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SCENE I
Court of Macbeth's castle.

Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE bearing a torch before him

BANQUO
How goes the night, boy?

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

BANQUO
And she goes down at twelve.

FLEANCE
I take't, 'tis later, sir.

BANQUO
Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven;¹
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,²
And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!

Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch

Give me my sword.
Who's there?

MACBETH
A friend.

BANQUO
What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your offices. ³
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
In measureless content.

MACBETH
Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought. ⁴

BANQUO
All's well.
I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have show'd some truth.

MACBETH
I think not of them:
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, ⁵
We would spend it in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.

BANQUO
At your kind'st leisure.

MACBETH
If you shall cleave to my consent,⁶ when 'tis,
It shall make honour for you.

BANQUO
So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised⁷ and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell'd.

MACBETH
Good repose the while!

BANQUO
Thanks, sir: the like to you!

Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE

MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Exit Servant

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?⁸
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;⁹
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest;¹⁰ I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead,¹¹ and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep;¹² witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings,¹³ and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides,¹⁴ towards his design
Moves 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,
And take the present horror from the time,¹⁵
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. ¹⁶

A bell rings

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Exit.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Here husbandry means thrift; the stars (heaven's candles) are dark because the angels in heaven are trying to economize.
² A powerful desire to sleep is upon him
³ Sent great gifts to the quarters of Macbeth's servants.
⁴ They were unprepared for Duncan's arrival, so their ability to entertain him properly (their will) was inadequate (became servant to defect). Otherwise, they would have done more.
⁵ When can we find a good time to talk?
⁶ If you support me
⁷ My heart free of guilt
⁸ Here, heat oppressed means fevered. In the Renaissance, heat was considered a fluid that could press on the brain and cause fever and delirium.
⁹Guide me the way I am going.
¹⁰ Either Macbeth's sight is being fooled by his other senses, or his eyes are the only sense to be trusted.
¹¹ because it is night, half of the world is in darkness and everything seems dead.
¹² A reference to the curtains drawn around a four-post bed (the standard bed in Jacobean England).
¹³ Hecate, in Greek mythology, was a magician who had a temple dedicated to the goddess Diana in which she performed human sacrifice.
¹⁴ The Roman king, Tarquin, who rapes Lucrece - a reference to Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece
¹⁵ The stones, earth and heavens know of his actions. The noise of the stones reveal Macbeth's coming closer to Duncan and his evil intentions. The sound cuts through the present horror (dreadful silence) from the dead of the night (the time that suits it best).

¹⁶ his talk of the murder is making him lose the courage to go through with it.

SUMMARY

Banquo and his son Fleance walk in a hall of Macbeth's castle. Banquo says that although he is tired, he wants to stay awake because lately his sleep has been giving him "cursed thoughts" (II.i.8). Macbeth enters and Banquo is surprised to see him still up. Banquo says that the king is asleep and mentions that he had a dream about the "three weird sisters." When Banquo suggests that the witches have revealed "some truth" to Macbeth, Macbeth claims that he has not thought of them at all since their encounter in the woods (II.i.19-20). He and Banquo agree to discuss the witches' prophecies at a later time.

Banquo and Fleance leave, and suddenly, Macbeth has a vision of a dagger floating in the air before him, its handle pointing toward his hand and its tip aiming him toward Duncan. Macbeth tries to grasp the weapon and fails. He wonders whether what he sees is real or a "dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain" (II.i.38-39). Continuing to gaze upon the dagger, he thinks he sees blood on the blade, then decides that the vision is just a sign of his cowardly unease of murdering him. A bell rings - Lady Macbeth's signal that the chamberlains are asleep - and Macbeth advances to Duncan's chamber.