The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

ROSS. And for an earnest of a greater honor, He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor.

In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane, For it is thine.

BANQUO. What, can the devil speak true?

MACBETH. The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me In borrow’d robes?

ANGUS. Who was the Thane lives yet,

But under heavy judgement bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined With those of Norway, or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage, or that with both He labor’d in his country’s wreck, I know not; But treasons capital, confess’d and proved, Have overthrown him.

MACBETH. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!

The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus] Thanks for your pains.

[Aside to Banquo] Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them?

BANQUO. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, 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 In deepest consequence-Cousins, a word, I pray you.

MACBETH. [Aside.] Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act 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, 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 murther 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.

BANQUO. Look, how our partner’s rapt.

MACBETH. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me

Without my stir.

BANQUO. New honors come upon him,

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use.

MACBETH. [Aside.] Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

BANQUO. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

MACBETH. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought 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 chanced, and at more time, The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.

BANQUO. Very gladly.

MACBETH. Till then, enough. Come, friends. Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Forres. The palace.

Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.

DUNCAN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return’d?

MALCOLM. 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, Implored 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 owed As ‘twere a careless trifle.

DUNCAN. There’s no art

To find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

O worthiest cousin!

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.

MACBETH. The service and the loyalty lowe, 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 honor.

DUNCAN. Welcome hither.

I have begun to plant thee, and will labor 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.

BANQUO. There if I grow,

The harvest is your own.

DUNCAN. My plenteous joys,

Wanton in fullness, 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 honor 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.

MACBETH. The rest is labor, 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.

DUNCAN. My worthy Cawdor!

MACBETH. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, 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.

DUNCAN. True, worthy Banquo! He is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed;

It is a banquet to me. Let’s after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

It is a peerless kinsman. Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Inverness. Macbeth’s castle.

Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.

LADY MACBETH. “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 mightst 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’ldst 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 valor of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown’d withal.

Enter a Messenger.

What is your tidings?

MESSENGER. The King comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETH. Thou’rt mad to say it!

Is not thy master with him? who, were’t so, Would have inform’d for preparation.

MESSENGER. So please you, it is true; our Thane is coming.

One of my fellows had the speed of him, Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message.

LADY MACBETH. Give him tending;

He brings great news. Exit Messenger.

The raven himself is hoarse

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 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, your murthering ministers, 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!”

Enter Macbeth.

Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!

Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.

MACBETH. My dearest love,

Duncan comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?

MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.

LADY MACBETH. O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. He that’s coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night’s great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETH. We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH. Only look up clear;

To alter favor ever is to fear.

Leave all the rest to me. Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Before Macbeth’s castle. Hautboys and torches.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and Attendants.

DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

BANQUO. This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle; Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed The air is delicate.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

DUNCAN. See, see, our honor’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 ‘ield us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.

LADY MACBETH. All our service

In every point twice done, and then done double, Were poor and single business to contend Against those honors 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.

DUNCAN. Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?

We coursed 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 him To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest tonight.

LADY MACBETH. Your servants ever

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, To make their audit at your Highness’ pleasure, Still to return your own.

DUNCAN. Give me your hand;

Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly, And shall continue our graces towards him.

By your leave, hostess. Exeunt.

SCENE VII

Macbeth’s castle. Hautboys and torches.

Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass over the stage. Then enter Macbeth.

MACBETH. 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’ld jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return