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Author: Bartleby

Hero!

Hero!

I’m exhausted.
The problem is what do you do with a life, with your life?
The problem is that I don’t know how to act like everyone is Godlight, and life has no meaning to me unless everyone is Godlight, and so the only way I could act that could possibly mean anything to me is out of my reach.
The problem is I don’t want to help everyone; I want to sneak off to the cafe patio in the sun.
The problem is I don’t know how to live if everyone is Godlight. Would I still be allowed to hide away in a sleepy safe spot, reading and writing? After all, if everyone is Godlight, so am I. Are we all supposed to be saints?
The problem is worse than that. Because I feel myself actively clenching up, building fortifications, willing the Gatling guns to the wall. I feel myself shrugging off another ten suffocated children. I see myself justifying the glass dome over our fair city; I see myself explaining that kindness is good if kindness can help, but sometimes all it can do is get everyone dragged down with the already-hopeless, thereby futiley wrecking everyone’s happiness, in which case kindness is actually not so great.
The problem is that I maintain that loving kindness is the Way, but I don’t really believe that or want it to be true. I mean, I do want it to be true, but not in a way that requires I sacrifice my happiness for the sake of other people’s, or even my dreams for their basic safety, but isn’t it quite likely that loving kindness requires such sacrifices of me?
My only hope is a win-win in which I’m allowed to have a lot of fun and relaxation and success, while still being helpful “enough”.
What is helpful “enough”? I don’t help anyone at all ever.
I am exhausted.

A Medieval Theologian on Violence

A Medieval Theologian on Violence

The Devil whispers thus: “It is them! They’re the aggressors! They deserve this! They’re the threat! They have to be dealt with in this way!”

What his followers don’t understand is that he’s whispering the same thing to their “enemies”, and is in fact orchestrating a reunion of sorts. Not between them and the innocents they self-righteously slaughter, but between them and the prideful, angry murderers of all persuasions (aka: excuses).

Bartholomew of Wallowwaylen

No Borders Wild Speculation

No Borders Wild Speculation

What if we are one thing like one giant mind.
There are impulses running through individual minds and when one combination of impulses overtakes, the mind moves in the direction they choose. Those impulses then overflow that one mind and enter into the larger one where they mix with others and create other combinations and either overtake or in some way influence the overtaking combinations. And so God speaks to Godself. Every impulse is an illusion and of course our mind/bodies are illusions and this world and our efforts alone and together: all illusions. But like a song’s an illusion; like a symphony’s an illusion; through it shine’s the Truth, and with it the Truth plays, explores, learns about limits rising and falling, learns about living, which is to say being limited and broken up, rather than Its natural state, which is to be unlimited and undivided. Why? Why? Why?! wonders a few impulses flowing in streams of impulses, travelling in worlds of laughter, rippling in all directions–waves opening dividing splashing moving rushing into themselves dissolving, but all on the surface while the sea itself remains one, calm, gentle, deep, forever, and laughing free and easy with a kindness that will not quit and cannot lose.

The Sixth Man

The Sixth Man

There’s one more attendee at the meeting.
He’s just so tough!
It’s like unbelievable.
I can’t believe it.
You wouldn’t be able to believe it.
He’s so tough!
As a hand to hand combatant, an individual warrior, and a strategist and leader of platoons of violent heroes.
So amazingly tough!

He looks out the window, his muscles calm but ready in a very cool all-black cat-prowler outfit (the ribbed sweater, tight slacks, upturned knit cap, polished leather high-top thick-soul boots). He doesn’t care. He knows what he knows. He could kill everyone in the room, but he won’t. Instead he’ll consider the past as it shuffles by their floor-to-ceiling one-way windows. Everything’s come together to make him a truly standout killing-machine. But compared to them, he’s just some kid waiving a knobby, bark-peeling stick around, pretending it’s a Gatling gun. Everyone good at violence is now obsolete. Everyone who trained a lifetime in the art of war has now officially invested poorly. With a thought they can kill everyone in your world. With a thought they can save everyone in your world. You are now nothing. Your skills are now a not very funny joke. Soon they will begin.

I mean, the guy’s so tough! In any other circumstance, he’d be quite formidable and worth a great deal of consideration and a considerable salary.

They’ll do what they do.
It’s not fair.
But you find me the god or God that ever cared about “fair”!

In the next scene, we argue against Rattlesnake’s assessment of the super heroes. They are mighty mighty, but they can’t go it alone and there’s sure to be a use for someone with his impressive skill set!!

[We’re taking this project offline for a while now]

BW/AMW

Love Birds

Love Birds

Love birds
Walking hand in hand down the busy street
Holding hands as carefree as the pigeons fidget strut and peck
Holding hands as natural as the kids beg for a $5 soft-serve swirl cone.
Holding hands as happy as the turtle swims through the cool water and surfaces against the top-muck.

