The Shakespeare Story-Book

Then, in a voice of feigned carelessness, he asked Banquo if Fleance were going with him that afternoon.

Banquo replied that he was, and that they ought to start at once, and with a few final words of civil farewell Macbeth at last let him depart.

Directly he had gone, Macbeth gave an order to an attendant, and two men of grim and sinister aspect were secretly ushered into his presence. These were two murderers whom he had hired to assassinate Banquo. When he had got their consent to the cruel deed, Macbeth told them that within the next hour he would instruct them where to plant themselves, and let them know the exact hour, for the deed must be done that night, and at some distance from the palace. He also gave them strict injunctions that the work was to be done thoroughly, and that the young boy Fleance was to be slain with his father, for his absence was just as material to Macbeth as was Banquo’s.

The murderers promised to obey his directions, and he dismissed them.

If Macbeth were troubled in mind and ill at ease, his wife was no happier. She had reached the height of her ambition: her husband was King of Scotland. But the royal crown that glittered on her brow brought no charm with it to soothe the restless trouble at her heart.

“Nought’s had, all’s spent,When our desire is got without content;’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

That was the secret of their misery; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had got their heart’s desire, and in the unworthy getting of it they found it brought them no content or peace of mind. Sick at heart, weary, dissatisfied, it would have been hard to find a sadder pair that day in Scotland than the King and Queen in their royal robes, on the eve of their grand state banquet.

But true to her old undaunted spirit, even in the midst of her own depression, Lady Macbeth tried to rouse her husband from his despondent gloom.

“How now, my lord?” she said. “Why do you keep alone, making companions of sorriest fancies? Things without all remedy should be without regard; what’s done is done.”

“We have but scotched the snake, not killed it,” returned Macbeth, whose mind was always brooding on the possible dangers ahead. All day he was thinking over the past, or plotting fresh wickedness to secure his own safety, and by night he was haunted by the most terrible dreams. In this constant state of unrest he could even think with envy of the quiet repose of the man he had killed. “Better be with the dead, whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace, than to live on in the restless torture of the mind. Duncan is in his grave; after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done its worst; nor steel, nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy – nothing can touch him further.”

“Come, my gentle lord,” said Lady Macbeth, “smooth your rugged looks; be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.”

“So I shall, love, and so I pray be you,” said Macbeth. “Oh, my mind is full of scorpions, dear wife! You know that Banquo and his son Fleance live.”

“But they will not live for ever,” said Lady Macbeth.

“There’s comfort yet; they can be assailed,” said Macbeth; and then, in dark, mysterious words, he gave his wife to understand that a deed of dreadful note was to be done that night, though he refused to tell her more precisely what it was. “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed,” he ended. “Thou marvellest at my words, but hold thee still: things bad begun make themselves strong by evil.”

In the great hall of the palace the banquet was spread. The King and Queen entered, with the Thanes of Lennox and Ross and many other noblemen of Scotland. Macbeth bade them be seated, and gave to one and all a hearty welcome. As the guests took their places at table, the arras hanging over a side-doorway was pushed apart, and a grim face peered in. Leaving the stool (for there were no chairs in those days) which he was about to occupy at the side of the table, in the midst of the guests, Macbeth went to speak to the intruder. It was one of the hired assassins, and he brought the news that Banquo was safely slain.

Macbeth was greatly pleased to hear this, but in another moment all his fear and discontent rushed back, for the young boy Fleance had escaped. The child of Banquo that was to be King hereafter! But Macbeth tried to console himself with the thought that, as he expressed it, “the grown serpent” was disposed of, and for the present, at least, the young snake had no teeth to bite.

Macbeth stood so wrapt in gloomy musing that Lady Macbeth was forced to recall him to a sense of his duties as host. Poor lady, she had a hard task that night. Not only had she to conceal her own unhappiness, but she had to support the flagging spirits of her husband, and try to screen his strange behaviour, while she scattered smiles and flattering words in all directions. Macbeth roused himself by fits and starts, but his gaiety was forced, and his wife dreaded that every moment he would betray himself. However, at Lady Macbeth’s rebuke, he tried to shake off his gloom, and, approaching the table, he made an effort to speak cheerfully to the guests.

“May it please your highness sit,” said the Thane of Lennox.

The seat which Macbeth had been about to occupy when he went to speak to the murderer had remained empty, but now, unnoticed by all the other guests, a figure glided in and took possession of it.

If only Banquo were present, Macbeth went on to say, their honour would be complete, and he hoped it was his own fault, and no mischance, that had kept him away.

The Thane of Ross replied that Banquo deserved blame for not keeping his promise, and again asked Macbeth to favour them with his company.

“The table’s full,” said Macbeth.

“Here is a place reserved, sir,” said Lennox.

“Where?”

