King Lear | Episode 03

TEXT:

GONERIL
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

CORDELIA Aside
What shall Cordelia do?
Love, and be silent.

LEAR
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains riched,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.

REGAN
Sir, I am made
Of the self-same metal that my sister is,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys,
Which the most precious square of sense possesses;
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.

CORDELIA Aside
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
More richer than my tongue.

KING LEAR
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity, and pleasure,
Than that conferred on Goneril.

King Lear | Episode 02

TEXT:

Sennet. Enter KING LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, CORDELIA, and Attendants

KING LEAR
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER
I shall, my liege.

Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EDMUND

KING LEAR
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters,--
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,--
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.

NOTES:
Sennet
A sennet is a trumpet fanfare signaling ceremonial entrances or exits in Shakespearean tragedy, often marking royal or significant dramatic moments. There has been some discussion as to whether Shakespeare started using this particular kind of fanfare to coincide with increasing numbers of musicians who were playing for theatre performances in London. What’s very interesting in King Lear is that it is only used here - Lear will exit this scene with a flourish, and then later entrances will be accompanied only by horns and hunting dogs. We will literally hear his status diminish in the music of the play.

Burgundy
The Kingdom of Burgundy emerged in the early Middle Ages as a Frankish realm in southeastern Gaul. Divided into Upper and Lower Burgundy in the 9th century, it later united under the Kingdom of Arles (933). By the 14th–15th centuries, the Duchy of Burgundy, ruled by the Valois dynasty, became a major European power before falling to France and the Habsburgs. Known for its wealth, art, and political influence, Burgundy played a key role in medieval European politics.

Albany
Albany is a historic region in Great Britain, traditionally referring to Scotland’s Gaelic-speaking territories, particularly the Highlands. The name derives from Alba, the Gaelic word for Scotland. In medieval times, Albany was a duchy held by Scottish royalty, notably the Duke of Albany, a title revived for British royalty. Today, it symbolizes Scotland’s ancient Celtic heritage.

Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate established in 1337 by Edward III for his son, the Black Prince, to fund the heir apparent. Today, it spans 130,000 acres across England, including land, property, and investments. The reigning Duke of Cornwall is always the eldest son of the monarch, currently Prince William, who receives its income but does not own it outright. The Duchy supports charitable and sustainable initiatives while maintaining historic traditions.

France
For Shakespeare, France symbolized refinement, chivalry, and political rivalry. It served as a contrasting realm to England—cultured yet often adversarial (Henry V) or a land of romantic ideals (Love’s Labour’s Lost). France’s duality reflected England’s complex fascination with its perennial foe and ally.

King James I / VI
King James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, uniting the crowns after Elizabeth I’s death. His accession marked the Stuart dynasty’s rise in England, though Scotland and England remained separate kingdoms. (James united the crowns of Scotland and England in 1603 (the "Union of the Crowns") upon Elizabeth I’s death, becoming the first monarch to rule both kingdoms. However, England and Scotland remained separate political entities until the Acts of Union (1707) formally created the Kingdom of Great Britain.) A learned but controversial ruler, James promoted the divine right of kings, sponsored the King James Bible, and navigated religious tensions, shaping early 17th-century Britain.

King Lear | Episode 01

ACT I

SCENE I. King Lear's palace.

Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND

KENT
I thought the king had more affected the Duke of
Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTER
It did always seem so to us: but now, in the
division of the kingdom, it appears not which of
the dukes he values most; for equalities are so
weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice
of either's moiety.

KENT
Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTER
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have
so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am
brazed to it.

KENT
I cannot conceive you.

GLOUCESTER
Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon
she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son
for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed.
Do you smell a fault?

KENT
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it
being so proper.

GLOUCESTER
But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year
elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account:
though this knave came something saucily into the
world before he was sent for, yet was his mother
fair; there was good sport at his making, and the
whoreson must be acknowledged. Do you know this
noble gentleman, Edmund?

EDMUND
No, my lord.

GLOUCESTER
My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my
honourable friend.

EDMUND
My services to your lordship.

KENT
I must love you, and sue to know you better.

EDMUND
Sir, I shall study deserving.

GLOUCESTER
He hath been out nine years, and away he shall
again. The king is coming.