Finally! Together!
It was too lonely
All those decades
It wears on your shoulders
It hurts your heart
You try to be a good sport
You acknowledge that others have it much worse
You suggest to the God that S/He change you from the inside out so that you become someone who actually helps.
You consider the lilies of the field who neither labor nor spin nor cuddle in love.
But part of you is nonstop:
WHEN WILL I SEE HER (OR HIM, OR WHATEVER) AGAIN!?!?!

It was too lonely.
They didn’t do a good enough job before.
Now they must model themselves on the sunlight against the pavers, on the sunbathers upon the green, on the clowns blowing balloons, on the fiddlers rolling reels, on the jazz quartet bopping Beauty, on the children scrambling the jagged glinting boulders, on the lovers sharing warm sandwiches and snuck-though beer, on the weird guy yelling while he does shirtless pushups near a giant marble block supporting a giant statue of Simon Bolivar.

And so wind they arm and arm, step in step,hand in hand, heart on heart, expanded into a single double-sized consciousness, happy, relaxed, relieved. It was so lonely! But now it is OK; now it is safe; now it is home; now it is OK.

The superhuman couple wander through the sun and the shade, past a string quartet caught between floor and ceiling mosaics, out onto a splendid plaza centered around a fountain and overlooking the pond where rowers maneuver the crappiest, lousiest, most annoyingly unresponsive rowboats. They rest on the low rounding wall and gaze out at elegant swans and clumsy rowboats upon a flat pond of gentle green indifference.

We’ll have to do better this time.
Yeah.
We’ll have to strike a better balance between helping and sustaining.
Yeah.
We’ll need to go gentle.
Yes. Gentle. Err on the side of useless.
Well, I don’t know that we. OK, that might be a way to look at it.
Err on the side of we’re not here.
We can do the nudge.
Mmmm. Yeah. And that’s all.
OK, so that’s the plan.
God help us!
God help us everyone!
Do you want to get a drink at the boathouse?
I want you to focus less on fleeting pleasures and more on the work that lasts, the work that is done in Love and forgets everything else.
Oh, yeah, totally. But let’s take the day off.
We’re already doing that.
I developed an addiction to staring off into space while drinking and smoking. It only works right when you’re young and can’t be hurt; but I’m always like that.
It’s still an addiction and more selfish than Beautiful.
Oh. Well, yeah. I guess. But if we could just; I mean, listen: I want to put my arm around you while I indulge in a bit of folly! Can you understand?
Oh, you! You and your invincibility! You and your wasteful perfection!
We’re too lucky.
If the ship sinks, where will we live? If the world ends, how will we bask in the glow of human bodies and minds wandering through human culture and artistry? I love you, but without them this life becomes unbearably lonely.
True. And there’s moral considerations as well. But I just want a few beers in the sunlight while all around us people, squirrels, and birds reach for life and love.
Hmmmph

…..

In the next scene she throws him into the Arctic Circle.
But I think we’re taking this project offline for a while.

AMW/BW

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch

In Lower Manhattan, at the time of our telling, Number ___ Broad Street had been owned by the John Smith Trading Company for the past three hundred and four years. The company’s never faced an audit; a curious hazy indifference falls over any bureaucrat attempting to take notice of the organization; it’s books slumber on. What exactly does the company trade? Who was John Smith? How does it afford the taxes and the upkeep of this beautiful old cut-stone building in a global financial center? Who works there? What would it take to get hired and fat-paw waived past the heavy-set front doorman at the elegant marble desk reading classic literature in various original languages (and the occasional incredibly-outdated newspaper)?

In Lower Manhattan, in the time of the Creatures, on the second floor of Number ___ Broad Street, an elite team meets round a round wooden table overlooking a cobblestone road that no longer exists outside, unless you approach it through this very window. Although why would you go? It reeks of dust, of manure, of unbathed human and animal bodies; everyone is yelling, bustling, gaunt kids in rags cough and steal pennies; men own other people; a man’s work is from sun up to sun down but a woman’s work is never done; God saves the blessed but angrily spits out most; the details of whose blessed and who ain’t are hotly debated; the underlying mysticism binding all things is only referenced via a carefully maintained and largely unbelievable dogmatism; a dusty, sooty confusion reigns.

The head of the group, Ms. CMS, heir to the empire, stands with one shoulder at a large blank blackboard easel. She’s a petite woman, forty-two years old now, with a sort of open-eyed, full- and forward-cheeked, turned-up-button-nosed chipmunk charm; pretty in a tidy, hair-bunned-back way. She stands tall at that easel, angled towards the round table, chalk and eraser held limply at her side, lip a little fidget-shifted to one side, eyes roaming large and questioning.

