The Tragedy of Macbeth, Part II: The Seed of Banquo Read online

SCENE I

  Tower. Dunsinane.

  Enter Macbeth, in her cell.

  Enter Malcolm, in the shadows.

  MALCOLM (aside) Can she sit so content in such a place,

  as if this worldly setting held no threat?

  See how her lips move; how she kneels

  so softly upon unyielding stone, as if

  repenting for every soul in Dunsinane.

  Such prayers must go unanswered whilst I inhabit.

  My descent to Hades is set, the only question

  being the time of my arrival. Satan:

  you shall have your prize. But not yet.

  For whilst she lives I too have cause to live.

  See how she floats to the window, as a bird to light.

  Hark! She speaks.

  MACBETH The hangman tightens his tool with alacrity,

  and the crowd thickens to watch me swing. They think

  they’ll take my life; but it was long since took

  with news of my unholy origin.

  If, as the Bible proclaims, our parents’ sins

  spill over generations, then ’tis best

  that they stop here, lest I, by my progeny,

  should pass them down again. Ambition is foreign

  to me; never have I pined for power

  or pearls. Our monastery did not afford

  the chance, its vaults stowed with naught but dreams

  and prayers. Yet perchance the propensity

  sits in my blood. If so, better I hang

  now, and be punished for sins still uncommitted.

  MALCOLM (aside) My lady, your virtues are so true they shame

  this Cain to lurk in your shadow. You’ve siphoned

  the best of the Macbeths, your nature proving

  their sins came not by blood, but by earthly

  lusts. I wonder if you’ve mistaken your birth.

  MACBETH I dreamt that I would die in that very

  place. Dreamt I, too, of this cell: such stone,

  a door of equal height, a window as this.

  Except my illusioned window held no bars,

  and in that dream was I set free. A Joseph

  delivered to Pharaoh. How imperfect a vision

  this was.

  Malcolm unlocks the door and enters the cell.

  MALCOLM Yet perfect enough.

  MACBETH Whence

  came you? Stood you there all the while?

  MALCOLM I own

  the key.

  MACBETH Eavesdropping does not become

  a king.

 

  MALCOLM Such speech does not become a Macbeth.

  MACBETH It was a speech meant for mine ears alone.

  MALCOLM Then grace be to God that I was present.

  MACBETH Have you

  not finished mourning your dear brother’s death?

  MALCOLM Your virtues compound my grief.

  MACBETH Tomorrow you’ll have

  more cause, when I’m hanged for public display.

  MALCOLM I can stay your execution.

  MACBETH If God

  desires it be stayed, it will, by you

  or by some other agent. If He desires

  otherwise, then I am content.

  MALCOLM I knew

  your mother and father. Too well. I cannot imagine

  you are their issue.

  MACBETH ’Tis not a name I would

  claim otherwise.

  MALCOLM You never met them?

  MACBETH I was delivered to the nuns newborn.

  MALCOLM But why?

  MACBETH I’ve wondered at this myself, but have

  not found the cause. Perhaps I was a hindrance

  on their road to ambition. Perhaps

  they had no love for children.

 

  MALCOLM Then why mourn them?

  MACBETH If not I, who?

  MALCOLM But why now? Their death

  was ten years past.

  MACBETH It is fresh for me,

  deaf to Scotland’s news until my nuns

  deemed fit to share it.

  MALCOLM But ’twas a perilous journey

  for a woman alone.

  MACBETH Nuns pilgrimage

  to far Jersualem; ’twas but a trifle

  beside that.

  MALCOLM If released, will you

  return to Iona?

  MACBETH If God has me released

  I cannot imagine a life elsewhere.

  MALCOLM Then allow

  me to imagine for you. My lady, I am

  in love. . . . Have you no reply?

  MACBETH Forgive, my lord. I know not what to say.

  MALCOLM Say it is requited.

  MACBETH Requited? How?

  I’ve never loved a man, and what I know

  of you points to less than that—taker

  of your brother’s life, warder and would-be

  executioner of my own self.