NOTES:

John Keats (1795-1821)
John Keats, a leading Romantic poet, is celebrated for his vivid imagery, sensuous language, and profound exploration of beauty and mortality. Despite his brief life, he produced enduring works like "Ode to a Nightingale" and "To Autumn." His poetry reflects a deep connection to nature, art, and the fleeting nature of human experience. The poem mentioned within this episode is
On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O Golden-tongued Romance, with serene Lute!
Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day
Shut up thine olden Pages, and be mute.
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute,
Betwixt Damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shaksperean fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye Clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream:
But, when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix Wings to fly at my desire.

Text
The text of King Lear exists in a few major versions: quarto editions include the 1608 "Pied Bull" Quarto (Q1), likely a corrupt or reported text, and the 1619 Quarto (Q2), a reprint of Q1. We also have the 1623 First Folio (F1). Q1, likely based on shorthand notes, contains extra lines, while F1, possibly revised by Shakespeare, omits some passages. Modern editions and productions, therefore, tend to create their own unique text to work with, often blending elements of all three.

Holinshed
As he had for various other plays - including Macbeth - Shakespeare adapted elements from Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) for King Lear. He adapted the story of the ancient British king Leir, his division of the kingdom, and his daughter Cordelia’s rebellion - although she’s called Cordeilla in Holinshed. Shakespeare transformed the chronicle’s happy ending into the bleak conclusion of this play, and expanded the story considerably.

Gloucester
The Duchy of Gloucester, historically significant in medieval England, was held by royal figures like Thomas of Woodstock and Richard III (as Duke of Gloucester). In Shakespeare, characters titled Gloucester include:

• Earl of Gloucester (King Lear), a major character whose story parallels Lear’s downfall.

• Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Henry VI trilogy and Richard III), the scheming future king.

• Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (Henry VI), the ambitious lord protector.

Kent
The Duchy of Kent, an ancient title held by Anglo-Saxon kings and later royals, has a long-standing reputation for loyalty. This comes in no small part from the Earl of Kent in King Lear, who is the only Kent to appear in any of Shakespeare’s plays. Kent is also the location of the Cliffs of Dover, which will play a crucial part later in the play.

Moiety
The word "moiety" comes from the Middle English moite, derived from Old French meitet (meaning "half"), which in turn originates from the Latin medietas ("middle" or "half"). The root is medius ("middle"), shared with words like "medium" and "mediate."

Edmund
The name Edmund has a complex legacy. Derived from Old English Ēadmund (ēad = prosperity, mund = protector), it was immortalized by St. Edmund, the 9th-century King of East Anglia martyred by Vikings for refusing to renounce Christianity. His shrine in Bury St. Edmunds (originally Beodricesworth, renamed St. Edmund's Bury) became a major pilgrimage site, with the town's abbey housing his relics until the Reformation. Shakespeare did the name no favours, bestowing it upon one of his most wicked villains, as we shall see.

MACBETH | Episode 72 - Retreat and Flourish

TEXT:

Retreat and Flourish.

Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, other Thanes, and Soldiers

MALCOLM
I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

SIWARD
Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLM
Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSS
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

SIWARD
Then he is dead?

ROSS
Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.

SIWARD
Had he his hurts before?

ROSS
Ay, on the front.

SIWARD
Why then, God's soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so, his knell is knolled.

MALCOLM
He's worth more sorrow,
And that I'll spend for him.

SIWARD
He's worth no more
They say he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head

MACDUFF
Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
Hail, King of Scotland!

ALL
Hail, King of Scotland!

Flourish

MALCOLM
We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour named. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time and place:
So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.

Flourish. Exeunt

NOTES:

Richard III
Shakespeare’s Richard III has quite an amount in common with Macbeth - both are tyrants who usurp the crown, embark on a career of murder and destruction, and are killed at the ends of their respective plays. If you’d like to read more, there’s an article called '“The Relation of Macbeth to Richard the Third” - and you can find it here.

Polyptoton
This is a figure of speech, wherein a writer repeats words that come from the same root. So, knell and knolled here, which emphasise the finality of Young Siward’s death. Shakespeare makes great use of the device in one of his most famous sonnets, “Let Me Not To the Marriage of True Minds…”

Brutus and Cassius
At the very end of Julius Caesar, Brutus hears that Cassius is dead, and within the madness of his own final scene, he insists
Friends, I owe more tears
To this dead man than you shall see me pay.
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.

