DAVINA: Welcome back, sir. As I'm sure our audience remembers, you and your wife have decided to kill King Duncan tonight. It's already very late in the evening. The party is over. And you're walking through your castle with a servant when you run into Banquo and his son Fleance. And I must say, he seems a little on edge. He grabs his sword and asks who's there. 

MACBETH: Well, you can tell him it's a friend. 

DAVINA: Yes, well, he wonders why you're not in bed yet, and reports that the King has gone to bed. He also comments on how happy the King seems, and how many gifts the King has sent your way. 

MACBETH: Well, we weren't exactly prepared to host this kind of party, so our will became the servant to defect. 

DAVINA: So you mean you wanted to throw a great party, but since you didn't have a lot on hand, your will was just a servant to a mediocre party. 

MACBETH: We would gladly have thrown a great party, had we been better prepared. 

DAVINA: Well, Banquo thinks it was fine as it was. Then he says he had a dream about the weird sisters. And points out that they've showed some truth to you. That you have become the Thane of Cawdor, he means. 

MACBETH: Tell him I don't think about them. 

DAVINA: You don't? 

MACBETH: But that we should talk about that whole business at some point, if he's willing. 

DAVINA: Uh, whenever you want, he says. 

MACBETH: Actually I should also tell him that if he would—let's see, how to say this? If he would cleave to my consent. 

DAVINA: Cleave to your consent? 

MACBETH: You know, follow my lead. Stick with me. When the time comes, he will get honor from it. 

DAVINA: When what time comes? Oh. That time. You mean once the King is dead. Is he going to know what you're talking about? 

MACBETH: What does he say? 

DAVINA: Oh, let's see. So I lose none in seeking to augment it. So I lose none? 

MACBETH: Honor. He's saying as long as he doesn't lose honor in trying to get more honor. 

DAVINA: Oh. Well, let's see. But still keep my bosom franchised. 

MACBETH: You know, keep a clear conscience. 

DAVINA: Sounds like he's struggling with some of the same issues you were. Wanting certain things. Maybe not wanting to do bad things in the process? 

MACBETH: Then what does he say? 

DAVINA: But still keep my bosom franchised and allegiance clear. I shall be counseled. So it sounds like he's saying he'll cleave to your consent. As you put it. As long as he can keep a clear conscience, and not lose honor for other reasons in the process. It's all very abstract language. Are you two actually communicating with these vague statements? Maybe you should just tell him what you're thinking of doing? Or maybe get his advice? 

MACBETH: Tell him he should get some rest. 

DAVINA: Ok. Your call. Let's see. He suggests you get some rest too, which is not a bad idea, if you ask me. A good night's sleep might put things in a fresh light. 

MACBETH: And tell my servant to go ask my lady to ring the bell when the drink is ready. 

DAVINA: Your drink? 

MACBETH: Yeah. You know it's customary to have a drink before you go to bed? 

DAVINA: Oh, your drink. So that bell will be some kind of signal or something. I can't believe you two are going through with this. What about that night of sleep, first? Sleep on it. That's a saying we have. I know your wife thinks you should seize the opportunity, but there's nothing like a good night's sleep before a big decision. Is something wrong? 

MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me? 

DAVINA: Sorry, a dagger? 

MACBETH: The handle toward my hand? 

DAVINA: I don't see anything. See this is the kind of thing that happens when you don't get enough sleep. 

MACBETH: Come. Let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not fatal vision sensible to feeling as to sight? 

DAVINA: See, that kind of thing is just a bad sign. If you're seeing things that aren't there. If your eyes and your touch can't agree about reality, you should stop in your tracks and get things sorted out. 

MACBETH: Or art thou but a dagger of the mind? A false creation proceeding from the heat oppressed brain. 

DAVINA: Now you're getting it. A dagger of the mind. Exactly. If you don't mind me saying, maybe this whole thing, this plan that you and your wife have, is a dagger of the mind, too. If you know what I mean. A false creation. A couple of stressed out brains. 

MACBETH: I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw. 

DAVINA: Oh, no. No weapons in the studio. Can we get somebody to take this? This kind of thing almost never turns out well. 

MACBETH: Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going. 

DAVINA: Thou? You mean the dagger? So you mean the dagger is pointing you in the direction of the King? 

MACBETH: Such an instrument I was to use. 

DAVINA: Sure. You plan to kill the King with a dagger. But what does that really prove? If it's a dagger in your mind, you're making it up anyway, right? 

MACBETH: Mine eyes are made the fool of the other senses. 

DAVINA: Exactly. Don't trust your eyes. Remember how your hand went right through it? Trust your hands. 

MACBETH: Or else worth all the rest. 

DAVINA; Wait, what? You mean, or else your eyes are the things to be trusted more than anything else? Why would you think that? 

MACBETH: I see thee still. And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood. 

DAVINA: And now there's blood all over an imaginary dagger. 

MACBETH: Which was not so before. 

DAVINA: Right. So the imagination stuff is just getting worse. 

MACBETH: There's no such thing. 

DAVINA: Oh, good, you're starting to understand. There's no such thing. 

MACBETH: It is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes. 

DAVINA: Wait, what? The bloody business which informs? You mean gives it shape? If I understand you right, it sounds like you're saying that the killing of the King, the bloody business, is somehow a future reality which is making you see an imaginary bloody dagger in the present. That's a little convoluted, don't you think? What happened to the dagger in the mind? I mean, remember when you first started to imagine killing the King? When you were first talking to the weird sisters? Remember? You had that line. Shoot, what was it? Nothing is but what is not. I thought you were saying it was all imagination. Now you seem to think that stuff out in the future which only exists in thought, because it isn't real yet, is somehow a reality pulling you forward. But what if it's just imagination? And it's up to you if it becomes reality? 

MACBETH: No. Or the one half world nature seems dead. 

DAVINA: Sorry, nature seems dead? Oh, you mean it's night for half of the world. And nature seems dead, because everyone is asleep. 

MACBETH: And wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep. 

DAVINA: Curtained sleep? Oh, you mean our eyelids. Which are like curtains when we sleep. But yes, wicked dreams. They're just wicked dreams. 

MACBETH: Witchcraft celebrates pale Hecate's offerings and withered murder. Alarmed by his sentinel the wolf who's howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin's ravishing strides towards his design moves like a ghost. 

DAVINA: I am not sure I followed all that. But it sounds like you're taking this witchcraft business way too seriously. Oh, dear. Are you not in control of your own mind? And is that your fault, or are you just being overpowered? 

MACBETH: Thou sure and firm set earth, hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabout, and take the present horror from the time which now suits with it. 

DAVINA: Let me get this straight. You want the sure and firm set earth, your words, to not notice your steps for fear of taking the present horror from the time? Sounds like you're back to being certain about this despite all the signs pointing against it. 

MACBETH: Whiles I threat, he lives. 

DAVINA: Too much talking, huh? 

MACBETH: Words to the heat of deeds to cold breath gives. 

DAVINA: Wait, what the—who did that? That's the signal. 

MACBETH: I go. And it is done. The bell invites me. 

DAVINA: Did somebody on our crew do that? 

MACBETH: Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell. 

DAVINA: I guess it was fated to happen. Right?