“Here, my good lord,” said Lennox, pointing to the seat Macbeth had first chosen. “What is it that moves your Highness?” he added in alarm, for Macbeth stood gazing in horror at what seemed to the others nothing but an empty stool.

Well might the guilty King tremble and grow pale, for in the place that seemed vacant to everyone else he saw sitting the blood-stained figure of the murdered Banquo.

“Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me!” he cried, recoiling in horror.

“Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is not well,” said the Thane of Ross.

But with eager words Lady Macbeth tried to calm the startled guests, assuring them that it was only a momentary fit of illness, such as Macbeth had been accustomed to from his youth. “Eat, and regard him not,” she implored them, and then, in a stern undertone, she tried to rouse her husband from his fit of dazed terror. But Macbeth was heedless of her entreaties. With starting eyes he watched the ghastly figure which his guilty brain alone could see, and it was only when the vision melted away that he recovered from the sort of stupor into which he had fallen. Then, for a brief moment, he spoke cheerfully, and, calling for wine, he drank to the health of all present.

“And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss,” he added boldly. “Would he were here! To all, and him, we drink!”

The words were scarcely uttered, when once more the vision of the murdered man rose before Macbeth. With a scream of terror he again recoiled, pouring forth a torrent of entreaties and defiance. Lady Macbeth once more tried to smooth matters over, but her husband’s frenzied ravings could not be so lightly covered, and, dreading the suspicions that his wild words must give rise to, she hastily dismissed the guests on the plea of his sudden illness.

When everyone had gone, and the husband and wife were left alone, she was too worn out and unhappy to utter any further reproaches or questions. Haggard and miserable, the guilty pair stood there in the deserted hall, amid the broken fragments of the disordered feast and the dying torches that flickered in the first gray twilight of dawn. Ashes of splendour, loneliness, despair – it seemed like the emblem of their own ruined lives.

Macbeth was quiet enough now; he seemed possessed with a sort of sullen desperation. He had waded so deep in blood, it would be as tedious to go back as to go forward, and he determined that any cause that hindered his own good should be ruthlessly swept aside. It was he, not Lady Macbeth, who was the leader now. Banquo’s murder he had arranged alone, and he asked no counsel from his wife about a fresh deed of iniquity he was already planning.

But in his guilty superstition he resolved to go early the next day to seek the weird sisters, to learn from them, if possible, what secrets fate still held in store.

The Witches’ Cavern

Macbeth had gained his throne by treachery, and he had no confidence in the loyalty of his subjects. He feared lest they should plot together to bring back the sons of Duncan, and he had secret spies in the households of all the great nobles. The one he feared most, next to Banquo, was Macduff, Thane of Fife, and when the latter refused to obey the tyrant’s bidding to attend the great feast, Macbeth knew that he was likely to prove a dangerous enemy, and resolved to get rid of him without delay. But before he could lay hands on him, Macduff fled the country, leaving his wife and children in his castle in Fife, and going himself to the Court of the English King to beg his help in placing Malcolm on the throne.

It was the day after the banquet at Macbeth’s palace. In a gloomy cavern, far removed from the haunts of men, the three witches were busy brewing a hideous compound for some dark and evil purpose. In the middle of the cavern was a boiling cauldron, and as the witches circled round it in a grotesque dance, each in turn flung in some horrible ingredient. The flames crackled, clouds of hissing steam arose from the cauldron, and as they danced the witches croaked a discordant chant:

“Double, double, toil and trouble;Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

The charm was just completed to their satisfaction, when there came a knocking at the entrance of the cavern. The second witch looked up with a cunning gleam in her sunken eyes.

“By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks,Whoever knocks!”

The door swung open by itself, and Macbeth entered. In spite of his curiosity, he stood almost appalled at the weird scene before him. The darkness of the cavern was fitfully lighted by the leaping flames of the fire, and the evil faces that peered back at him from the shadowy gloom might well bring discomfort to a guilty soul.

“How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is it you do?” he demanded.

“A deed without a name,” answered the witches in chorus.

“I conjure you, by that which you profess, however you come to know it, answer me to what I ask you.”

“Speak!” “Demand!” “We’ll answer,” said the witches. “Say if you would rather hear it from our mouths or from our masters?”

“Call them; let me see them.”

The first witch flung some additional horrible charms into the cauldron, and then the three chanted together:

“Come, high or low;Thyself and office deftly show!”

There was a flash of light, a roll of thunder, and in the midst of a cloud of blue steam there rose from the cauldron the Apparition of an armed Head.

“Tell me, thou unknown power – ” began Macbeth.

“He knows thy thought,” said the first witch; “hear his speech, but say thou nought.”

“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;Beware the Thane of Fife! Dismiss me. Enough.”

“Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks,” said Macbeth, as the Apparition sank from view. “Thou hast spoken my fear aright; but one word more – ”

“He will not be commanded,” said the witch. “Here is another, more potent than the first.”

There was another roll of thunder, and a second Apparition arose from the cauldron, a blood-stained Child.

“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!”

“Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.”

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scornThe power of man, for none of woman bornShall harm Macbeth.”

“Then live, Macduff; what need I fear of thee?” cried Macbeth. “But yet I’ll make assurance double sure; thou shalt not live; that I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, and sleep in spite of thunder.”

There was a third roll of thunder, and a third Apparition rose – a Child crowned, with a tree in its hand.

“What is this that rises like the issue of a King, and wears upon his baby brow the round of sovereignty?”

“Listen, but do not speak to it,” commanded the witches; and the Apparition spoke on:

“Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no careWho chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:Macbeth shall never vanquished be untilGreat Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hillShall come against him.”

“That will never be!” cried Macbeth, in delighted relief, as the vision of the baby King sank back into the cauldron. As he truly said, who could remove the forest, and bid the trees unfix their earth-bound roots? All the bodements were good. Fate seemed bright before him. But there was still one thing his heart throbbed to know.

“Tell me, if your art can tell so much,” he begged the witches, “shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom?”

“Seek to know no more,” came the solemn warning.

”I will be satisfied. Deny me this, and an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know! Why does that cauldron sink, and what noise is that?” For there was the sound of trumpets.

”Show!.. Show!.. Show!..Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;Come like shadows, so depart!”

Then in the dusk of the cavern shone a strange luminous glow, and slowly in procession passed a line of eight Kings; the last carried a mirror in his hand, and was followed by Banquo’s ghost.

Horrible sight! Then, after all, the witches had spoken truly, and it was Banquo’s children who should fill the throne of Scotland for untold generations. For in the mirror held by the eighth King were reflected many more, and some of them carried twofold orbs and treble sceptres.

“What, is this so?” demanded Macbeth, and the first witch answered:

“Ay, sir, all this is so; but whyStands Macbeth thus amazedly?Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,And show the best of our delights;I’ll charm the air to give a sound,While you perform your antic round,That this great King may kindly say,Our duties did his welcome pay.”

Then a strain of weird music was heard, and in a sort of wild, mocking dance the witches vanished, the cauldron sank into the earth, and Macbeth was left standing alone in the gloomy cavern.

Birnam Wood

When Macbeth learnt that Macduff had escaped from his power and fled to England, he took a fiendish revenge: he gave orders that his castle in Fife should be surprised and seized, and his wife and children slain. Macbeth’s barbarous commands were executed, and the Thane of Fife’s wife, children, servants, and every unfortunate soul in the castle, were ruthlessly slaughtered.

Scotland had long been groaning under the heavy yoke of the tyrant, and at this cruel deed it broke into open rebellion. Macduff returned from England, bringing the young Prince Malcolm with him, and many noblemen flocked to their standard. Macduff, burning with revenge for the loss of all his dear ones, swore that if ever the tyrant came within reach of his sword he should never escape alive.

In the troubles that now gathered thick and fast around him, Macbeth had no longer the counsel of his devoted wife to strengthen him. The punishment of her evil deeds had fallen upon Lady Macbeth. Her stern spirit was broken, for she was a prey to all the tortures of unavailing remorse. Her sleep was troubled, and in her dreams she acted over and over again the scene that had taken place on the night of Duncan’s murder. The doctor called in to attend her could not explain the cause of the illness that seemed consuming her, but her waiting gentlewoman told him that at night Lady Macbeth would rise in her sleep, and speak strange words and act in a strange manner. The doctor resolved to watch, himself, to see what happened. For two nights all was quiet, but on the third night, as he was speaking to the gentlewoman, Lady Macbeth entered, clad in a night-mantle, and carrying a lighted taper. Her eyes were open, but she evidently saw nothing; she was walking in her sleep. Setting down the taper, she began to rub her hands, as if she were washing them, speaking the while in a low voice. From her broken phrases it was easy to guess the scene of guilt that was haunting her brain. Mixed with words about Duncan’s murder came reproaches to her husband for his lack of courage, and then references to other crimes – the murder of Banquo, and the death of the Thane of Fife’s wife. And all the time Lady Macbeth kept rubbing and rubbing her hands; but it was of no use – nothing would ever make them clean again.

“Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” she moaned, as if her heart were breaking.

“What a sigh is there!” said the doctor. “The heart is sorely charged.”

“I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body,” said the gentlewoman.

“This disease is beyond my practice,” said the doctor: “yet I have known those that have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.”

“Wash your hands; put on your nightgown, look not so pale!” muttered Lady Macbeth. ”I tell you yet again, Banquo is buried; he cannot come out of his grave. To bed, to bed! There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed!” And, with a gesture as if she were dragging some invisible person reluctantly after her, Lady Macbeth took up her taper and slowly retreated.