It’s a big day, and the half dozen members of this top-secret, extra-governmental agency–ages ranging from spunky 25 to considered 82—are unsure what to think, what to say, how to proceed.

All indications suggest the two heroes are back. On the one hand, great: this pair can help in a way and to a degree otherwise impossible. On the other hand, hmmm: no organization, not even one with the conscious and resources of the ancient John Smith Trading Company, can control them, can stop them, can veto their choices. In the past, they seemed basically OK: they wanted to help, hearts in the right places, they were pretty effective at helping and not hurting; but, well, if they made a mistake, their great powers tended to greatly amplify the error, resulting in some extremely unfortunate mishaps.

MGV is fifty, tall and lanky, with carefully orchestrated thick black hair; sharp features; high cheek bones; a short, broad-lipped mouth; dark-distant, forward-truding, dome-large eyes; and a formidable nose. He wears neatly pressed faded blues, a button-up dress shirt, and a heavy white sailor’s sweater (thick wool lines, with braided-rope designs). Turning a thoughtfully-pouted lip and sparkling quizzical eyes towards the octogenarian: “Susan, you’re the only one here who knew them.”

Susan, now old, her once beautiful moist, elastic, suntan-shining gone pale, stiff and wrinkled, smiles a thin-lipped, blue-eyed reverie. “Oh, but I was so young! You’ve all seen the footage. They were like that. Pleasant, charming, easy, invincible. Not bad sorts. Not quite wise enough to deal with their own powers, but genuinely kind, thoughtful—and so saved from the worst of their own potential. You saw the footage; they were like that. They fell into a deep depression, a despondency when, well, during the events of ’61; I’m sure that’s what put them out of commission—not any outside intervention. Unless they go glum, no one can stop them.”

“We have, it seems, no option but to hope they are both morally correct and completely competent” offered ABC, the youngest, a mere lad of 25, mathematician, philosopher, linguist and computer scientist—whose collaboration with the biochemist (MGV) to his left and the physicist (CMS) across the way had thus far (now in its sixth year) resolved none of the mysteries surrounding the super duo’s abilities, let alone suggested any plausible containement system.

Everyone gave a silent, shoulder-thrust-forward nod.

JAL, thirty-five, medium in height and build, hair long and black, face wide, open, with a slight moon curvature at the chin. Long straight hair tumbling over muscular shoulders in a simple pearl-button, triangle-lapelled light-yellow blouse. Political scientist and historian. Left hand hovering slightly above the table, she jabs it with several quick, precise finger-tip strikes, and then looks up, shaking her head. “You can’t beat these two. You can’t tell them what to do. They’re like the SCOTUS. All you can do’s hope they either come wise or become wise.”

JAL is obsessed with checks and balances and proposes the following adjustment to the Supreme Court of the United States of America:

No entry until 60; you can serve 20 years; and then you have to retire, live off the government, write books, take walks, come to terms with your human fallibility.

She’s mentioned these reforms before. More than once.

On one or two such occasions, ABC’s chimed in with something about how they could spend their forced retirements contemplating the Forms, which of course they should’ve been doing all along. But, they’ve proven unable or unwilling to alternate between leaving this specifics-bound realm for studies in the plane of pure abstraction where dwells the Form of the Good, and using the heavenly insights thereby gained to guide their judcial decisions—decisions. Oh, they enlist mere human opinion! Oh, they’re grounding in the Spirit is never worthy of a Philosopher Guardian! Oh, how all too oft their touch and go, their blink and show’s all too marked by partisan prejudices and animal-bound urges for safe-snuggy embrace by human traditions and human social groups! Hence their demotion from Philosopher Guardians status, and the call for term limits. But this time ABC, like everyone else, thinks JAL’s gone too far exporting pet peeves into the conversation. They should stay focused on the matter at hand! Even if, admittedly, there’s nothing they can really think to do about it.

JAL slowly gets the hint from a room full of sympathetically quiet, lips-rolled-in, eyes big and wandering peers. She flashes a large winning, “ah, yes, but of course, pardon me!” smile before looking down and rolling her own lips inward.

But your narrator feels no such compunction and will expatiate a little more on the limited nature of the electorate’s control of SCOTUS:

All you can do is hope against hope. You can speak your wisdom into the air and hope that it moves all hearts and minds until even their vaulted, vaunted thoughts say and bend to the gentler, to the kinder, to the wider view of human life and love. But that’s all. They have more power than humans should; the rest of us can but pray they learn to let go of all concerns except the Kind Light that—unlike every other flinch and twist within the human conscious moment—actually wants, knows how to, and can help us humanthings live well alone and together.

