's there, in the other devil's name?
Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear
in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough
for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven:
Why, it's an equivocator — a double-talker who could swear to either side of an argument against the other, who committed treason enough in God's own name, and yet couldn't talk his slippery way into heaven.
O, come in,
equivocator.
Oh, come in, equivocator.
[_Knocking._] Knock, knock, knock!
[Knocking] Knock, knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Who's there?
Faith,
here’s an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French10
hose:
Honestly — it's an English tailor, here for skimping fabric out of a pair of French breeches.
come in, tailor;
Come in, tailor;
here you may roast your goose.
you can heat your pressing iron in here.
[_Knocking._]
Knock, knock.
[Knocking] Knock, knock.
Never at quiet!
Never a moment's peace!
What are you?
Who are you?
—But this place is too cold
for hell.
— But this place is too cold to be hell.
I’ll devil-porter it no further:
I'll play the devil's porter no longer.
I had thought to have let in
some of all professions, that go the primrose way to th’ everlasting
bonfire.15
I'd been planning to let in someone from every profession that strolls down the flowery primrose path to the everlasting bonfire.
[_Knocking._] Anon, anon!15
[Knocking] Coming, coming!
I pray you, remember the porter.15
And please — remember to tip the porter.
_Opens the gate._
Enter Macduff and Lennox
Macduff
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
Did you go to bed so late, friend, that you're still lying in bed this late?
Porter
Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock;
Honestly, sir, we were drinking until the second cock-crow
and drink, sir, is
a great provoker of three things.
— and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
Macduff
What three things does drink especially provoke?20
What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Well, sir: a red nose, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes
and unprovokes;
As for lust, sir — drink provokes it and unprovokes it.
it provokes the desire, but it takes away the
performance.
It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.
Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with
lechery:
So you might say too much drink plays the double-dealer with a man's lust:
it makes him, and it mars him;
it makes him and it ruins him;
it sets him on, and it takes
him off;25
it gets him going and it stops him cold;
it persuades him, and disheartens him;25
it encourages him and it discourages him;
makes him stand to, and25
not stand to;
it makes him stand up ready for action, and then not stand up at all.
in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him
the lie, leaves him.
In the end, it double-talks him into a sleep, calls him a liar, and walks out on him.
Macduff
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
I believe drink called you a liar last night — and laid you out flat.
Porter
That it did, sir, i’ the very throat on me;
That it did, sir — right down my throat.
but I requited him for his
lie;30
But I paid him back for his lie.
and (I think) being too strong for him, though he took up my legs30
sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.
I was too strong for him in the end, I think: though he took my legs out from under me a few times, I managed to throw him.
Macduff
Is thy master stirring?
Is your master awake?
Enter Macbeth
Macduff
Our knocking has awak’d him;
Our knocking has woken him.
here he comes.
Here he comes.
Lennox
Good morrow, noble sir!
Good morning, noble sir!
Macbeth
Good morrow, both!35
Good morning to you both!
Macduff
Is the King stirring, worthy thane?
Is the King awake yet, worthy thane?
Macbeth
Not yet.
Not yet.
Macduff
He did command me to call timely on him.
He ordered me to call on him early.
I have almost slipp’d the hour.
I've almost missed the hour.
Macbeth
I’ll bring you to him.40
I'll take you to him.
Macduff
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet ’tis one.
I know this trouble is a joy to you — but it's trouble all the same.
Macbeth
The labour we delight in physics pain.
Work we enjoy cures its own pain.
This is the door.
This is the door.
Macduff
I’ll make so bold to call.45
For ’tis my limited service.
I'll take the liberty of going in to call him — it's the specific duty I was given.
_Exit Macduff._
Lennox
Goes the King hence today?
Is the King leaving today?
Macbeth
He does.
He is.
He did appoint so.
He arranged it so.
Lennox
The night has been unruly:
The night has been wild.
where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,50
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confus’d events,
New hatch’d to the woeful time.
