As two spent swimmers, that do cling together,
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald
(Worthy to be a rebel; for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the western isles
Of kernes and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damnéd quarrel smiling,
Shewed like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion, carved out his passage,
Till he faced the slave;

And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break; So from that spring, whence comfort seemed to

And mounched, and mounched, and mounched:"Give me," quoth I:

"Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'the

Tiger:

But in a sieve I'll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail,

I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

2nd Witch. I'll give thee a wind.

1st Witch. Thou art kind.

3rd Witch. And I another

1st Witch. I myself have all the other;
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.

I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall, neither night nor day,
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
He shall live a man forbid :
Weary seven nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.
Look what I have.

2nd Witch. Shew me, shew me.

1st Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wrecked as homeward he did come.

All. 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.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.

Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Ban. How far is 't called to Fores?-What are these,

So withered, and so wild in their attire;

That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on 't?-Live you? or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand

me,

By ea h at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

Macb. Speak if you can: What are you? 1st Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis !

2nd Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

3rd Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.

Ban. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to

fear

Things that do sound so fair?-I' the name of truth,

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye shew? My noble partner
Ye greet with present grace, and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not:
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,

As breath into the wind. 'Would they had stayed. Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten of the insane root,
That takes the reason prisoner?

Macb. Your children shall be kings.
Ban. You shall be king.

Macb. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not so? Ban. To the self-same tune, and words. Who's here?

Enter Rosse and ANGUS.

Rosse. The King hath happily received, Mac

beth,

The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend,
Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail,
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And poured them down before him.

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.-
This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smothered in surmise; and nothing is,
But what is not.

To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin!

Enter MACBETH, Banquo, Rosse, and Angus.
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part Is to receive our duties: and our duties Are, to your throne and state, children and servants;

Which do but what they should, by doing everything

Safe toward your love and honour.

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me infold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.
Ban.
There if I grow,
The harvest is your own.

Dun. My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The Prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.

Macb. The rest is labour which is not used for you:

I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach; So, humbly take my leave.

Dun.

My worthy Cawdor!

Macb. The Prince of Cumberland! That is

a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

[Aside.

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

[Exit. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed; It is a banquet to me. Let us after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome : It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V.-Inverness. A Room in MACBETH'S Castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter. "They met me in the day of success; and I have learned, by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves-air, into which they vanished, Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who all-hailed me Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, 'Hail, king that shalt be!'-This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell."

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it;

And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.-What is your
tidings?

Enter an Attendant.

Atten. The King comes here to-night.
Lady M.
Thou'rt mad to say it:

Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so,
Would have informed, for preparation,

Atten. So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:

Give him tending;

One of my fellows had the speed of him;
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
Lady M.
He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse
[Exit Attendant.
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, topfull
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering mi-
nisters,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell! That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, "Hold, hold!"-Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor!

SCENE VII.-The same. A Room in the Castle.
Hautboys and torches. Enter and pass over the
stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes
and service. Then enter МАСВЕТН.
Macb. If it were done when 't is done, then
't were well

It were done quickly. If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other-How now, what news?