But, really, I mean: that kind of longing for Light-before-dogmas righteousness is always be good, but we should in any case constitutionally amend their stay. So as to lower the stakes and allow for a little more public oversight of these interpreters of our—of We the People’s constitution. Part of encouraging spiritually-grounded behavior within government is limiting power,
and also, though perhaps at first glance paradoxically,
is separating church and state.

The Soul is wider and wiser than any human ideas and feelings, but all humans have some sense of the Divine Mark in thought and deed: awareness, clarity, honesty, accuracy, caution with people and their resources, competency, shared joy; words and deeds that know we’re all in this together. Let calm reign, let debate glow with gentle harkening, with honest exchange of info and ideas, let us focus on the visible and the bounds recognized by the invisible within each of our widest wisest gazes: we should tell the truth, speak clearly, and understand better and better how it is True that we are all in this together, and that when we die only the Love lives on—only that within each of us that lives in and through Love: only that is immortal; the rest is OK so long as it defers to the Kind Light; and not OK insofar as it commandeers the ship.

BW/AMW

Too Cool For School

Too Cool For School

This guy!
I mean!
Oh my god!
Such a duder!
Caught in that addle-minded, lonely torpor beneath miles of gritty dirt and cold sharp stone for so many years, his body broke-back bent over a granite boulder like a rag doll; and what’s the first order of business? Does he salute the sun and thank God for his delivery? Does he dance and sing, skip upon the calm bay waters? Does he exultantly toss his able body from one skyscraper to another? Does he go seeking for his mate who recalled him to life with the world-bounding pulse of her love?
No
He’s all like, “Oh, good, she’s coming here. Let me get an iced tea and a cigarette and look out at the city and lose myself in vague, vapory, half-conscious contemplations.”
He casts his mind about; he teleports a freshly made iced tea from some hapless coffee shop (simultaneously–this is what passes for morality with this guy–transferring $3.00 to the company’s account and $1.00 to that of the dumbfounded kid who is so sure she had already made that large iced tea with extra ice and lemon), undertakes a similar maneuver with a pack of mediums and a lighter, and tosses himself up atop a nondescript Midtown Manhattan building, join drink and smokes on the wide concrete parapet where he’s arranged them.

Hey!
She yells to him, her sweet hands upon her fine hips in that elegantly simple crime fighting one-piece of hers. Hey!, what are you doing!?
He swivels around on his blue jean seat–my how good the clear morning light feels!–so that his feet are now dangling a few feet above the graying white concrete rooftop instead of a couple thousand feet above the morning clatter of Midtown Manhattan on a sunshiny summertime Tuesday.
Hey!
He yells to her, with cigarette and plastic tea flung wide as his open arms.
What are you doing!?
She demands again, having rigidly stopped ten feet short of their reunion, her eyes large with annoyance under a swirled-mad brow.
I’m, you know–I’m hanging out, waiting for you!
We haven’t seen each other in sixty years!
I know! Right!?
What is wrong with you!?
I’m just, you know; relaxing here for a minute.
I’ve missed you with my whole being!
I you too!
I you too?! That’s the story? I you too?! And a cigarette?! A cigarette before flying to meet me?! You should never smoke, but to stop for a cigarette in this moment!? Do you understand?! What am I to do?! I can’t find another man as super as you. I’m stuck with you. Anyone else would be inappropriate! Don’t you want love and relationship?!
Of course! Totally! I totally do!
Then put out the cigarette, brush your teeth, and make me feel welcome!

So I dunno; it’s their own private affair and it really isn’t our business to try an’ tell them how to run their relationship; but it’s pretty hard not to think he basically sucks and she’s in a hard spot, having to choose between men who can’t fling themselves at will throughout timespace, going alone, and making it work with this jerk.

BW/AMW

Hey

Hey

Hey
I’m gonna tell you a fun super hero story.

She is beautiful in her spandex uniform that creaks and groans under the weight of her overflowing–almost but not quite excessive–curves. The cold Pacific Ocean sparkles calmly back and forth in the northern sun in early May. She’s underneath, in the secret undersea fortress. She’s in chains anchored to the sea floor. But they misunderstand themselves; they’re wrong to think they’re keeping her there. What’s keeping her there is that she can’t find the direction of her partner. She reaches out for him with a wide, conically-expanding infinitely-bright Soullight. She feels out for him that way in all possible directions, but she does not find him.