Where we were sleeping, chimneys were blown down; and people say cries of grief were heard in the air — strange screams of death, and terrible voices prophesying fire and chaos and disasters newly hatched for these miserable times.
The obscure bird
Clamour’d the live-long night.55
The owl, the bird of darkness, shrieked all night long.
Some say the earth55
Was feverous, and did shake.
Some say the earth itself had a fever and shook.
Macbeth
’Twas a rough night.
It was a rough night.
Lennox
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
In my young memory I can't find another night to match it.
Enter Macduff
Macduff
O horror, horror, horror!60
Oh, horror, horror, horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!
No tongue can name you — no heart can imagine you!
MACBETH, LENNOX.
What’s the matter?
MACBETH AND LENNOX: What's the matter?
Macduff
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Destruction has produced its masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope65
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o’ th’ building.
The most sacrilegious murder imaginable has broken open the Lord's anointed temple and stolen the life from inside the building.
Macbeth
What is’t you say?
What are you saying?
the life?
The life?
Lennox
Mean you his majesty?
Do you mean his majesty?
Macduff
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight70
With a new Gorgon.
Go into that room, and let the sight destroy your eyes like a new Gorgon.
Do not bid me speak.
Don't ask me to speak.
See, and then speak yourselves.
See it — and then do the speaking yourselves.
_Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox._
Macduff
Awake, awake!—
Wake up! Wake up!
Ring the alarum bell.—
Ring the alarm bell!
Murder and treason!
Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!75
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! Wake up!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself!
Shake off this soft, downy sleep — sleep, death's imitation — and look at death itself!
Up, up, and see
The great doom’s image.
Up, up, and see the very image of Judgment Day!
Malcolm! Banquo!
Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror!80
Rise up as if from your graves, and walk like ghosts to come and face this horror!
_Alarum-bell rings._
Enter Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
What’s the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house?
What's going on, that such a hideous trumpet blast summons everyone sleeping in this house to a meeting?
Speak, speak!
Speak — speak!
Macduff
O gentle lady,
’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:85
Oh, gentle lady, what I could tell isn't fit for you to hear.
The repetition, in a woman’s ear,
Would murder as it fell.
Repeated in a woman's ear, the words would kill as they landed.
Enter Banquo
Macduff
O Banquo, Banquo!
Oh Banquo, Banquo!
Our royal master’s murder’d!
Our royal master has been murdered!
Lady Macbeth
Woe, alas!90
How terrible!
What, in our house?
What — in our house?
Banquo
Too cruel anywhere.—
It would be too cruel anywhere.
Dear Duff, I pr’ythee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so.
Dear Macduff, I beg you — contradict yourself and say it isn't so.
Enter Macbeth and Lennox with Ross
Macbeth
Had I but died an hour before this chance,95
I had liv’d a blessed time;
If I had only died an hour before this happened, I would have lived a blessed life.
for, from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.
Because from this moment on, there is nothing in human life worth taking seriously.
All is but toys:
It's all toys and trifles.
renown and grace is dead;
Honor and grace are dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.100
the wine of life has been drained, and only the dregs are left for this cellar to boast about.
Enter Malcolm and Donalbain
Donalbain
What is amiss?
What's wrong?
Macbeth
You are, and do not know’t:
You are — and you don't know it yet.
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp’d;
The spring, the head, the fountain your blood flows from has been stopped up.
the very source of it is stopp’d.
Its very source has been stopped.
Macduff
Your royal father’s murder’d.105
Your royal father has been murdered.
Malcolm
O, by whom?
Oh — by whom?
Lennox
Those of his chamber, as it seem’d, had done’t:
The men guarding his chamber did it, by all appearances.
Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood;
So were their daggers, which, unwip’d, we found
Upon their pillows.110
Their hands and faces were smeared all over with blood, and so were their daggers, which we found unwiped on their pillows.
They star’d, and were distracted;110
They stared at us, completely out of their minds.
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.
No one's life was safe near them.
Macbeth
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
Oh — and yet I regret the fury that made me kill them.
Macduff
Wherefore did you so?
Why did you do that?