Pick-up Lines
I feel rather embarrassed that I’ve never committed this term to memory. One of the most dynamic elements of this play is how frequently Shakespeare splits lines of verse between characters, allowing the heartbeat of its rhythm to pulse through multiple voices. It’s electrifying when performed well by a company in sync with each other. And now we know what to call them!

Status
At the end of a play the final lines were customarily given to the character with the highest status. Since so many tragedies in particular end with various bodies strewn across the stage, it is often a moment for a lesser character to gain the spotlight. In Hamlet, it is Fortinbras who speaks last - having taken control in the aftermath of that Danish bloodbath. In King Lear, things are more complicated, since the Quarto text gives the final lines to the Duke of Albany, while the Folio gives them to Edgar. It’s an issue to be resolved by any given production. Here, at least, there’s no question that it should be Malcolm, who’s been hailed King of Scotland, that gets the final speech.

The Stone of Scone
For at least the last 1500 years the Stone of Scone (aka the Stone of Destiny) has been an integral part of the coronation process for all Scottish monarchs. One myth suggested that it was Jacob’s Pillow, and had been brought to Scotland over time. In 1296 it was stolen by the English and it took seven centuries for it to be returned to Scotland (for more about this click here) and during which time it became an integral part of the coronation process for English monarchs too. The Stone was transported from Scotland to England in April 2023 and put on display in advance of the coronation of King Charles III, and then returned to Edinburgh after the festivities. It made the news again in November 2023, when activists attacked the glass surrounding it and sprayed slogans with their demands.

MACBETH | Episode 71 - The Roman Fool

ACT V - SCENE VIII. Another part of the field.

Enter MACBETH

MACBETH
Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

Enter MACDUFF

MACDUFF
Turn, hell-hound, turn!

MACBETH
Of all men else I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; my soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already.

MACDUFF
I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!

They fight

MACBETH
Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.

MACDUFF
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripped.

MACBETH
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.

MACDUFF
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
“Here may you see the tyrant.”

MACBETH
I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Exeunt, fighting. Alarums

NOTES:

Suicide
In Ancient Rome, suicide was considered an honourable death in certain circumstances. By Shakespeare’s time, the teachings of the Church were so severely against suicide (and the degrading treatment visited upon the bodies of those who died this way were so awful) that it was all but unthinkable. As a result, the very idea that the Romans had found any honour in this was fascinating to Shakespeare’s England, and this is why so many of his characters discuss suicide via the euphemism of behaving like an antique Roman, or a Roman fool.

Richard Burbage
For a bonus episode about Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s leading man, click here.

Hell-hound
Nearly every country in Europe has a myth of some kind of hellish, awful black dog with blazing eyes that stormed up from the great beyond and occasionally terrified the populace. One of the most famous of these was Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld.

Killing onstage
As mentioned in the episode, there was a notorious incident when a performance of Richard II was almost at the centre of a plot to overthrow Elizabeth I. The night before Essex’ rebellion in early 1601, Essex and his co-conspirators paid Shakespeare’s company a huge amount of money to put on Richard II, which they hadn’t performed for a very long time. They wanted it staged because it is a play in which an out-of-touch monarch is deposed and martyred, and they wanted this storyline to be on people’s minds as they attempted to send Queen Elizabeth to a similar fate. Many months later, Elizabeth famously quipped “I am Richard II, know ye not that?”

MACBETH | Episode 70 - My Wife and Children's Ghosts

TEXT:

Alarums. Enter MACDUFF

MACDUFF

That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword with an unbatter'd edge
I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
And more I beg not.

Exit. Alarums

Enter MALCOLM and SIWARD

SIWARD
This way, my lord; the castle's gently rendered:
The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
The day almost itself professes yours,
And little is to do.

MALCOLM
We have met with foes
That strike beside us.

SIWARD
Enter, sir, the castle.

Exeunt. Alarums

NOTES:

Kerns
The word kern is an adaptation of the Middle Irish word ceithern, which means a collection of people, more specifically fighting men. An individual member is a ceithernach. Kerns were called “uncivil” in Shakespeare’s own Henry IV Part 2, and in Macbeth we get a sense that they aren’t terribly reliable - they fight for money rather than for country, and our last image is of them “skipping” away.. Have a look for “The Image of Irelande” - an engraving from 1581 - and you’ll see a very famous depiction of them.