You don’t understand! They’re like two love birds! Without connecting to one another, their thoughts and feelings get all muddled and tired. I guess it’s romantic, but it is also causing a lot of trouble right now. How easy it would be for her to disappear from those chains! How effortlessly she’d pass through twenty feet of steel and two thousand feet of high-pressure, pitch-black, near-freezing waters! But she’s like a sad old character befuddled in her slippers and dementia, unable to quite organize the jumble of vague notions and sharp longings into a coherent thought. So she’s just been sitting there while nervous scientists read medical charts they can’t fathom and pompous security chiefs clackety clack up and down the metal walkways, imagining their procedures and technologies sufficient.

Then one day she gets a sliver of him. So faint that the first thought she has is “pill bug; rolly polly; armoured ball-beetle; little silver bug tank; what??” But then recognition like electricity zaps all through her and she’s awake again. She opens her eyes. Her captors don’t notice. She looks around at her steel cell and feels the cold of the chains and floor. She’s very beautiful. They’re both like that: eternally youthful, trim, athletic, she with full bosom, thigh and seat, he with the classic umbrella-back, narrow hips, sprinter’s thighs. All this with no effort on their parts, I might add. Anyway, there she is all gorgeous in an unbreakable metal cell, with heaps of inescapable chains shackled to her ankles, wrists, waist, neck, and so on; there she is waking up to 40F naked and alone (the spandex part comes in a minute); she bounces her mind out into the whole fortress, sees the military thinkers in full uniform debating with stern faces over their war table; inspects the scientists and their mile of cages, trapped rats, clipboards, computer models, and cross-eyeglass glances (of all sorts), watches the hearty soldiers at their push-ups, mess halls, card tables, frogman drills, bathroom breaks. Hmmph.

Now she’s vanished from her chains and emerges, clothed in that red, white, and blue Olympic-style form-fitting suit. If her hair is long and naturally curling, or short straight and pert, or a spherical afro-mane–that’s up to your mood. My point is the suppleness of her form and the fullness of her womanhood. And how easily she passes through metal, concrete and water; how she walks now upon the water and now, with an easy flick of spandex-stockinged toes (it isn’t really spandex! it’s some indestructible fabric they invented years ago), flings herself into the sky.

One of their tricks is that they can change their mass at will. They can be as massive as a planet or as light as an electron. That, combined with their mastery of energy and mass manipulation, allows them pretty much any physical feat. For example, she didn’t have to jump off a little cowlicked wave into the pale blue sky of the North Pacific at round about 65 degrees North. She could’ve just slid basically instantly to anywhere on the planet. But it is fun to leap about in the physical world, especially when you’re infinitely good at it and never experience fatigue, soreness, or other standard human complaints.

BW/AMW

What should I do now?

What should I do now?

The system, all these interwoven systems
and the bright patch in the meadow I lucked into
All beyond my control, out of my league, moving without my input
I want to live well: both happily and decently.
I need the systems where I live to stay healthy, not get blown up by nukes, wiped out by economic catastrophe, chopped and scattered by corruptions, melted-flat by upheaval.
I’d like these interconnected mental, physical, and organizational structures that house my nest to do even better: I’d like them to buoy us all up together into joyful creative exploration, building, sharing, unfolding of the beautiful possibilities.
But I just kind of get up, go to work, try to get by; come home, mean to do I don’t know what, get older, worry about my hairline, write another line no one reads, go to sleep without a plan.
What should I do?
For those matters that human ken can catch, there’s study, practice, effort; for all else, we’ve only prayer, meditation, divination.
But I can’t tell what is what, and the only sign I get is the sign I can’t dodge: the heavy feeling of guilt and disappointment, like I’m failing, like I’m wasting it all because I don’t have the heart to find a vision, forge a path, make something stick.
What should I do?
What is the way forward?
What is the error I must undo? Whose error is it? All human errors are interwoven now, and the hot sun is melting the sand into a gloppy glass.
This hurt we trace back along the edges of the slaughtered boar, his entrails now rushing warm and slip-sliding onto the sacred stone; what do we learn from the curve formed by his reticulated intestines collapsing onto the cold gray slate? I can’t scrute it! Perhaps if we grab another of the small-eyed, sharp-tusked, wet-snouted, desperately-bucking captives, perhaps another slice down the center of another squealing creature?? Maybe that would help flush out the details??
No, none of this helps! And it isn’t very nice, either!
What’s next?
Jesus? Getting saved? To be myself a living sacrifice for God? To sacrifice my will to the divine one?
How?
I’m exhausted and flying home from my grandparent’s home in Arizona; there is no way to escape this outcome: the dry piney air and endless morning walks with Grandma are gone. Damn! It’s run through my fingers! The jig is up. I’m caught out. There’s no hope.
How to make things better for yourself and others?
How to live a truly spiritual life? And can it be done without being miserable?
They say the Dalai Lama is happy, but to me it looks more like craziness than happiness. I want to sneak away, to wander away and let the world get better on its own.
But what would I do? The Dalai Lama would like to be able to go off into the mountains and practice meditation all day every day. He feels duty-bound and does not indulge that longing. But I don’t want to practice meditation alone every day. So what is it that I’m not doing for the sake of duty? And what is the duty I’m fulfilling, anyway? Who needs me to do the things I do?
So what then?
I’ll go now to the Oracle at Delphi
What do I do about the Hurt?
Let it go
How?
Give it up
How?
Practice karma
I thought karma was something that happened, not something you practiced
Practice changing the past and the future with kind resolve, with only-love, with palms-wide-open, with