The strain of this unceasing remorse by day and night was too much even for Lady Macbeth’s dauntless courage, and the days of her life were soon to be numbered.

Macbeth himself was bordering on a state of frenzy. Some said he was mad; others, who hated him less, called it valiant fury. Whichever it might be, certain it was that his excitement was beyond control, and that he could not direct his cause in a reasonable manner. Sick at heart, void of all hope, he yet summoned all his courage, and resolved to fight stubbornly to the end, like some savage animal brought to bay.

The English troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, were close at hand, and the Scottish nobles with their followers were to meet them near Birnam Wood. From here the combined forces were to march on Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth now was, and which he had strongly fortified.

Rumours of the enemy’s might filled the air, but Macbeth, trying to reassure himself with the witches’ prophecy, bade his people bring him no more reports.

“Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot quail with fear,” he declared. “What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know all mortal consequences have said to me thus: ‘Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman shall e’er have power upon thee.’”

So, when a white-faced, trembling messenger brought the news that ten thousand English soldiers were marching on Dunsinane, Macbeth silenced him with curses and abuse.

But his momentary rage over, he fell again into dejection.

“I am sick at heart,” he said; “I have lived long enough, my way of life has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, such 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, but dare not.”

Then, shaking off his despondency in a fresh outburst of fury, he rallied his men, determined to make a most stubborn resistance, no matter what forces were brought against him. “I will not be afraid of death and bane, till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane,” he cried, once more falling back for comfort on the witches’ prophecy.

News again came to Macbeth of the near approach of the English, and that the Scottish nobles were flocking to the standard of the young Prince. But he refused to be daunted.

“Hang out our banners on the outward walls,” he shouted. “The cry is still, ‘They come.’ Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.”

In the midst of his warlike commands, a cry of women was heard within the castle, and the news was told Macbeth that the Queen was dead. For a moment he was stunned. This, then, was the end of all their plotting and ambition! But now there was no time even to spend in grief.

“She should have died hereafter,” he said, with a bitter reflection on the vanity of human life. “There would have been time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

But his musing was interrupted; a messenger came hurrying up, his face full of terror.

“Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.”

The man sank on his knee before Macbeth.

“Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, but know not how to do it.”

“Well, say, sir,” said Macbeth impatiently.

“As I stood watching upon the hill, I looked towards Birnam, and anon, methought, the wood began to move.”

“Liar and slave!” cried Macbeth, livid with fury, and striking the man to the ground.

“Let me endure your wrath if it be not so,” persisted the messenger. “Within these three miles you may see it coming; I say, a moving grove.”

“If thou speak false, upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive till famine cling thee,” said Macbeth. “If thy speech be true, I care not if thou dost as much for me.”

His resolution faltered, and he began to doubt the falseness of the fiends that lied like truth. “Fear not till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,” they had said. And now a wood was coming to Dunsinane!

“Arm, arm, and out!” thundered Macbeth. – “If this which he avouches be true, there is no flying hence nor tarrying here,” he thought, sick at heart. “I begin to be aweary of the sun, and wish the estate of the world were now undone.” Then, with a sudden return of fury, “Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back!”

The strange occurrence reported by the messenger was indeed true, but the explanation was simple. When the English and Scotch troops met near Birnam Wood, in order the better to conceal the soldiers as they marched to Dunsinane, Malcolm commanded that every man should hew down a leafy bough, and bear it before him, thereby making it impossible that the number of their host could be discovered. From a distance this mass of waving green boughs looked exactly as if Birnam Wood were advancing on Dunsinane.

The first of the witches’ safeguards had failed Macbeth, but he fell back with desperate reliance on the other. Besides, in any case, it was now too late to retreat; he must fight the matter out to the end, and either conquer or be lost for ever.

“They have tied me to a stake,” he cried. “I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. What’s he that was not born of woman? Such a one am I to fear, or none.”

In his furious fighting on the battle-field he presently encountered one of the English leaders, whom he promptly slew. Macbeth laughed in triumph, for he felt himself secure; he feared no weapon brandished by any man born of woman.

But the hour of fate was at hand. Macduff, scorning to strike the wretched peasants, hired to fight, sought everywhere for Macbeth, determined either to slay the tyrant or sheathe his sword unused. And at last he found him.

But Macbeth seemed to shrink from the furious challenge.

“Of all men else I have avoided thee,” he said. “But get thee back; my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.”

“I have no words; my voice is in my sword,” returned Macduff.

They fought, but for awhile neither got the better. Then Macbeth told Macduff that he was losing labour, for it was as easy for his keen sword to hurt the air as to wound him. He bore a charmed life, which could not yield to one of woman born.