Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
First Witch
1 Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch
2 Killing swine.
Third Witch
3 Sister, where thou?
First Witch
4 A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
5 And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd. "Give me!" quoth I:
6 "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
7 Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
8 But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
9 And, like a rat without a tail,
10 I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
Second Witch
11 I'll give thee a wind.
First Witch
12 Thou'rt kind.
Third Witch
13 And I another.
First Witch
14 I myself have all the other,
15 And the very ports they blow,
16 All the quarters that they know
17 I' the shipman's card.
18 I will drain him dry as hay:
19 Sleep shall neither night nor day
20 Hang upon his penthouse lid;
21 He shall live a man forbid:
22 Weary se'nnights nine times nine
23 Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
24 Though his bark cannot be lost,
25 Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.
26 Look what I have.
Second Witch
27 Show me, show me.
First Witch
28 Here I have a pilot's thumb,
29 Wreck'd as homeward he did come.
Drum within.
Third Witch
30 A drum, a drum!
31 Macbeth doth come.
ALL
32 The weird sisters, hand in hand,
33 Posters of the sea and land,
34 Thus do go about, about:
35 Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
36 And thrice again, to make up nine.
37 Peace! the charm's wound up.
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.
MACBETH
38 So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
39 How far is't call'd to Forres? — What are these
40 So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
41 That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
42 And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
43 That man may question? You seem to understand me,
44 By each at once her choppy finger laying
45 Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
46 And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
47 That you are so.
MACBETH
Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch
48 All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
49 All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
50 All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
51 Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
52 Things that do sound so fair? — I' the name of truth,
53 Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
54 Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
55 You greet with present grace and great prediction
56 Of noble having and of royal hope,
57 That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not.
58 If you can look into the seeds of time,
59 And say which grain will grow and which will not,
60 Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
61 Your favours nor your hate.
First Witch
62 Hail!
Second Witch
63 Hail!
Third Witch
64 Hail!
First Witch
65 Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Second Witch
66 Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third Witch
67 Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
68 So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First Witch
69 Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH
70 Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
71 By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
72 But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
73 A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
74 Stands not within the prospect of belief,
75 No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
76 You owe this strange intelligence, or why
77 Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
78 With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish.
BANQUO
79 The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
80 And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
MACBETH
81 Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
82 As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
BANQUO
83 Were such things here as we do speak about?
84 Or have we eaten on the insane root
85 That takes the reason prisoner?
MACBETH
86 Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO
You shall be king.
MACBETH
87 And Thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
BANQUO
88 To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?
Enter ROSS and ANGUS.
ROSS
89 The King hath happily received, Macbeth,
90 The news of thy success; and when he reads
91 Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
92 His wonders and his praises do contend
93 Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,
94 In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
95 He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
96 Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
97 Strange images of death. As thick as tale
98 Came post with post; and every one did bear
99 Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,
100 And pour'd them down before him.
ANGUS
We are sent
101 To give thee from our royal master thanks;
102 Only to herald thee into his sight,
103 Not pay thee.
ROSS
104 And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
105 He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
106 In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
107 For it is thine.
BANQUO
What, can the devil speak true?
MACBETH
108 The Thane of Cawdor lives; why do you dress me
109 In borrow'd robes?
ANGUS
Who was the thane lives yet;
110 But under heavy judgment bears that life
111 Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
112 With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
113 With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
114 He labor'd in his country's wrack, I know not;
115 But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
116 Have overthrown him.
MACBETH [Aside.]
Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
117 The greatest is behind.
[To ROSS and ANGUS.]
Thanks for your pains.
[Aside to BANQUO.]
118 Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
119 When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
120 Promised no less to them?
BANQUO [Aside.]
That trusted home
121 Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
122 Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange;
123 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
124 The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
125 Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
126 In deepest consequence.—
[To ROSS and ANGUS.]
127 Cousins, a word, I pray you.
MACBETH [Aside.]
Two truths are told,
128 As happy prologues to the swelling act
129 Of the imperial theme.—
I thank you, gentlemen.
[Aside.]
130 This supernatural soliciting
131 Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
132 Why hath it given me earnest of success,
133 Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
134 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
135 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
136 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
137 Against the use of nature? Present fears
138 Are less than horrible imaginings:
139 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
140 Shakes so my single state of man that function
141 Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
142 But what is not.
BANQUO
Look, how our partner's rapt.
MACBETH [Aside.]
143 If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
144 Without my stir.
BANQUO
New honors come upon him,
145 Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
146 But with the aid of use.
MACBETH [Aside.]
Come what come may,
147 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
BANQUO
148 Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH
149 Give me your favor: my dull brain was wrought
150 With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
151 Are register'd where every day I turn
152 The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
[Aside to Banquo.]
153 Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
154 The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
155 Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO
Very gladly.
MACBETH
156 Till then, enough.— Come, friends.
Exeunt.
|