Macbeth – Beginning

Macbeth – Beginning

The Tragedie of Macbeth

Actus Primus. Scoena Prima.

Thunder and Lightning.
Enter three Witches.

1. When shall we three meet againe?
In Thunder, Lightning, or in Raine?
2. When the Hurley-burley’s done,
When the Battaile’s lost, and wonne
3. That will be ere the set of Sunne

1. Where the place?
2. Vpon the Heath
3. There to meet with Macbeth
1. I come, Gray-Malkin

All. Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire,
Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre.
Exeunt.

Act I, Scene 1

Thunder and lighting.
Three beautiful young witches enter a cold dark room

One: We’ll meet again in summer rain,
with fingers twisted, mudblood stained.
Two: Apace the hurley-burley,
astride our reckless chargers three
Three: to mark the set of Sunne,
to hold, to close what’s done.

Scena Secunda.

Alarum within. Enter King, Malcome, Donalbaine, Lenox, with attendants, meeting a bleeding Captaine.

King. What bloody man is that? he can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the Reuolt
The newest state
Mal. This is the Serieant,
Who like a good and hardie Souldier fought
‘Gainst my Captiuitie: Haile braue friend;
Say to the King, the knowledge of the Broyle,
As thou didst leaue it
Cap. Doubtfull it stood,
As two spent Swimmers, that doe cling together,
And choake their Art: The mercilesse Macdonwald
(Worthie to be a Rebell, for to that
The multiplying Villanies of Nature
Doe swarme vpon him) from the Westerne Isles
Of Kernes and Gallowgrosses is supply’d,
And Fortune on his damned Quarry smiling,
Shew’d like a Rebells Whore: but all’s too weake:
For braue Macbeth (well hee deserues that Name)
Disdayning Fortune, with his brandisht Steele,
Which smoak’d with bloody execution
(Like Valours Minion) caru’d out his passage,
Till hee fac’d the Slaue:
Which neu’r shooke hands, nor bad farwell to him,
Till he vnseam’d him from the Naue toth’ Chops,
And fix’d his Head vpon our Battlements
King. O valiant Cousin, worthy Gentleman

Cap. As whence the Sunne ‘gins his reflection,
Shipwracking Stormes, and direfull Thunders:
So from that Spring, whence comfort seem’d to come,
Discomfort swells: Marke King of Scotland, marke,
No sooner Iustice had, with Valour arm’d,
Compell’d these skipping Kernes to trust their heeles,
But the Norweyan Lord, surueying vantage,
With furbusht Armes, and new supplyes of men,
Began a fresh assault
King. Dismay’d not this our Captaines, Macbeth and
Banquoh?
Cap. Yes, as Sparrowes, Eagles;
Or the Hare, the Lyon:
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As Cannons ouer-charg’d with double Cracks,
So they doubly redoubled stroakes vpon the Foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking Wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell: but I am faint,
My Gashes cry for helpe
King. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds,
They smack of Honor both: Goe get him Surgeons.
Enter Rosse and Angus.
Who comes here?
Mal. The worthy Thane of Rosse
Lenox. What a haste lookes through his eyes?
So should he looke, that seemes to speake things strange
Rosse. God saue the King

King. Whence cam’st thou, worthy Thane?
Rosse. From Fiffe, great King,
Where the Norweyan Banners flowt the Skie,
And fanne our people cold.
Norway himselfe, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyall Traytor,
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismall Conflict,
Till that Bellona’s Bridegroome, lapt in proofe,
Confronted him with selfe-comparisons,
Point against Point, rebellious Arme ‘gainst Arme,
Curbing his lauish spirit: and to conclude,
The Victorie fell on vs
King. Great happinesse

Rosse. That now Sweno, the Norwayes King,
Craues composition:
Nor would we deigne him buriall of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch,
Ten thousand Dollars, to our generall vse
King. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceiue
Our Bosome interest: Goe pronounce his present death,
And with his former Title greet Macbeth
Rosse. Ile see it done

King. What he hath lost, Noble Macbeth hath wonne.

Exeunt.