MACBETH | Episode 69 - What Is Thy Name?

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE VII. Another part of the field.

Alarums. Enter MACBETH

MACBETH
They have tied me to a stake; 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.

Enter YOUNG SIWARD

YOUNG SIWARD
What is thy name?

MACBETH
Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

YOUNG SIWARD
No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell.

MACBETH
My name's Macbeth.

YOUNG SIWARD
The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.

MACBETH
No, nor more fearful.

YOUNG SIWARD
Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

They fight and YOUNG SIWARD is slain

MACBETH
Thou wast born of woman
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandished by man that's of a woman born.

Exit

NOTES:

Bear-baiting
Bear-baiting was popular in England until the 19th century. This engraving from the late 16th or early 17th century shows “the bear garden” somewhere on the south bank of the Thames in London - you could be forgiven for thinking it was a picture of the Globe!

MACBETH | Episode 68 - Blood and Death

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE VI. Dunsinane. Before the castle.

Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD, MACDUFF, and their Army, with boughs
MALCOLM
Now near enough: your leafy screens throw down.
And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,
Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,
According to our order.

SIWARD
Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

MACDUFF
Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

Exeunt

MACBETH | Episode 67 - Advance the War

TEXT:

Enter a Messenger

MACBETH (continued)
Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Messenger
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.

MACBETH
Well, say, sir.

Messenger
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

MACBETH
Liar and slave!

Messenger
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

MACBETH
If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

Exeunt

MACBETH | Episode 66 - Hereafter

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum and colours

MACBETH

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
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:
Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.

A cry of women within

What is that noise?

SEYTON
It is the cry of women, my good lord.

Exit

MACBETH
I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.

Re-enter SEYTON

Wherefore was that cry?

SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
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.

NOTES:

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
As mentioned during the episode, there are echoes here of the Order of Burial for the Dead. If you’d like to read the full 1559 text of these obsequies in the Book of Common Prayer, you can read it here. This text also includes the phrase “born of woman” that fascinates Macbeth throughout the play.

Sonnet 23
Shakespeare gives Macbeth a beautiful but very bleak passage here, comparing life’s futility to a bad actor with nothing to say. Another example of a metaphor involving an actor performing poorly is in Sonnet 23 - although the mood here is considerably brighter.

As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart,
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own loves’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burden of mine one love’s might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine writ.

MACBETH | Episode 65 - Advance the War

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE IV. Country near Birnam wood.

Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG SIWARD, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and Soldiers, marching

MALCOLM
Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.

MENTEITH
We doubt it nothing.

SIWARD
What wood is this before us?

MENTEITH
The wood of Birnam.

MALCOLM
Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Soldiers
It shall be done.

SIWARD
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before 't.

MALCOLM
'Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFF
Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

SIWARD
The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
Towards which advance the war.

Exeunt, marching

NOTES:

Drum and Colours
This is a fairly standard stage direction, indicating drums and flags for a military scene. Shakespeare may have used the opportunity to emphasise King James’ own unification efforts, perhaps combining the English and Scottish flags onstage. (The Union Jack - the flag that actually combined the flags of both countries - was also created in 1606!)

MACBETH | Episode 64 - Throw Physic to the Dogs

TEXT:

Enter SEYTON

SEYTON
What is your gracious pleasure?

MACBETH
What news more?

SEYTON
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.

MACBETH
I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
Give me my armour.

SEYTON
'Tis not needed yet.

MACBETH
I'll put it on.
Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?

Doctor
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

MACBETH
Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

MACBETH
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again. - Pull't off, I say. -
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?

Doctor
Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.

MACBETH
Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Doctor [Aside]
Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.

Exeunt

NOTES:

Skirr
This obscure means something like ‘to ride quickly or pass through’. Shakespeare uses it here and in only one other text, Henry V:
Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they'll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Cast the water
This is a slight inside into Jacobean medicine. It was believed that extensive medical insights could be achieved by the analysis of urine. Macbeth wonders if the Doctor could do this for his land, Scotland.

MACBETH | Episode 63 - The Yellow Leaf

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants

MACBETH
Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Enter a Servant

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look?

Servant
There is ten thousand--

MACBETH
Geese, villain!

Servant
Soldiers, sir.

MACBETH
Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

Servant
The English force, so please you.

MACBETH
Take thy face hence.

