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Act V, Scene 5
Macbush, Iago, and Halliburton are discussing the latest
disaster in Iraq.
MACBUSH: How were they lost?
IAGO: Want of men and money.
General Panza lined himself with hopes,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
And so with great imagination
Led our powers to destruction.
HALL.: Among the soldiers it is muttered,
That here you maintain several factions:
One would have lingering wars at little cost;
Another thinks without expense at all,
By guileful fair words peace may be obtained.
I mean Colonius.
IAGO: We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew we ventured on dangerous seas.
MACBUSH: Our coffers, with too great a court and liberal
tax cuts, are grown somewhat light:
how shall we do for money for these wars?
IAGO: Benefits for our soldiers are over-large, my liege,
and could be cut.
Let's start by voiding pay for imminent danger: with the hard fighting
over, 'tis no longer needed.
HALL. Nor hospitals for veterans, my lord: they are too
costly.
Why should we pay for the wars of other kings?
MACBUSH: All good thoughts, but I need some way to subtract
men's view from these maneuvers.
IAGO: Why 'tis simple, my liege: we need more cemeteries.
This you can announce and bury the other items in 'em.
MACBUSH: Well thought, Iago! Make it so.
(Macbush's intercom buzzes. He listens, then answers.)
MACBUSH: Let him pass. (To the others) 'Tis Colonius,
come in answer to our summons.
HALL.: In good time, comes our straying steed once more
to stable.
COLONIUS: Good morrow, my liege!
MACBUSH: Would it were! My lord, I have reports of you received,
that do my tranquil ease disturb.
COLONIUS: I greatly grieve to hear it.
MACBUSH: You have our noble Duke of Halliburton's name impugned,
and I will not have it.
COLONIUS: In what manner have I offended him?
HALL.: That you have wronged me doth appear in this:
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes of the Iraqis,
Wherein my letters, praying on his side,
Because I knew the man, were slighted off.
COLONIUS: You wronged yourself to write in such a case.
HALL.: In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offense should bear his comment.
COLONIUS: Let me tell you, Halliburton, you yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold,
To undeservers.
HALL.: I, an itching palm? (Laughs)
The gold of Lucius did not seduce me, although I do admit,
It was a motive, the sooner to effect
What I intended anyway.
MACBUSH: All the number of Halliburton's demands
Shall be accomplisht without contradiction.
With all the gracious utterance thou hast,
Speak to his gentle hearing and beg indulgence of him.
COLONIUS: Let me speak, indeed, for heaven now bids me;
The words I utter, truth:
No man's pie is free from his ambitious finger.
HALL.: Yet I am richer than my accuser!
COLONIUS: What piles of wealth hath he accumulated
To his own portion!
HALL.: Corruption wins more than honesty.
COLONIUS: He hath that business of gleaning
All the land's wealth into his own hands, by extortion.
HALL.: The Lord increase this business!
COLONIUS: With too much riches he doth confound himself:
Corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt as they.
MACBUSH: My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities. Accordingly,
You tread upon my patience.
COLONIUS: The justice and the truth o'the question carries
The verdict with it.
MACBUSH: Do you think the King will suffer even
The little finger of this man to be vext?
COLONIUS: Methinks, some unborn sorrow,
Ripe in fortune's womb, comes towards us.
MACBUSH: Think what you will, we seize into our hands
Their oil, their goods, their money and their lands.
COLONIUS: You do but impeach your own virtue,
To make him worthy whose offense dishonors
His high office. Those who deserve greatness,
Earn your hate, and your affections are ever bent
To him who desires to increase
His coffers with undeserved gain.
MACBUSH: Thou art a traitor: a traitor and a miscreant!
Turn thy hated back upon our kingdom.
Tomorrow, if thy banisht trunk
Be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death!
COLONIUS: If ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life
And I from heaven banisht, as from hence!
I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
Of what hath moved you. You do me wrong:
I have no spleen against you; nor injustice
For you, or any. Yet it will help me nothing,
To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me
Which makes my whitest part black.
I see my glory, like a shooting star,
Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
My sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:
Know you not how your state stands
I'the world, with the whole world?
Your enemies are many, and not small.
You are potently opposed, and with a malice
Of as great a size as this vast orb
You seek to rule o'er! You take a precipice
For a leap of no danger, and woo
Your own destruction. You pluck
A thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts
With one solitary syllable, never thinking on
Tomorrow! I resign to thee my office.
With mine own hands, I do give away my robes,
With mine own tongue, deny my sacred state,
All pomp and majesty I do forswear.
My life thou may command, but not my shame:
The one, my duty owes, but not my name!
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Fare thee well, my lord: I would not be
The villain that thou think'st
For the whole space that's in your tyrant's grasp
And all the rich East to boot!
'Tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant: You are not worth
The dust which the rude wind blows in your face.
Colonius leaves.
COLONIUS: As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
Even so, or with much more contempt,
Men's eyes shall scowl on Macbush's
Debasement and demise.
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