Macbeth — Act 3, Scene 2in modern English, side by side

The same. Another Room in the Palace · Lady Macbeth, Servant, Macbeth

Macbeth is king and Duncan is in his grave, but neither Macbeth nor Lady Macbeth has found a moment's peace since the murder. Unknown to his wife, Macbeth has just hired murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance before tonight's banquet.

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Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant

Lady Macbeth

Is Banquo gone from court?

Has Banquo left the court?

Servant

Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.

Yes, madam, but he returns again tonight.

Lady Macbeth

Say to the King, I would attend his leisure

For a few words.

Tell the King I'd like a few words with him when he has a moment.

Servant

Madam, I will.5

Madam, I will.

_Exit._

Lady Macbeth

Naught’s had, all’s spent,

Where our desire is got without content:

We have nothing, and we've spent everything, when we get what we want and get no contentment with it.

’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

It's safer to be the one destroyed than to live, by destroying, in doubtful joy.

Enter Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

How now, my lord,10

What's this, my lord?

why do you keep alone,10

Of sorriest fancies your companions making,

Using those thoughts which should indeed have died

With them they think on?

Why do you keep to yourself, with only your sorriest imaginings for company, clinging to thoughts that should have died with the men they're about?

Things without all remedy

Should be without regard:

Things beyond all remedy should be beyond attention.

what’s done is done.

What's done is done.

Macbeth

We have scorch’d the snake, not kill’d it.15

We have slashed the snake, not killed it.

She’ll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice

Remains in danger of her former tooth.

She'll heal and be herself again, while our feeble hatred stays in danger of her old fang.

But let the frame of things disjoint,

Both the worlds suffer,

Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep20

In the affliction of these terrible dreams

That shake us nightly.

But let the whole frame of the universe fall apart, let both this world and the next suffer, before we go on eating our meals in fear and sleeping in the torment of these terrible dreams that shake us every night.

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy.25

Better to be with the dead — whom we sent to their peace to gain our own peace — than to lie on the rack of the mind in restless frenzy.

Duncan is in his grave;25

After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;

Duncan is in his grave; after life's fitful fever he sleeps well.

Treason has done his worst:

Treason has already done its worst to him.

nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further.

Not steel, not poison, not plots at home, not foreign armies — nothing can touch him now.

Lady Macbeth

Come on,30

Gently my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks;

Come now, my gentle lord: smooth over those troubled looks,

Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.

and be bright and cheerful among your guests tonight.

Macbeth

So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you.

I will, love — and please, you do the same.

Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;

Keep your attention fixed on Banquo;

Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:35

single him out for honor with your eyes and your words.

Unsafe the while, that we

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,

And make our faces vizards to our hearts,

Disguising what they are.

It shows how unsafe we are, that we have to bathe our honor in these streams of flattery and make our faces masks for our hearts, disguising what our hearts really are.

Lady Macbeth

You must leave this.40

You must stop this.

Macbeth

O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Oh, my mind is full of scorpions, dear wife!

Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.

You know that Banquo and his Fleance are still alive.

Lady Macbeth

But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.

But nature hasn't given them a lease on life that lasts forever.

Macbeth

There’s comfort yet; they are assailable.

There's comfort in that — they can still be attacked.

Then be thou jocund.45

So be cheerful.

Ere the bat hath flown45

His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons

The shard-born beetle, with his drowsy hums,

Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.

Before the bat has flown its cloistered flight, before the dung-bred beetle, answering dark Hecate's summons, has rung out night's yawning curfew with its drowsy humming, a deed of dreadful note will be done.

Lady Macbeth

What’s to be done?50

What's to be done?

Macbeth

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,

Till thou applaud the deed.

Stay innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, until you can applaud the deed.

Come, seeling night,

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,

And with thy bloody and invisible hand

Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond55

Which keeps me pale!—

Come, blinding night, sew shut the tender eye of pitying day, and with your bloody, invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond that keeps me pale with fear!

Light thickens; and the crow

Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.

The light is thickening, and the crow is winging its way to the darkening wood.

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,

Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

The good things of day begin to droop and drowse, while night's black agents rouse themselves toward their prey.

Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still;60

You marvel at my words — but be still.

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

Things begun badly make themselves strong through further evil.

So, pr’ythee, go with me.

So please, come with me.

_Exeunt._

Famous lines in this scene

“what’s done is done” line 14

Lady Macbeth tells her husband to stop brooding over Duncan's murder because it cannot be undone. The phrase became a common English proverb, and it is famous for its irony: by the play's end she reverses it herself, sleepwalking through her guilt — "What's done cannot be undone."

“We have scorch’d the snake, not kill’d it.” line 15

Macbeth pictures the threat to his throne as a snake that has only been slashed, not killed: it will heal and strike again. The image is famous for showing what murder has actually bought the Macbeths — nothing but fear — and for explaining why Macbeth feels compelled to keep killing.

“O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!” line 41

Macbeth compares his tormented thoughts to a mind swarming with scorpions — stinging, poisonous, impossible to rest with. The line is famous as the play's most vivid picture of guilty anxiety, and it marks a turning point: Macbeth now plans murder alone, keeping his wife "innocent of the knowledge."

“Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day” line 53

Macbeth summons night to blindfold the "eye" of the pitying day. "Seeling" is a falconry term for sewing a hawk's eyelids shut to tame it, and the invocation is famous for echoing Lady Macbeth's earlier "Come, thick night" — proof that Macbeth has now taken over her role as summoner of darkness.

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