With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your

pains Are registered 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 weighed it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other. Ban.

. Very gladly. Macb. Till then enough.—Come, friends.

[Exeunt.

Scene IV.–Fores. A Room in the Palace.

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 In borrowed robes ?

Ang. Who was the thane, lives yet; But under heavy judgment bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was Combined with Norway, or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage, or that with both He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not; But treasons capital, confessed and proved, Have overthrown him.

Macb. Glamis, and thane of Cawdor: The greatest is behind.—Thanks for your pains.Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me, Promised no less to them?

Ban. That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 't is strange: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths; Win us with honest trifles, to betrạy us In deepest consequence.Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Macb. Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
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 smothered 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

Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, DONALBAIN,

Lenox, and Attendants. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet returned ?

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 confessed 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 't were 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.–0 worthiest cousin !

Enter Macbeth, Banduo, Rosse, and Angus. 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.

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 deserved, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me infold 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.

Macb. The rest is labour which is not used

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 'dst 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 lither, 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 crowned withal.—What is your

tidings?

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 !
Macb. The Prince of Cumberland! That is

a step On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

[ Aside. 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.

[Erit. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant, And in his commendations I am fed; It is a banquet to me. Let us after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome : It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt.

Enter an Attendant.
Atten. 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 informed, for preparation,
Atten. 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. The raven himself is hoarse

[Exit Attendant. 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, topfull 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, you murdering mi

nisters, Wherever in your sightless substances You waiton 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 !”—Great Glamis ! worthy

Cawdor!

SCENE V.- Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's

Castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter. "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 mightest 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 oʻthe milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;

Enter Macbeth. 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.

Macb. My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night. Lady M.

And when goes hence ?

Macb. To-morrow,-as he purposes.
Lady M.

0, 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 despatch; Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

Macb. We will speak further.

Lady M. Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

[Exeunt.

Lady M.

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.

Dun. 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.-The same. A Room in the Castle.

Scene VI.— The same. Before the Castle.

Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, BANQUO, Lenox, Macduff, Rosse, Angus, f. Attendants.

Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. Ban.

. 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 coigne of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed The air is delicate.

Hautboys and torches. Enter and pass over the

stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH. Macb. If it were done when 't is done, then

't were 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'd jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgment here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our own lips. He's here in double trust : First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed: then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off: And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other-How now, what news?

Enter LADY MACBЕтн. . Dun. See, see! our honoured 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 yield us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.

Lady M. All our service In every point twice done, and then done double, Were poor and single business, to contend Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith Your majesty loads our house. For those of old, And the late dignities heaped up to them, We rest your hermits.

Dun. 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 to-night.

Enter Lady Macbeth. Lady M. He has almost supped: Why have

you left the chamber? Macb. Hath he asked for me? Lady M. Know you not he has ? Macb. We will proceed no further in this

business : He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon.

Lady M.

Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

Macb. Pr'y thee, peace :
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.

Lady M. What beast was it, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man ;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both :
They have made themselves, and that their fit-

ness now Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.

Macb. If we should fail,
Lady M.

We fail !
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail! When Duncan is asleep
(Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassel so convince,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers ? who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell.

Macb. Bring forth men-children only! For thy undaunted metal should compose Nothing but males. Will it not be received, When we have marked with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers, That they have done 't? Lady M.

Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Upon his death?

Macb, I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

[Exeunt.