LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,103)
  • Text Authors (19,448)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

[ Add setting to List ]

Lady Macbeth

Set by Joseph Horovitz (b. 1926), "Lady Macbeth", subtitle: "A Scena", 1970, Composer's note: The composer has selected the words from the speeches of Lady Macbeth. This selection is intended to portray the development of this character, from early aspirations to grandeur, to later power and finally to guilt and madness. The implication is that the Scena begins after Lady Macbeth has read the report of Macbeth's victory at the start of the play. [Sung Text]

Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.


Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win...  ...  Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Macbeth, Act II, Scene 5

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Carlo Rusconi) , no title, first published 1858

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]



Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), no title, appears in Macbeth, excerpts from Lady Macbeth's speech, Act II, Scene 5

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title
  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Andrea Maffei) , no title, first published 1863

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]



                 He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: 
I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die... 
...
                           I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't...
...
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood...
...
                                Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in Macbeth, excerpts from Lady Macbeth's speeches, Act II, Scene 2

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]



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? ...
                    No more o' 
that, my lord, no more o' that; you mar all with 
this starting. 
...
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the 
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little 
hand. Oh, oh, oh!
...
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.
...
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!

Text Authorship:

  • by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), appears in Macbeth, excerpts from Lady Macbeth's speech, Act V Scene 1

Go to the general single-text view

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (François-Victor Hugo) , no title

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]


Author(s): William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris