Shakespeare · Scenes Around a Theme
Adapters: Laurie O’Brien
Staging: A complete theme cutting assembled by Laurie O’Brien, drawing on Shakespeare’s magic-and-fairy plays. Includes Macbeth, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Richard III. Publishable in full.
About this theme cutting
Assembled by Laurie O’Brien — her authorship of this theme cutting partially fills the Workshop Manual gap in spirit. See Legacy Founders for her fuller story.
The theme moves through fairy, witch, ghost, and prophecy — the moments when Shakespeare’s Elsewhere breaks through. Opening and closing on the Witches of Macbeth, it passes through Prospero’s island, the fairy bower of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet’s ghost-haunted battlements, and Clarence’s nightmare descent. Suitable for staging without a set; costume and voice do the summoning.
Scenes in this collection
- The Three Witches — Macbeth, Act I, Scene i
- Prospero’s farewell to spirits — The Tempest, Act V, Scene i
- Puck, nighttime — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene i
- Oberon and Puck, love-juice errand — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene i
- Titania’s fairy song — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene ii
- Bottom transformed; Titania enchanted — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene i
- Prospero and Ariel, spirits summoned — The Tempest, Act IV, Scene i
- Ariel’s shape change; Caliban’s curse — The Tempest, Act I, Scene ii
- Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo, and the invisible Ariel — The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii
- Prospero’s revenge and release — The Tempest, Act IV–V
- Puck’s epilogue — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene i
- The Witches’ cauldron — Macbeth, Act IV, Scene i
- Ghost on the battlements — Hamlet, Act I, Scenes i and iv
- The Ghost’s revelation — Hamlet, Act I, Scene v
- Clarence’s dream — Richard III, Act I, Scene iv
- Weird Sisters’ dance — Macbeth, Act I, Scene iii
- Closing: “Our revels now are ended” — The Tempest, Act IV, Scene i
Script
MS–
The Magic and the Supernatural
A cutting of Shakespearean scenes
by Laurie O’Brien
Enter THREE WITCHES (A, B, and C)
(Macbeth Act 1, scene 1)
A (FIRST WITCH)
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
B (SECOND WITCH)
When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
C (THIRD WITCH)
That will be ere the set of sun.
A (FIRST WITCH)
Where the place?
B (SECOND WITCH)
Upon the heath.
C (THIRD WITCH)
There to meet with Macbeth.
A (FIRST WITCH)
I come, Graymalkin.
B (SECOND WITCH)
Paddock calls.
C (THIRD WITCH)
Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
(Tempest, Act 5, scene 1)
PROSPERO
You elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And you that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though you be, I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ‘em forth
By my so potent art.
(A Midsummer’s Night Dream Act 5, scene 1)
PUCK
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, scene 1)
OBERON (noticing him)
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
Since once I sat upon a promontory
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
PUCK
I remember.
OBERON
That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),
Flying between the cold moon and the Earth,
Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal thronèd by ⟠the⟡ west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon,
And the imperial vot’ress passèd on
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it “love-in-idleness.”
Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK
I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth
In forty minutes. (He exits)
OBERON
Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she, waking, looks upon
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
(PUCK re-enters)
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON I pray thee give it me.
(PUCK gives him the flower.)
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet muskroses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
And there the snake throws her enameled skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
(Midsummer, Act 2, scene 2)
Enter TITANIA, Queen of Fairies, with her train.
TITANIA
Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence—
Some to kill cankers in the muskrose buds,
Some war with reremice for their leathern wings
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep.
Then to your offices and let me rest. (She lies down)
Fairies sing
(FIRST FAIRY)
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy Queen.
(Chorus)
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby.
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby.
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh.
So good night, with lullaby.
SECOND FAIRY
Hence, away! Now all is well.
One aloof stand sentinel.
Enter OBERON (who anoints Titania’s eyelids with the nectar.)
OBERON
What thou seest when thou dost wake
Do it for thy true love take.
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
Midsummer, Act 3, scene 1
BOTTOM (entering with QUINCE and FLUTE)
Are we all met?
QUINCE
Pat, pat. And here’s a marvel’s convenient
place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be
our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house,
and we will do it in action as we will do it before
the Duke.
If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,
every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus,
you begin. When you have spoken your
speech, enter into that brake, and so everyone
according to his cue.
Enter PUCK (invisible to those onstage.)
PUCK (aside)
What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here
So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor—
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE
Speak, Pyramus.—Thisbe, stand forth.
BOTTOM, as Pyramus
Thisbe, the flowers of odious savors sweet—
QUINCE
Odors, (odors!)
BOTTOM, as Pyramus
…odors savors sweet.
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.—
But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear. (He exits)
FLUTE
Must I speak now?
QUINCE
Ay, marry, must you, for you must understand
he goes but to see a noise that he heard and is to
come again.
FLUTE, as Thisbe
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.
QUINCE
“Ninus’ tomb,” man! Why, you must not
speak that yet. That you answer to Pyramus. You
speak all your part at once, cues and all.—Pyramus,
enter. Your cue is past. It is “never tire.”
FLUTE
O! As true as truest horse, that yet would never
tire.
(Enter PUCK, and BOTTOM as Pyramus with an
ass-head)
BOTTOM, as Pyramus
If I were fair, Thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE
O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray,
masters, fly, masters! Help!
(Quince, Flute, exit)
PUCK
I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake,
through brier.
Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire,
And neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. (Puck exits)
BOTTOM
Why do they run away? This is a knavery of
them to make me afeard.
(He looks about him)
BOTTOM
I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of
me, to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir
from this place, do what they can. I will walk up
and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear
I am not afraid.
(Bottom sings) The ouzel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill—
TITANIA (waking up)
What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamored of thy note,
So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape,
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM
Methinks, mistress, you should have little
reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason
and love keep little company together nowadays.
The more the pity that some honest neighbors will
not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon
occasion.
TITANIA
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM
Not so neither; but if I had wit enough to get
out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own
turn.
TITANIA
Out of this wood do not desire to go.
Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state,
And I do love thee. Therefore go with me.
I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep
And sing while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep.
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.—
Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed!
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.
Come, wait upon him. Lead him to my bower.
The moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye,
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforcèd chastity.
Tie up my lover’s tongue. Bring him silently.
(The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1)
PROSPERO
What, Ariel, my industrious servant, Ariel!
ARIEL (entering)
What would my potent master? Here I am.
PROSPERO
Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
Did worthily perform, and I must use you
In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,
O’er whom I give thee power, here to this place.
Incite them to quick motion, for I must
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
Some vanity of mine art. It is my promise,
And they expect it from me.
ARIEL
Presently?
PROSPERO
Ay, with a twink.
ARIEL
Before you can say “Come” and “Go,”
And breathe twice, and cry “So, so,”
Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.
Do you love me, master? No?
PROSPERO
Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach
Till thou dost hear me call.
(Tempest, Act 1, scene 2, line 358)
ARIEL:
What shall I do? Say, what? What shall I do?
PROSPERO
Go make thyself like a nymph o’ th’ sea. Be subject
To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape.
PROSPERO (to self, introducing Caliban)
Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!
CALIBAN
As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed (line 385)
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both. A southwest blow on you
And blister you all o’er.
PROSPERO
For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins
Shall (forth at) vast of night that they may work
All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made ‘em. (Turns)
(The Tempest, Act 3, scene 2)
(Enter Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo)
STEPHANO Tell not me. When the butt is
out, we will drink water; not a drop before. Therefore
bear up and board ‘em.—Servant monster,
drink to me.
TRINCULO
Servant monster? The folly of this island!
They say there’s but five upon this isle; we are three
of them. If th’ other two be brained like us, the state
totters.
STEPHANO
Drink, servant monster, when I bid thee.
Thy eyes are almost set in thy head.
TRINCULO
Where should they be set else? He were a
brave monster indeed if they were set in his tail.
STEPHANO
Mooncalf, speak once in thy life, if thou
be’st a good mooncalf.
CALIBAN
How does thy Honor? Let me lick thy shoe. I’ll
not serve him; he is not valiant.
TRINCULO
Thou liest, most ignorant monster. I am in
case to justle a constable.
Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a
fish and half a monster?
CALIBAN
Lo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my lord?
Bite him to death, I prithee.
STEPHANO
Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head.
The poor monster’s my subject, and he shall not
suffer indignity.
Enter ARIEL, invisible
CALIBAN
I thank my noble lord.
As I told thee before, I am subject
to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath
cheated me of the island.
ARIEL (in Trinculo’s voice)
Thou liest.
CALIBAN (to Trinculo)
Thou liest, thou jesting monkey,
thou. (He stands.) I would my valiant master would
destroy thee. I do not lie.
STEPHANO
Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in ’s
tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your
teeth.
TRINCULO
Why, I said nothing.
STEPHANO
Mum then, and no more.(Trinculo stands
aside) Proceed.
CALIBAN
I say by sorcery he got this isle;
From me he got it. If thy Greatness will,
Revenge it on him, for I know thou dar’st,
Thou shalt be lord of it, and I’ll serve thee.
STEPHANO
How now shall this be compassed? Canst
thou bring me to the party?
CALIBAN
Yea, yea, my lord. I’ll yield him thee asleep,
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.
ARIEL (in Trinculo’s voice)
Thou liest. Thou canst not.