  How should I love thee, exactly? What words

  would you have me speak? Riddles and affairs

  of love are not my currency. I’ve not

  been taught the false nothings and idle flatteries

  of love’s language, have not been reared in the ways

  to cloud desire, to twist metaphor and meaning.

  And if, my lord, you know already the words

  you long to hear, why not recite them to

  yourself, hold out a polished glass and mock

  my voice? What need you of a living thing

  to ape what you can with ease imagine?

  It is not requited. And if it were,

  I would have no extravagant way

  to frame the words, have no device to gild

  my syllables, but only say, I love you.

  MALCOLM Those words I long to hear, not by my voice

  but by yours, for love a single voice

  cannot create. The witches said I would love

  Macbeth. I knew not what it meant until

  this day.

  MACBETH Speak not to me of witches. They are

  things of darkness.

  MALCOLM They tricked me to take

  my brother’s life; yet they also led

  me unto you.

  MACBETH And now you are a murderer.

 

  MALCOLM Please, use not that word so freely.

  MACBETH You’ll needn’t

  hear it soon enough, as I shall be

  silenced by the gallows.

  MALCOLM I shall arrange

  your release.

  MACBETH Upon what condition?

  MALCOLM None. As I am king.

  MACBETH Then I shall humbly

  thank you and take my leave. What, my lord?

  Why do you block the gate?

  MALCOLM Every woman

  in Scotland has petitioned me to marry.

  Do you scorn what others crave?

  MACBETH I crave

  naught but piety, which I’ll not find in a murderer’s

  arms.

  MALCOLM You know me only as this. Before

  today I was a wise and valiant king,

  who dearly loved the brother he so rashly

  slayed. O Donalbain!

  Malcolm weeps.

  MACBETH ’Tis a heavy deed you have committed.

  Yet penance is possible for all of God’s children.

  MALCOLM Then there is hope?

  MACBETH There is always hope.

  MALCOLM E’en for my hand?

  MACBETH I am not a queen,

  my lord. I would not crave the title.

  MALCOLM ’Tis why

  it should be yours. I pray you, my lady, consider

  what I propose: Scotland needs an heir.

  If you desire penance for your parents’


  past deeds, then you have found the place. You need

  not love me yet. Just take my hand in marriage

  and let time teach the rest.

  MACBETH ’Tis folly, my lord.

  Would you have your subjects convert their most

  hated villain into their beloved queen?

 

  MALCOLM My people are but an extension of my will—

  they shall be pleased by that which pleases me.

  My lady, I vow to repent deeply my actions

  past; to renounce all violence; and to

  ne’er again seek the witches. I will

  become the king I was.

  MACBETH My life was took with the news of my

  unhappy origin. You would wed but an empty

  shell.

  MALCOLM They say that shells encase the secrets

  of the deep. I’d rather such shell than the

  oyster-laden pearl.

  MACBETH Then, as you will.

  They kiss.

  Exeunt.

  SCENE II

  Dunsinane.

  Enter Malcolm, Macduff, Siward, Seyton and Attendants.

  MACDUFF My lord, she must be hanged! Stand you by

  Whilst a Macbeth is here set free?

  MALCOLM I

  am king, and she is free.

  SEYTON My liege, Macduff

  speaks true. Our soil is still stained by the reign

  of the Macbeths. If the past the future paints,

  this rose you now release will one day show

  its thorns, pricking not just you but our

  entire court.

  MALCOLM The key’s long lost; she roams

  freely. Further, she is now my guest

  in Dunsinane. I’ve given her parents’ quarters

  to her, and you shall know that I mean

  to make of her my queen.

  SEYTON Queen!

  SIWARD What!

  MACDUFF Queen Macbeth!

  MALCOLM “Lady Malcolm” shall she

  be called—not Macbeth.

  SEYTON How will the people

  abide?

  MALCOLM Have they not hoped for an heir?

  Now they can be content.

