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Act II, Scene 1
The White House. Macbush and his aides are meeting to
discuss divers scandals. Lupus bursts in.
LUPUS: Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
IAGO: Why doth thou our privy council interrupt?
LUPUS: Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the
Lord's anointed temple, and stolen thence
The life o'th'building!
MACBUSH: Why man, speak to us plain. Rude I am in my speech
And little blest with the soft phrase of peace.
Therefore I beg the voice and utterance of thy
Tongue.
LUPUS: An eagle from this most excellent canopy,
The air, hath plunged his talons into
The twin towers of trade,
Spilling their entrails upon the ground.
HALL.: There is no composition in these news,
That gives them credit.
LUPUS: Trust ye not my dispatch,
Thine own eyes shall convict thee.
Lupus turns on the TV. The others watch in horror.
COLONIUS: O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Let this pernicious hour
Stand ever accursed in the calendar! Alas, poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot be called our mother
But our grave, where no one
But he who knows nothing,
Is seen to smile,
Where sighs and groans and shrieks
That rent the air,
Are made, not marked;
And good men's lives expire
Before the flowers in their caps,
Dying in violent sorrow!
MACBUSH (aside): He brings great news!
(to his aides): The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of terror
Under my battlements.
Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts,
Fill me from crown to toe,
Topful of direst cruelty.
Stop up th'access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace.
COLONIUS: Good friends, sweet friends! Let me not stir you
up to such `
A sudden flood of mutiny! They that have done this deed,
What private griefs they have, Alas, I know not,
That made them do it.
IAGO: If we cannot defend
Our own doors from the dog,
Let us be worried, and our nation
Lose the name of hardiness and policy.
MACBUSH: Had I the pow'r I should pour the sweet milk of
concord into hell
Uproar the universal peace, And confound all unity on Earth.
COLONIUS: If the balance of our lives
Had not one scale of reason
To poise another of blood,
The baseness of our natures would
Conduct us to the most preposterous conclusions:
But we have reason to cool our raging notions.
Let us act not, Till we have firm intelligence
Who hath done this foul deed,
Lest we but teach bloody instructions
Which, being taught, Return to plague th'inventor.
Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.
IAGO: Art thou afear'd to be
The same in thine own act,
As thou art in desire?
COLONIUS: I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
HALL.: Give me to know How this foul rout began,
Who set it on, And he that is approved in this offence.
IAGO: Why, 'tis plain to see, Sadama Bin Laden!
Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight!
Proclaim him in the streets,
And though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies.
COLONIUS: Trifles light as air Are to the suspicious,
Confirmations strong as Holy writ.
Macbush raises his hands to cut them off.
MACBUSH: When we our nation's frailties have hid,
That suffer in exposure,
Let us meet again and question
This most bloody piece of work,
To know it further.
(to Colonius): Fears and scruples shake us.
In the great hand of God I stand,
And thence against
The undivulged pretense of treasonous malice I fight.
My Lord of Halliburton, Do tarry a while with me.
Macbush's aides depart.
MACBUSH: Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour!
HALL.: Nor I, my liege.
MACBUSH: O, now forever
Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!
Hail the plumed troop
And the big wars that make ambition, Virtue!
Hail the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, The ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance
Of glorious war!
HALL.: Put money in thy purse:
Follow thou the wars.
Defeat thine opposition with a usurped beard:
I say, put money in thy purse.
It was a violent commencement
And thou shalt see an answerable sequestration.
Fill thy purse with money.
Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony, and a frail vow
Betwixt an erring barbarian
And a supersubtle Minister of State
Be not too hard for my wits,
Thou shalt enjoy it. Therefore make money.
MACBUSH: What say you of our cautelous Colonius?
Mayhap another, more pliable
In his stead we should put. He must our cause to the world carry,
And to our will the United Nations sway.
HALL.: I have seen more days than you:
And though we lay these honors on this man
To ease ourselves of divers sland'rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven as we point the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load, and turn him off
(Like to the empty ass) to shake his ears
And graze in commons.
MACBUSH: You may do your will;
But he's a tried and valiant soldier.
HALL.: So is my horse, and for that I do provide him store
of provender.
MACBUSH: Stir thou forth, and seek out Our Lord of the CIA,
Him to convict of our cause, For loud his voice in council
Need we our dread purpose to further.
Halliburton exits.
MACBUSH: I do the wrong and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischief that I set abroad, I lay to the grievous charge of
others.
But then I sigh and with a piece of scripture
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd olds ends stol'n forth of Holy writ
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
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