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
By each at once her choppy finger laying [me,
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? 1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee, thane of Glamis !

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

3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter. [fear Ban. Good sir, why do you start and seem to Things that do sound so fair?-I' the name of Are ye fantastical, or that indeed [truth, Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace, and great predicOf noble having, + and of royal hope, [tion That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not: If you can look into the seeds of time, [not, And say which grain will grow, and which will Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear, Your favours, nor your hate.

1 Witch. Hail! 2 Witch. Hail!

3 Witch. Hail!

1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier. 3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be So, all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! [none:

1 Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail! Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me

more:

By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king,
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?-Speak, I charge
[Witches vanish.
Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them:-Whither are they
vanish'd?
[melted
Macb. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal,
As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid!
Ban. Were such things here as we do speak
Or have we eaten of the insane root, [about ?
That takes the reason prisoner?

you.

Macb. Your children shall be kings.

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

Enter Rosse and ANGUS.
Rosse. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend, [that,
Which should be thine or his: Silenced with
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 tale,?
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And pour'd them down before him.
Ang.

Supernatural, spiritual.

+ Abstracted.

i As fast as they could be counted.

We are sent

+ Estate.

To give thee, from our royal master, thanks ;
To herald thee into his sight, not pay thee.
Rosse. And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
For it is thine.
Ban.

What, can the devil speak true?
Macb. The thane of Cawdor lives; Why do you
In borrow'd robes.
[dress me
Ang.
Who was the thane, lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was
Combin'd with Norway; or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage; or that with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess'd, and prov'd,
Have overthrown him.
Macb.

Ban.

Macb.

Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act [men.-
Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentle-
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 smother'd in surmise; and nothing is,
But what is not.
Look, how our partner's rapt.
Macb. If chance will have me king, why, chance
Without my stir.
[may crown me,
Ban. New bonours come upon him [mould,
Like our strange garments; cleave not to their
But with the aid of use.
Macb.
Come what come may; [day.
Time and the hour ** runs through the roughest
Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your
leisure.
[was wrought

Ban.

Macb. Give me your favour:++-my dull brain With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your Are register'd where every day I turn [pains The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.

Ban.

Very gladly. Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd?

Mal. My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that saw him die: who did report, That very frankly he confess'd his treasons; Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth A deep repentance: nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,* As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.

There's no art
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 [serv'd;
To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less de-
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; [thing Which do but what they should, by doing every Safe toward your love and honour. Dun.

Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo, That hast no less deserv'd, 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.

[you:
Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for
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! [step, Mach. The prince of Cumberland!-That is a 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 And in his commendations I am fed; [valiant;+ 't 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. Lady M. "They met me in the day of success;

Owned, possessed.

+ Full as valiant as described. + Messengers.

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 allhailed 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 promis'd:-Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way: Thou would'st be great,

Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it. What thou would'st
highly,
[false,
That would'st thou holily; would'st not play
And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'dst have,
great Glamis,
[have it;
That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou
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 crown'd 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 inform'd for preparation. [coming:
Atten. So please you, it is true; our thane is
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.
Give him tending,
He brings great news. The raven himself is
hoarse,
[Exit Atten.
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits
That tend on mortal ¶ thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
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 murd'ring minis-
ters,

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!

Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Thy letters have transported me beyond

|| Supernatural.

Deadly, murderous.

? Diadem.

• Pity.

++ Wrap as in a mantle.

Dun.
See, see! our honour'd hostess!
The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach
you,

How you shall bid God yield us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.
Lady M.

All our service
In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business, to contend
Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: For those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
We rest your hermits.
Dun.
Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well;

And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp

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 MACBETH.

Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere 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 jus-
tice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd 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, hors'd
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'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other.-How now, what news?
Enter LADY MACBETH.

Lady M. He has almost supp'd; Why have you left the chamber?

[ness:

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. Know you not, he has? Macb. We will proceed no further in this busiHe hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon. Lady M. Was the hope drunk Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time, Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem; Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage? Macb.

Pr'ythee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
Lady M.

What beast was it, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place, Did then adhere, ** and yet you would make both: They have made themselves, and that their fit

ness now

Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,

An officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table.

Winds; sightless is invisible.

** In the same sense as cohere.