Exit Servant

Seyton! - I am sick at heart,
When I behold--Seyton, I say! - This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
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, and dare not.
Seyton!

NOTES:

English Epicures
This is a really weird but charming little reference. Shakespare has Macbeth refer to these English epicures (over-eaters, or people who live only for pleasure) because of a passage in Holinshed. As mentioned in the episode, Holinshed’s Chronicle suggested that it was the English who brought fine dining to Scotland - and so here we have a Scottish (anti)hero dismissing such contributions outright. Holinshed’s own text says that “The Scottish people before had no knowledge nor under- standing of fine fare or riotous surfet . . . those . . . superfluities . . . came into the realme of Scotland with the Englishmen . . . For manie of the people abhorring the riotous maners and superfluous gourmandizing brought in among them by the Englishmen, were willing inough to receiue this Donald for their King, trusting . . . they should by his severe order in gouernement recouer againe the former temperance of their old progenitors.”

Black and White
Throughout this scene Macbeth alternates between images of black and white. White in particular is associated with cowardice, and since he’s steeling himself before the battle starts, he starts by saying he will not taint himself with it, the colour of fear. He curses the frightened servant with a wish that the devil (already associated with damnation and darkness) will damn him black. This is primarily because the servant’s literally appalled, and his face is the colour of cream. His liver, as Macbeth imagines it, is likewise lily-white. His cheeks are linen, and his face is the colour of whey. Even his look is the colour of a goose. All these variations of white are anathema to Macbeth, who instructs the poor servant to prick his face so that it will bleed a little and over-red his fearful whiteness.

Loon and Patch
These are both words for a clown or a fool. Macbeth is demeaning the servant as an idiot.

Seyton
Depending how an actor chooses to pronounce this name, it could also sound rather like Satan.

Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

MACBETH | Episode 62 - Near Birnham Wood

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane.

Drum and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, and Soldiers
MENTEITH
The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.

ANGUS
Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.

CAITHNESS
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

LENNOX
For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths that even now
Protest their first of manhood.

MENTEITH
What does the tyrant?

CAITHNESS
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distempered cause
Within the belt of rule.

ANGUS
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENTEITH
Who then shall blame
His pestered senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?

CAITHNESS
Well, march we on,
To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him pour we in our country's purge
Each drop of us.

LENNOX
Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.

Exeunt, marching

MACBETH | Episode 61 - Infected Minds

TEXT:

Doctor
Will she go now to bed?

Gentlewoman
Directly.

Doctor
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

Gentlewoman
Good night, good doctor.

Exeunt

MACBETH | Episode 60 - Out, Damned Spot

TEXT:

LADY MACBETH
Yet here's a spot.

Doctor
Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her,
to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say!
One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.
Hell is murky!
Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?
What need we fear who knows it,
when none can call our power to account?
Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.

Doctor
Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that:
you mar all with this starting.

Doctor
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gentlewoman
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that:
heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETH
Here's the smell of the blood still:
all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Oh, oh, oh!

Doctor
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

Gentlewoman
I would not have such a heart in my bosom
for the dignity of the whole body.

Doctor
Well, well, well…

Gentlewoman
Pray God it be, sir.

Doctor
This disease is beyond my practise:
yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep
who have died holily in their beds.

LADY MACBETH
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown;
look not so pale.
I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried;
he cannot come out on's grave.

Doctor
Even so?

LADY MACBETH
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!

Exit

MACBETH | Episode 59 - Slumbery Agitation

TEXT:

ACT V - SCENE I. Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman

Doctor
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive
no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

Gentlewoman
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen
her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon
her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,
write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again
return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

Doctor
A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once
the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of
watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her
walking and other actual performances, what,
at any time, have you heard her say?

Gentlewoman
That, sir, which I will not report after her.

Doctor
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.

Gentlewoman
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness
to confirm my speech.

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise;
and, upon my life, fast asleep.
Observe her; stand close.

Doctor
How came she by that light?

Gentlewoman
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her
continually; 'tis her command.

Doctor
You see, her eyes are open.

Gentlewoman
Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doctor
What is it she does now?
Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her,
to seem thus washing her hands:
I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

NOTES:

Perturbation
Shakespeare seems to use this word almost exclusively for disturbances to a character’s sleep. Lady Macbeth and Henry the Fourth suffer some of literature’s rockiest nights. And Richard the Third has his own sleep perturbed by Lady Anne.