Macbeth
Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate, and furious,115
Loyal and neutral, in a moment?
Who can be wise and stunned, calm and furious, loyal and detached, all in the same instant?
No man:
No one.
Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason.
The speed of my violent love outran my hesitating reason.
Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac’d with his golden blood;
And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature120
For ruin’s wasteful entrance:
There lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood, his gaping wounds like a breach in nature itself, wide open for ruin to come pouring in.
there, the murderers,
Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech’d with gore.
And there lay the murderers, soaked in the colors of their trade, their daggers rudely dressed in gore.
Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make’s love known?125
Who could have held himself back — anyone with a heart to love, and courage enough in that heart to prove his love?
Lady Macbeth
Help me hence, ho!
Help me out of here — quick!
Macduff
Look to the lady.
Take care of the lady.
Malcolm
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
Why are we saying nothing, when this grief belongs to us more than anyone?
Donalbain
What should be spoken here, where our fate,130
Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us?
What could we say here — where our own deaths may be hiding in some tiny drilled hole, ready to rush out and seize us?
Let’s away.
Let's get away.
Our tears are not yet brew’d.
Our tears aren't brewed yet.
Malcolm
Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
No — and our deep sorrow isn't ready to act yet either.
Banquo
Look to the lady:—135
Take care of the lady. —
_Lady Macbeth is carried out._
Banquo
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work
To know it further.
And once we've covered our half-dressed bodies, shivering out here in the cold, let's meet and investigate this bloody piece of work, to learn everything we can.
Fears and scruples shake us:
Right now fears and doubts are shaking all of us.
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence140
Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
I place myself in the great hand of God, and standing there I will fight against the hidden plot behind this treasonous crime.
Macduff
And so do I.
So will I.
All
So all.
So will we all.
Macbeth
Let’s briefly put on manly readiness,145
And meet i’ th’ hall together.
Let's quickly get dressed and armed like men, and meet together in the hall.
All
Well contented.
Agreed.
_Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain._
Malcolm
What will you do?
What will you do?
Let’s not consort with them:
Let's not stay with them.
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy.150
Putting on a show of grief he doesn't feel is easy work for a false man.
I’ll to England.150
I'll go to England.
Donalbain
To Ireland, I.
And I'll go to Ireland.
Our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer.
Keeping our fortunes separate will make us both safer.
Where we are,
There’s daggers in men’s smiles:
Here, there are daggers hidden in men's smiles
the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
— and the closer a man is to us in blood, the closer he is to spilling ours.
Malcolm
This murderous shaft that’s shot155
Hath not yet lighted;
The murderous arrow that's been shot hasn't landed yet,
and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim.
and our safest course is to stay out of its path.
Therefore to horse;
So — to horse.
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away.
And let's not be polite about goodbyes; let's just slip away.
There’s warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there’s no mercy left.160
There's justification for stealing yourself off when there's no mercy left to stay for.
_Exeunt._
Famous lines in this scene
“the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire” line 14
Playing hell's doorkeeper, the Porter imagines sinners strolling down a pleasant, flower-lined path straight into hellfire. The joke lands moments after Duncan's murder: Macbeth's castle really has become a kind of hell, and its owner is walking that easy downhill road. It is comic relief with a serious double edge.
“it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance” line 22
The Porter's joke about alcohol and sex: drink makes a man want lovemaking but leaves him unable to manage it. Beyond the laugh, the line mirrors the play's obsession with equivocation — promises that deliver their opposite — which is exactly how the witches' prophecies will end up treating Macbeth himself.
“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!” line 64
Macduff's cry on discovering Duncan's corpse: chaos itself has produced its greatest work. Since kings were considered God's anointed, Macduff describes the body as a sacred temple broken open and robbed of its life. The line marks the play's turn from secret crime to public catastrophe.
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles” line 153
Donalbain's reason for fleeing Scotland: the friendly faces at court hide killers, and the closer the kinsman, the greater the danger. The image distills the play's theme of false appearances — a smiling host has just murdered his king — even though the brothers' flight will make them look guilty.
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