CALIBAN
What a pied ninny’s this!—Thou scurvy patch!—
I do beseech thy Greatness, give him blows
And take his bottle from him. When that’s gone,
He shall drink naught but brine, for I’ll not show him
Where the quick freshes are.
STEPHANO
Trinculo, run into no further danger. Interrupt
the monster one word further, and by this
hand, I’ll turn my mercy out o’ doors and make a
stockfish of thee.
TRINCULO
Why, what did I? I did nothing. I’ll go farther off.
STEPHANO
Didst thou not say he lied?
ARIEL (in Trinculo’s voice)
Thou liest.
STEPHANO
Do I so? Take thou that. (He strikes Trinculo)
As you like this, give me the lie another time.
TRINCULO
I did not give the lie! Out o’ your wits and
hearing too? A pox o’ your bottle! This can sack and
drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the
devil take your fingers!
CALIBAN
Ha, ha, ha!
STEPHANO
Now forward with your tale. (To Trinculo.)
Prithee, stand further off. Proceed.
CALIBAN
Why, as I told thee, ’tis a custom with him
I’ th’ afternoon to sleep. There thou mayst brain him,
Having first seized his books, or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his weasand with thy knife.
STEPHANO
Monster, I will kill this man. His daughter
and I will be king and queen—save our Graces!—
and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys.—Dost
thou like the plot, Trinculo?
TRINCULO
Excellent.
STEPHANO
Give me thy hand. I am sorry I beat thee.
But while thou liv’st, keep a good tongue in thy head.
CALIBAN
Within this half hour will he be asleep.
Wilt thou destroy him then?
STEPHANO
Ay, on mine honor.
ARIEL (aside)
This will I tell my master.
CALIBAN
Thou mak’st me merry. I am full of pleasure.
Let us be jocund. Will you troll the catch
You taught me but whilere?
STEPHANO
At thy request, monster, I will do reason,
any reason.—Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.
(Sings with Trinculo).
Flout ‘em and cout ‘em
And scout ‘em and flout ‘em!
Thought is free.
CALIBAN
That’s not the tune.
Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe)
TRINCULO
This is the tune of our catch played by the
picture of Nobody.
STEPHANO (to the invisible musician)
If thou be’st a
man, show thyself in thy likeness. If thou be’st a
devil, take ’t as thou list.
TRINCULO
O, forgive me my sins!
STEPHANO
He that dies pays all debts.—I defy thee!—
Mercy upon us!
CALIBAN
Art thou afeard?
STEPHANO
No, monster, not I.
CALIBAN
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
STEPHANO
This will prove a brave kingdom to me,
where I shall have my music for nothing.
CALIBAN
When Prospero is destroyed.
STEPHANO
That shall be by and by. I remember the story.
TRINCULO
The sound is going away. Let’s follow it, and
after do our work.
STEPHANO
Lead, monster. We’ll follow.—I would I
could see this taborer. He lays it on.
(The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1)
PROSPERO
This was well done, my bird.
Thy shape invisible retain thou still.
The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither
For stale to catch these thieves.
ARIEL
I go, I go. (He exits)
PROSPERO
A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all
Even to roaring.
Enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, etc.
Come, hang them on this line.
Prospero and Ariel remain invisible, Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo awaken.
CALIBAN
Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole
may not hear a footfall. We now are near his cell.
STEPHANO
Monster, your fairy, which you say is a
harmless fairy, has done little better than played the
jack with us.
Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here,
This is the mouth o’ th’ cell. No noise, and enter.
Do that good mischief which may make this island
Thine own forever, and I, thy Caliban,
For aye thy foot-licker.
STEPHANO
Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody
thoughts.
TRINCULO (seeing the apparel)
O King Stephano, O
peer, O worthy Stephano, look what a wardrobe
here is for thee!
CALIBAN
Let it alone, thou fool. It is but trash.
STEPHANO
Put off that gown, Trinculo. By this hand,
I’ll have that gown.
TRINCULO
Do, do. We steal by line and level, an ’t like
your Grace.
Monster, come, put some lime upon your
fingers, and away with the rest.
CALIBAN
I will have none on ’t. We shall lose our time
And all be turned to barnacles or to apes
With foreheads villainous low.
(A noise of hunters heard. Enter spirits in shape of dogs and hounds,
hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo, driven out.)
PROSPERO
Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
With agèd cramps, and more pinch-spotted make
them
Than pard or cat o’ mountain.
Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour
Lies at my mercy all mine enemies. (turns to them)
(The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1)
A solemn air, and the best comforter (line 67)
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
Now useless, boiled within thy skull! There stand,
For you are spell-stopped.
The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.
(The three awaken)
GONZALO
All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement
Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country! (Exeunt)
(Midsummer Act 5, Scene 1)
ARIEL (PUCK)
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
Exit
(Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1)
Thunder. Enter two witches, A and B
A (FIRST WITCH)
Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.