  MACDUFF An heir—

  not a Macbeth!

  MALCOLM A Malcolm.

  SEYTON Have we then ousted

  the parents only to grant dominion to

  the seed?

  MALCOLM By this royal act the growing

  multitude distressed over my brother’s

  death will also be distracted. Including

  myself.

  SIWARD Donalbain defied your

  decree and breached our shores with brandished arms.

  Sure as he stepped foot on Scottish soil,

  death became him.

  MALCOLM Say again, traitor,

  and you will hang. My brother shall be enshrined

  as the hero he was; a statue is being erected

  as we speak. He died a hero; it shall

  be spoke no other.

  MACDUFF Do you think it wise,

  my lord, to let a Macbeth gain control

  of half the throne?

  MALCOLM Kings control thrones,

  not queens.

  SEYTON Then to let the bloodline of Macbeth

  be heir to Scotland’s throne?

  MALCOLM Evil does not

  always come by blood.

  SEYTON Yet evil of such

  proven depth cannot filter with ease.

 

  MALCOLM The prophecy for succession lies in

  the seed of Banquo, not Macbeth. I see

  no harm thereby. Therefore, occupy

  yourselves with the preparation. We marry

  tomorrow: Saint Andrew’s Day.

  MACDUFF Think you now

  the most opportune time for

  a wedding? Norway prepares.

  SEYTON And we shall lose

  the chase with Lennox, Angus and Ross.

  SIWARD We must

  stop them before they reach the Irish shore.

  MALCOLM I have spoken. Go to.

  Exeunt all but Macduff.

  MACDUFF My lord, if you recall that fateful day,

  ’twas I who found your father’s bloody corpse,

  carved cruelly at the hand of a Macbeth.

  No seed of such a monster can be pure.

  MALCOLM When you found him, did you know it was

  the work of Macbeth?

  MACDUFF I suspected thus.

  MALCOLM Yet I knew it the moment the bell tolled.

  We fled; yet you remained.

  MACDUFF I was not certain

  MALCOLM But I was. Just as I am now; and just

  as you again are not. You have proved

  a wise and loyal friend; but counsel me not

  on the nature of my Lady Malcolm.

  Go to.

  MACDUFF (aside) I cannot abide while he

  builds a ladder for a Macbeth’s ascent.

  If too clouded by love to guard himself,

  then I must for him. I will confront

  the evil offspring, and dissuade her from

  this place. If not, I’ll bring a dagger, and perform

  the task myself. Better I should hang,

  than Scotland slowly strangle.

  Exeunt.

  SCENE III

  Seyton’s castle.

  Enter Seyton and Syna.

  SYNA Marriage! To a Macbeth!

  SEYTON Calm, my child—

  SYNA Calm! Calm! Malcolm is mine! By your word,

  I am set to marry! Not to be

  passed over for a harlot from Iona,

  a fake monk stealing into Dunsinane

  to snatch away my ring! I will be queen!

  SEYTON Malcolm had never consented to your—

  SYNA I had consented! What need I from him?

  You pretend to have his ear. Fool!

  You have only influence enough

  to make a mockery of your own flesh:

  to see me, your own issue, thus debased.

  SEYTON I did not—

  SYNA Or are you so powerless

  you cannot sway a feeble king to glance

  at your own seed, to behold the best beauty

  in his land?

  SEYTON I petitioned many

  times. He promised an audience. But not

  to wed. He was against marriage—

  SYNA Against!

  Against! He is clearly for. Just not

  for you.

  SEYTON There is little I can do.

  He is set to marry tomorrow.

  SYNA Never

  shall sun that morrow see! What, do you

  plan to sit idly by and have

  a stranger make your daughter husbandless?

  Make you bereft of royal lineage?

  Have you lost all desire for the crown?

  SEYTON I have desire—

  SYNA Then act on that desire!

  SEYTON I have tried. He is resolved.

  SYNA You’ve not

  tried hard enough. Malcolm cannot marry

  a corpse.

