The Tragedy Of Macbeth

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