MACBETH

Angus: We are sent
To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
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;
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 borrowed robes?
Angus: Who was the Thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labour’d in his country’s wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d,
Have overthrown him.
Macbeth: [Aside] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind. – 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
Promis’d 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 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.
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 honours 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 favour. My dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are regist’red where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
[Aside to Banquo] Think upon what hath chanc’d; and, at more time,
The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.
Banquo: [Aside to Macbeth] Very gladly.
Macbeth: [Aside to Banquo] Till then, enough. – Come, friends

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