  SEYTON Do not speak thus. Suspicion of

  the deed would fall on us. Malcolm, unhinged,

  would then never marry. I have a better

  way. I know a certain nurse who,

  for a sum, will attend our newfound

  queen, and report to me her private doings.

  I can then inform our Malcolm of his lady’s

  true intent, and thereby convert him ’gainst

  his false beloved. Then you, my willful Syna,

  will I present to him.

  SYNA A fair plan.

  I begin to calm. But what if this

  nurse finds no
evil in this ugly,

  villainous thing?

  SEYTON Better to find in her

  an ounce of the real thing; but if there’s none,

  why, we shall create. I know just

  the woman: a servant who suffered greatly by

  the hand of Macbeth. But, my daughter, if we

  should fail—

  SYNA We fail? How your weakness sickens

  me! You are Syna’s father. Act

  in kind! Fail me again, and I shall tell

  Malcolm of all your machinations, and see

  you hang, e’en if my head rolls with yours.

  The queen’s throne lies in my grasp; I shall

  not rest until it’s mine.

  Exeunt.

  SCENE IV

 

  Dunsinane. Macbeth’s bedroom.

  Macbeth, seated. Enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF (aside) What illusion is this? She sits so soft,

  prayer beads on knuckles white, as if to shame

  me for holding this hidden means of death.

  But I must not steer from the required course.

  And surely she feigns. No Macbeth would e’er

  embrace a rosary, unless to pray

  for greater treachery.

  (to her) Lady Macbeth.

  Or shall I dub thee Lady Malcolm?

  MACBETH For a few hours more I am Macbeth,

  yet you may dub me as you wish.

  Who, pray, are you? Why such silent entrance?

  MACDUFF I am Macduff, husband of the slain

  Lady Macduff, father of the boy

  Macduff: all my pretty ones, all

  butchered by your parents’ hand.

  MACBETH Alas!

  Reports of their tyranny do not

  seem to cease. I will include your child

  and lady in my long list of abridged souls.

  I pray for your forgiveness.

  MACDUFF (aside) Is such piety practiced? Is she more skilled

  in the art of deception than even her parents?

  I will out her yet.

  (to her) You needn’t pray on your father’s behalf.

  I’ve already sent him to Hades, dispatched

  him with this very sword: I am the man

  of no woman born.

  MACBETH A Gabriel

  sent to an unrepentant Sodom.

  As my father’s taker, I cannot offer

  you my thanks; but as courier of the One

  above, I will accept your decree.

  MACDUFF (aside) What? Does not e’en this taunt her to true

  color? ’Tis unnatural to not show

  the least sign of enmity. I falter

  in my resolve. Out with it, then.

  (to her) Lady, to the point: as I have known

  your father and mother both too well, I know

  you better than you know yourself. If you

  truly be their issue, then we need only

  wait ’til the day you hatch and subvert us all,

  when your latent ambition will, and must,

  reach beyond these castle walls. To prevent,

  I demand you take your leave at once,

  and tell our Malcolm you will not marry. For to

  protect him is my sworn duty, and by

  my honor, I shall not allow him to

  be vanquished by one so close.

  MACBETH You perform

  your duty well. Would that I had such

  a trusted friend. Yet I cannot concede.

  I answer only to the Lord above,

  and I do now believe He has put

  me here to atone for my parents’ sins.

  MACDUFF Have I slain your father only to kneel

  to his seed?

  MACBETH Kneel not to me, but to God.

  MACDUFF I stopped kneeling the day He took from me

  all that was dear: my whole life stole in one

  fateful missive. All I have left is a hardened

  heart, and guilt for my cowardice. O!

  Would that I had stayed!

  Macduff weeps. Macbeth rises from the throne and embraces him.

  MACBETH O terrible fortune!

  Most foul Macbeth. Detestable thy name!

  A name I’ll change in a few hours more;

  yet I do not think a simple service

  will wipe clean the sins of my lineage.

  If punishing myself would lessen your

  great loss, I would it gladly undergo.

