A Heath. | |
| |
Thunder. Enter the three Witches. | |
| First Witch. Where hast thou been, sister? | |
| Sec. Witch. Killing swine. | 4 |
| Third Witch. Sister, where thou? | |
| First Witch. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, | |
| And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d: ‘Give me,’ quoth I: | |
| ‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries. | 8 |
| 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. | 12 |
| Sec. Witch. I’ll give thee a wind. | |
| First Witch. Thou’rt kind. | |
| Third Witch. And I another. | |
| First Witch. I myself have all the other; | 16 |
| And the very ports they blow, | |
| All the quarters that they know | |
| I’ the shipman’s card. | |
| I’ll drain him dry as hay: | 20 |
| Sleep shall neither night nor day | |
| Hang upon his pent-house lid; | |
| He shall live a man forbid. | |
| Weary se’nnights nine times nine | 24 |
| Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: | |
| Though his bark cannot be lost, | |
| Yet it shall be tempest-tost. | |
| Look what I have. | 28 |
| Sec. Witch. Show me, show me. | |
| First Witch. Here I have a pilot’s thumb, | |
| Wrack’d as homeward he did come. [Drum within. | |
| Third Witch. A drum! a drum! | 32 |
| Macbeth doth come. | |
| All. The weird sisters, hand in hand, | |
| Posters of the sea and land, | |
| Thus do go about, about: | 36 |
| Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, | |
| And thrice again, to make up nine. | |
| Peace! the charm’s wound up. | |
| |
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. | 40 |
| Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. | |
| Ban. How far is ’t call’d to Forres? What are these, | |
| So wither’d and so wild in their attire, | |
| That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ the earth, | 44 |
| And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught | |
| That man may question? You seem to understand me, | |
| By each at once her choppy finger laying | |
| Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, | 48 |
| And yet your beards forbid me to interpret | |
| That you are so. | |
| Macb. Speak, if you can: what are you? | |
| First Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! | 52 |
| Sec. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! | |
| Third 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, | 56 |
| Are ye fantastical, or that indeed | |
| Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner | |
| You greet with present grace and great prediction | |
| Of noble having and of royal hope, | 60 |
| 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, | |
| Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear | 64 |
| Your favours nor your hate. | |
| First Witch. Hail! | |
| Sec. Witch. Hail! | |
| Third Witch. Hail! | 68 |
| First Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. | |
| Sec. Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier. | |
| Third Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none: | |
| So, all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! | 72 |
| First 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, | 76 |
| 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 | 80 |
| Upon this blasted heath you stop our way | |
| With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you. [Witches vanish. | |
| Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, | |
| And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d? | 84 |
| Macb. Into the air, and what seem’d corporal melted | |
| As breath into the wind. Would they had stay’d! | |
| Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about? | |
| Or have we eaten on the insane root | 88 |
| 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? | 92 |
| Ban. To the self-same tune and words. Who’s here? | |
| |
Enter ROSS and ANGUS. | |
| Ross. The king hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth, | |
| The news of thy success; and when he reads | 96 |
| Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight, | |
| His wonders and his praises do contend | |
| Which should be thine or his. Silenc’d with that, | |
| In viewing o’er the rest o’ the self-same day, | 100 |
| 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 | 104 |
| Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence, | |
| And pour’d them down before him. | |
| Ang. We are sent | |
| To give thee from our royal master thanks; | 108 |
| Only to herald thee into his sight, | |
| Not pay thee. | |
| Ross. And, for an earnest of a greater honour, | |
| He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor: | 112 |
| 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 dress me | 116 |
| In borrow’d robes? | |
| Ang. Who was the thane lives yet; | |
| But under heavy judgment bears that life | |
| Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d | 120 |
| With those of Norway, or did line the rebel | |
| With hidden help or vantage, or that with both | |
| He labour’d in his country’s wrack, I know not; | |
| But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d, | 124 |
| Have overthrown him. | |
| Macb. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor: | |
| The greatest is behind. [To ROSS and ANGUS.] Thanks for your pains. | |
| [To BANQUO.] Do you not hope your children shall be kings, | 128 |
| When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me | |
| Promis’d no less to them? | |
| Ban. That, trusted home, | |
| Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, | 132 |
| Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange: | |
| And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, | |
| The instruments of darkness tell us truths, | |
| Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s | 136 |
| In deepest consequence. | |
| Cousins, a word, I pray you. | |
| Macb. [Aside.] Two truths are told, | |
| As happy prologues to the swelling act | 140 |
| Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen. | |
| [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting | |
| Cannot be ill, cannot be good; if ill, | |
| Why hath it given me earnest of success, | 144 |
| 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, | 148 |
| 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 | 152 |
| Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is | |
| But what is not. | |
| Ban. Look, how our partner’s rapt. | |
| Macb. [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, | 156 |
| Without my stir. | |
| Ban. New honours come upon him, | |
| Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould | |
| But with the aid of use. | 160 |
| Macb. [Aside.] Come what come may, | |
| Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. | |
| Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. | |
| Macb. Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought | 164 |
| With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains | |
| Are register’d where every day I turn | |
| The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king. | |
| Think upon what hath chanc’d; and, at more time, | 168 |
| 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. | 172 |