-Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me,
Promis'd no less to them?

Ban.
That, thrusted 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 us

In deepest consequence. [Aside].-Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Macb. Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

[They retire.

Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.-
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.

Ban.

Look, how our partner's rapt. Macb. If Chance will have me King, why, Chance

may crown me,

Without my stir.

Ban.

New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use.

Macb. 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

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,
In the interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

Ban.

Very gladly.

Macb. Till then, enough. [Aside.]-Come, friends. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Duncan.

execution done on Cawdor? Are not

Is frece 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.

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.
O worthiest cousin!

The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,
The swiftest wing of recompense is slow

To overtake thee. 'Would, thou hadst less deserv'd;
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; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing 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 enfold 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.

[TO MACBETH.

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you. 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!

Mach. 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.

[Aside and exit.

Dun. 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. A Room in Macbeth's Castle.
Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a Letter.
Lady Macbeth.

THEY met me in the day of success; and I have learn'd, by the perfect'st report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burnt in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanish'd. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail'd me, Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these weyard 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 might'st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.

6

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis'd.-Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full of 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,

That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false,
And yet would'st wrongly win; thou'dst have, great
Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou’dst 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 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. [Enter an Attendant.]
What is your tidings?

Attend. 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.

Attend. 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 M.

Give him tending

He brings great news. [Exit Attendant.] The raven himself is hoarse,

That croaks the fatal enterance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits of evil
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 with gall, you murd'ring
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 МАСВЕТН.

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!

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