  Macduff reaches up to embrace her, and his knife falls to the floor.

  Macbeth backs away.

  MACDUFF O my lady! Forgive! ’Twas a dagger

  meant for you—a dagger I shall never use!

  Now I see that thou art not the stamp

  of thine own parents, but a true seraph.

  Punish your would-be murderer: if thou

  desirest now my hanging, I shall hasten

  to the gallows.

  MACBETH I desire nothing

  but the lifting of thy guilt.

  MACDUFF Can it be? I’m shamed to the neck.

  Thou art my true, sworn queen; I vow to serve

  thee ever after. If I could not protect

  Lady Macduff, at least I can shield you.

  What a fortunate king Malcolm shall be!

  What a fortunate land of Scotland!

  Exit Macduff.

 

  MACBETH Not as fortunate as thou dost think.

  I spoke to Malcolm that I’d ne’er known love,

  and ’twas true. Yet not anymore:

  Macduff, thou hast educated. It is

  a wisdom I wish I lacked. O faithless queen!

  O Dunsinane! Can your walls so quickly corrupt?

  Exeunt.

  SCENE V

  Dunsinane. Courtyard.

  A lavish wedding ceremony.

  Enter Malcolm, Macbeth, Macduff, Siward, various Nobles and Attendants.

  Enter Nurse.

  NURSE Such ceremony stands me right on edge.

  Good flowers torn to shreds; ’twill be a mess

  to clean. And flower girls, dressed in such finery:

  frivoling the time when they could be

  at home, mending clothes and scrubbing floors,

  as I did at their age. When I was wed,

  no one came to gape. My husband paid

  but half a pence, and they cheered us with a pint

  of ale. Such was our marriage ceremony.

  No flowers lived in that place; no silks or brocade,

  as I was the only lady there.

  Enter Seyton.

  SEYTON ’Tis an odd turn in events. I cannot

  recall in kind. But yesterday this rabble

  cried for her head; now they cheer her crowning.

  Art thou studied on the business to be done?

  NURSE But look: how they lavish her with sparkling

  jewels, promote her with a royal crown.

  When I was married, I was handed a stick

  to beat back fleas, crowned with a net to hold

  back lice—

  SEYTON I say, nurse, art thou clear?

  For I will not part with this treasure ‘til you

  parrot back my purpose. If not, I’ll find

  another.

  NURSE Clear? Why, yes, of course: clear

  as a day in Scotland when the fog lifts, clear

  as a—

  SEYTON Nurse!

  NURSE The business is simple enough.

  I will attend our newly minted queen,

  present myself as nurse to her, and use

  this pretense to catch her words and malign

  her to the king.

  SEYTON To me. You will report

  to me. You’ll not report to Malcolm ’cept—

  NURSE Yes, yes, clear enough. />
  SEYTON And if you witness

  no vices, what then?

  NURSE Then I shall encourage.

  SEYTON And if without success?

  NURSE Then I’ll invent.

  SEYTON Thou art artful in thy craft.

  NURSE ’Tis hardly

  a craft demanding art. For treachery

  is our oldest profession. One need summon

  naught but instinct, that warder of the brain,

  and let it freely work. Besides, I hardly

  lack for motive: Lady Macbeth daily

  used me as her whipping thing. She carved

  these scars upon my back; still not satisfied,

  she turned then to my daughter, and had her lynched

  for spying. I vowed revenge yet never it fulfilled.

  In death I cannot touch the mother; but here

  her daughter I can reach. Revenge so imperfect

  imperfectly sates, yet satisfies more

  than none at all.

  SEYTON Here’s the purse. Perform

  your business quickly. We cannot allow this vine

  to take its root too deep, past the point

  we cannot extract.

  Exit Seyton.

  NURSE You needn’t tutor me,

  old man. I am so practiced in my craft,

  that this new queen comes as a lamb to slaughter.

  She shall meet her new nurse; and crave physic

  thereafter.

  Exit.