Second Scene

Alarum within. Enter King, Malcome, Donalbaine, Lenox, with attendants, meeting a bleeding Captaine.

King: What bloody man is that? he can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of Revolutions
Malcome: This is the Serpent Thief,
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
‘Gainst our pressing woe: Hail my brave friend –
Our King desires knowledge: reveal the broil
that’s torn and broke, yet likewise made you.

Tiger Leaf: Doubtfull it stood,
As two spent Swimmers, that do cling together,
And choke their Art: The merciless conspiracy
(these rebels that chant down the King, who sing
no love nor peace, no future feasible –
with chaos seeking power) from the Cartoon Isles
Of Boastup and Tellytown well supply’d;
And Fortune on his damned Quarry smiling,
drove deep the Rebels’ charge: but all’s too weake:
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that Name)
Disdaining Fortune, with steady whiles,
alert and cool in heedful execution
(Like Valours Minion) carv’d out a passage,
soon staked a spacious silence
wherein he grew the sacred conversation,
his wisdom dismantling sweetly all brash
and violent certainty
Till he unseam’d the bloody intent
And fix’d all heads upon our common task –
the guilefree bond ‘tween ev’ry quick, a Light
beyond all thought that yet does docile stoop
to join and guide our doughy, human hands,
which, thus divinely animated, build
bright worlds so clear, so joyful shared and true.

King. A valiant soul, our worthy friend!

Cap. As whence the Sunne ‘gins his reflection,
Shipwracking Stormes, and direfull Thunders:
So from that Spring, whence comfort seem’d to come,
Discomfort swells: Mark King of Scotland, mark,
No sooner Justice had, with Valour arm’d,
Compell’d these skipping Kernes to trust their heeles,
But the Norweyan Lord, surueying vantage,
With furbusht Armes, and new supplyes of men,
Began a fresh assault
King. Dismay’d not this our Captaines, Macbeth and
Banquoh?
Cap. Yes, as Sparrowes, Eagles;
Or the Hare, the Lyon:
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As Cannons ouer-charg’d with double Cracks,
So they doubly redoubled stroakes vpon the Foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking Wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell: but I am faint,
My Gashes cry for helpe
King. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds,
They smack of Honor both: Goe get him Surgeons.
Enter Rosse and Angus.
Who comes here?
Mal. The worthy Thane of Rosse
Lenox. What a haste lookes through his eyes?
So should he looke, that seemes to speake things strange
Rosse. God saue the King

Cap. As whence the Sunne ‘gins his reflection,
Shipwracking Stormes, and direfull Thunders:
So from that Spring, whence comfort seem’d to come,
Discomfort swells: Mark King of Scotland, mark,
No sooner Justice had, with Valour arm’d,
Compell’d these flopping Fops to stow their plots,
But the rowdy cock, surveying vantage,
With passions loose, and new supplies of lie,
Began a fresh assault

King. Dismay’d not this our Captains, Macbeth and
Banquoh?

Cap. Yes, as Sparrows, Eagles;
Or the Hare, the Lion:
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As Cannons over-charg’d with double Cracks,
So they doubly redoubled clarity:
Except they seanced God’s own Discourse,
Or mindmeld Jesus on high Golgotha,
I cannot tell: but I am faint,
My Gashes cry for helpe

King. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds,
They smack of Honor both: Go get him Surgeons.
[Enter Rosse and Angus.]
Who comes here?

Mal. The worthy Rosse
Lenox. What a haste looks through his eyes?
So should he look, who learns to speak things strange
Rosse. God save the King

Scena Tertia.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

1. Where hast thou beene, Sister? 2. Killing Swine

3. Sister, where thou?
1. A Saylors Wife had Chestnuts in her Lappe,
And mouncht, & mouncht, and mouncht:
Giue me, quoth I.
Aroynt thee, Witch, the rumpe-fed Ronyon cryes.
Her Husband’s to Aleppo gone, Master o’th’ Tiger:
But in a Syue Ile thither sayle,
And like a Rat without a tayle,
Ile doe, Ile doe, and Ile doe
2. Ile giue thee a Winde

1. Th’art kinde

3. And I another

1. I my selfe haue all the other,
And the very Ports they blow,
All the Quarters that they know,
I’th’ Ship-mans Card.
Ile dreyne him drie as Hay:
Sleepe shall neyther Night nor Day
Hang vpon his Pent-house Lid:
He shall liue a man forbid:
Wearie Seu’nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peake, and pine:
Though his Barke cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be Tempest-tost.
Looke what I haue
2. Shew me, shew me

1. Here I haue a Pilots Thumbe, Wrackt, as homeward he did come.

Drum within.