B (SECOND WITCH)
Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined.
A (FIRST WITCH)
Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time!”
(C joining)
B (SECOND WITCH)
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot.
(The Witches dance in a circle)
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
A (FIRST WITCH)
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake.
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
B (SECOND WITCH)
Cool it with a baboon’s blood.
Then the charm is firm and good.
C (THIRD WITCH) to other two
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains.
And now about the cauldron sing
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
(Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1)
BARNARDO
Who’s there?
FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
BARNARDO
Long live the King!
FRANCISCO
Barnardo?
BARNARDO
He.
FRANCISCO
You come most carefully upon your hour.
BARNARDO
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
BARNARDO
Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO
Not a mouse stirring.
BARNARDO
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
(Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS)
FRANCISCO
I think I hear them.—Stand ho! Who is there?
HORATIO
Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS
And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO
Give you good night.
MARCELLUS
O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved
you?
FRANCISCO
Barnardo hath my place. Give you good night.
(Francisco exits)
MARCELLUS
Holla, Barnardo.
BARNARDO
Say, what, is Horatio there?
HORATIO
A piece of him.
BARNARDO
Welcome, Horatio.—Welcome, good Marcellus.
HORATIO
What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
BARNARDO
I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.
BARNARDO
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.
HORATIO
Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
BARNARDO
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one—
Enter Ghost.
MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off! Look where it comes again.
BARNARDO
In the same figure like the King that’s dead.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes.
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! Line 43
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee “Hamlet,”
“King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
(GHOST beckons)
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removèd ground.
But do not go with it.
HORATIO
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
HORATIO
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord?
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
(The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.)
HAMLET
It waves me still.—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord. (They hold back Hamlet.)
HAMLET
Hold off your hands.
HORATIO
Be ruled. You shall not go.
HAMLET
My fate cries out
And makes each petty arture in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Ghost beckons
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!—Go on. I’ll follow thee.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5
HAMLET
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I’ll go no further.
GHOST
Mark me.
HAMLET
I will.
GHOST
My hour is almost come
When I to sulf’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAMLET
Alas, poor ghost!
GHOST
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
HAMLET
What?
GHOST
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAMLET
O God!
GHOST
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET
Murder?
GHOST
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
HAMLET
Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
GHOST
I find thee apt;
Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET
O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!
GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
––won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursèd hebona in a vial
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leprous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
And if thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damnèd incest.
Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me. (He exits.)
HAMLET
O all you host of heaven! Hold, hold, my heart!
Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.”
I have sworn ’t. (Exits)
The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1
PROSPERO
Spirits, which by mine art
I have from their confines called to enact
My present fancies.
There’s something else to do. Hush, and be mute,
Or else our spell is marred.
Enter Clarence and Keeper
Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4
KEEPER
Why looks your Grace so heavily today?
CLARENCE
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.
KEEPER
What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me.
CLARENCE
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,
And in my company my brother Gloucester,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. ⟨Thence⟩ we looked toward
England
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall’n us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,
What sights of ugly death within my eyes.
Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wracks,
A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept—
As ’twere in scorn of eyes—reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
KEEPER
Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
CLARENCE
Methought I had, and often did I strive
To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
Stopped in my soul and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand’ring air,
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
KEEPER
Awaked you not in this sore agony?
CLARENCE
No, no, my dream was lengthened after life.
O, then began the tempest to my soul.
I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger-soul
Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick,
Who spake aloud “What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?”
And so he vanished. Then came wand’ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud
“Clarence is come—false, fleeting, perjured
Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewkesbury.
Seize on him, furies. Take him unto torment.”
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me and howlèd in mine ears
Such hideous cries that with the very noise
I, trembling, waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made my dream.
KEEPER
No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you.
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
CLARENCE
Ah keeper, keeper, I have done these things,
That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward’s sake, and see how he requites me.—
O God, if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath in me alone!
O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!—
Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile.
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
KEEPER
I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.
Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3
(ALL WITCHES, dancing in a circle)
The Weird Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace, the charm’s wound up.
The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1 (line 163–175)
C (WITCH 3): (To audience)
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cappèd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
(All depart)
Facilitator Notes
Play the Elsewhere before you play the character. The scene where Puck addresses the audience works best when the Player looks at every face in the room before speaking. The Witches of Macbeth work best in a huddle that never quite forms; their sisterhood is proximity, not embrace.
The cutting opens and closes with the Witches, giving the performance a ritual frame. The “Our revels now are ended” closing speech is attributed to Witch C by Laurie O’Brien, drawing the supernatural frame shut with Prospero’s words — a bold but effective choice for small-ensemble performance.