Sarah Siddons
Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) was one of the most famous actresses of her age. She gained enormous fame for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth, which she first performed in February 1785. She played a variety of other Shakespeare roles (including Hamlet, which she played repeatedly until she was 50) but her favourite role of all, rather surprisingly, was Catherine in Henry VIII. Siddons gives her name to the Sarah Siddons Award, presented every year to an actress in a Chicago theatre production. Amazingly, the award was originally fictitious, appearing at the opening of the classic Holylwood film All About Eve. Two years after the film was released, a real version was inaugurated, and it is now a prestigious award in the Chicago theatrical community. Pictured below is a portrait of Siddons in her signature role as Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth | Episode 58 - One Fell Swoop

TEXT:

MALCOLM

Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

MACDUFF
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

MALCOLM
Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

MALCOLM
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

MACDUFF
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

MALCOLM
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
The night is long that never finds the day.
Exeunt

NOTES:
Pretty
Rather in the same way that the word “surprise” only appears in the play to describe the attack on Macduff’s castle, the word “pretty” is only used to describe Macduff’s little boy. Ross calls him “pretty cousin” and then Macduff uses it twice here.

Kites
Kites are very unpleasant birds that feast on corpses.

MACBETH | Episode 57 - These Murdered Deer

TEXT:

MACDUFF
What concern they?
The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief
Due to some single breast?

ROSS
No mind that's honest
But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

MACDUFF
If it be mine,
Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

ROSS
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

MACDUFF
Hum! I guess at it.

ROSS
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,
To add the death of you.

MALCOLM
Merciful heaven!
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.

MACDUFF
My children too?

ROSS
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.

MACDUFF
And I must be from thence!
My wife killed too?

ROSS
I have said.

NOTES:

Surprise
The word is used only twice in the play - when Macbeth tells us that he will surprise Macduff’s castle, and now, as Ross tells us that it has happened. To us it seems like a fun word, but at its root is an element of taking, of seizing and of capturing. It’s an awful moment, and no accident that Shakespeare is so careful in his choice of words.

Seneca
As promised within the episode, here is the popular quote from Seneca’s Hippolytus: “Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.” Small problems speak, but great ones stay silent.

Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a very influential French Renaissance philosopher. His Essays were widely available in English translation, and it has been maintained since at least the 1780s that Shakespeare could have read them. There are passages in The Tempest, for example, that seem like almost direct echoes of John Florio’s translation of the Essays, first published in 1603. It’s possible that - if Shakespeare didn’t know the aforementioned Seneca line from the Latin - there’s an echo of Florio’s version of it here.

MACBETH | Episode 56 - A Modern Ecstasy

TEXT:

Enter ROSS

MACDUFF
See, who comes here?

MALCOLM
My countryman; but yet I know him not.

MACDUFF
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MALCOLM
I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
The means that makes us strangers!

ROSS
Sir, amen.

MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did?

ROSS
Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.

MACDUFF
O, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!

MALCOLM
What's the newest grief?

ROSS
That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:
Each minute teems a new one.

MACDUFF
How does my wife?

ROSS
Why, well.

MACDUFF
And all my children?

ROSS
Well too.

MACDUFF
The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

ROSS
No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.

MACDUFF
But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?

ROSS
When I came hither to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witnessed the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

MALCOLM
Be't their comfort
We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
An older and a better soldier none
That Christendom gives out.

ROSS
Would I could answer
This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

NOTES:

John Donne
I mentioned John Donne within this episode, hoping that perhaps there was an echo of Donne’s famous line “for whom the bell tolls” - but, as mentioned, the line, and the poem it comes from, were written at least a decade after Macbeth. The wonderful biography of Donne, also mentioned within the episode, is called Super Infinite and is by Katherine Rundell.

Niggard
This is one of the most troublesome words, even though it has no connection to the extremely abusive n-word that sounds like it. This word means a stingy or un-generous person. It comes from Middle English, and is probably of Scandinavian origin. There’s an Old Norse word hnøggr , translated as niggardly; also the Old English word hnēaw has the same meaning. NOT a word to use out of context, and one certainly that needs to be pronounced with great care in performance. It’s probably simpler and wiser to cut the word in performance, since the one it sounds like is so completely unacceptable.