3. A Drumme, a Drumme:
Macbeth doth come
All. The weyward Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the Sea and Land,
Thus doe goe, about, about,
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice againe, to make vp nine.
Peace, the Charme’s wound vp.

Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

Macb. So foule and faire a day I haue not seene

Banquo. How farre is’t call’d to Soris? What are these,
So wither’d, and so wilde in their attyre,
That looke not like th’ Inhabitants o’th’ Earth,
And yet are on’t? Liue you, or are you aught
That man may question? you seeme to vnderstand me,
By each at once her choppie finger laying
Vpon her skinnie Lips: you should be Women,
And yet your Beards forbid me to interprete
That you are so
Mac. Speake if you can: what are you?
1. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Glamis
2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor

3. All haile Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter

Banq. Good Sir, why doe you start, and seeme to feare
Things that doe sound so faire? i’th’ name of truth
Are ye fantasticall, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye shew? My Noble Partner
You greet with present Grace, and great prediction
Of Noble hauing, and of Royall hope,
That he seemes wrapt withall: to me you speake not.
If you can looke into the Seedes of Time,
And say, which Graine will grow, and which will not,
Speake then to me, who neyther begge, nor feare
Your fauors, nor your hate
1. Hayle

2. Hayle

3. Hayle

1. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater

2. Not so happy, yet much happyer

3. Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none: So all haile Macbeth, and Banquo

1. Banquo, and Macbeth, all haile

Macb. Stay you imperfect Speakers, tell me more:
By Sinells death, I know I am Thane of Glamis,
But how, of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor liues
A prosperous Gentleman: And to be King,
Stands not within the prospect of beleefe,
No more then to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange Intelligence, or why
Vpon this blasted Heath you stop our way
With such Prophetique greeting?
Speake, I charge you.
Witches vanish.

Banq. The Earth hath bubbles, as the Water ha’s,
And these are of them: whither are they vanish’d?
Macb. Into the Ayre: and what seem’d corporall,
Melted, as breath into the Winde.
Would they had stay’d
Banq. Were such things here, as we doe speake about?
Or haue we eaten on the insane Root,
That takes the Reason Prisoner?
Macb. Your Children shall be Kings
Banq. You shall be King

Macb. And Thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
Banq. Toth’ selfe-same tune and words: who’s here?
Enter Rosse and Angus.
Rosse. The King hath happily receiu’d, Macbeth,
The newes of thy successe: and when he reades
Thy personall Venture in the Rebels sight,
His Wonders and his Prayses doe contend,
Which should be thine, or his: silenc’d with that,
In viewing o’re the rest o’th’ selfe-same day,
He findes thee in the stout Norweyan Rankes,
Nothing afeard of what thy selfe didst make
Strange Images of death, as thick as Tale
Can post with post, and euery one did beare
Thy prayses in his Kingdomes great defence,
And powr’d them downe before him
Ang. Wee are sent,
To giue thee from our Royall Master thanks,
Onely to harrold thee into his sight,
Not pay thee
Rosse. And for an earnest of a greater Honor,
He bad me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, haile most worthy Thane,
For it is thine
Banq. What, can the Deuill speake true?
Macb. The Thane of Cawdor liues:
Why doe you dresse me in borrowed Robes?
Ang. Who was the Thane, liues yet,
But vnder heauie Iudgement beares that Life,
Which he deserues to loose.
Whether he was combin’d with those of Norway,
Or did lyne the Rebell with hidden helpe,
And vantage; or that with both he labour’d
In his Countreyes wracke, I know not:
But Treasons Capitall, confess’d, and prou’d,
Haue ouerthrowne him
Macb. Glamys, and Thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behinde. Thankes for your paines.
Doe you not hope your Children shall be Kings,
When those that gaue the Thane of Cawdor to me,
Promis’d no lesse to them
Banq. That trusted home,
Might yet enkindle you vnto the Crowne,
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange:
And oftentimes, to winne vs to our harme,
The Instruments of Darknesse tell vs Truths,
Winne vs with honest Trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.
Cousins, a word, I pray you
Macb. Two Truths are told,
As happy Prologues to the swelling Act
Of the Imperiall Theame. I thanke you Gentlemen:
This supernaturall solliciting
Cannot be ill; cannot be good.
If ill? why hath it giuen me earnest of successe,
Commencing in a Truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good? why doe I yeeld to that suggestion,
Whose horrid Image doth vnfixe my Heire,
And make my seated Heart knock at my Ribbes,
Against the vse of Nature? Present Feares
Are lesse then horrible Imaginings:
My Thought, whose Murther yet is but fantasticall,
Shakes so my single state of Man,
That Function is smother’d in surmise,
And nothing is, but what is not
Banq. Looke how our Partner’s rapt