The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 338
As cannons overcharg’d with double cracks;
So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
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Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell –
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN
So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds:
They smack of honour both. – Go, get him surgeons.
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Exit Captain, attended.
Enter ROSSE and ANGUS.
Who comes here?
MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Rosse.
LENOX
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.
ROSSE God save the King!
DUNCAN Whence cam’st thou, worthy Thane?
ROSSE From Fife, great King,
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,
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And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor,
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof,
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Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point, rebellious arm ‘gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us; –
DUNCAN Great happiness!
ROSSE That now
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Sweno, the Norways’ King, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colme’s Inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
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Our bosom interest. – Go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSSE I’ll see it done.
DUNCAN What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
Exeunt.
1.3 Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
1 WITCH Where hast thou been, Sister?
2 WITCH Killing swine.
3 WITCH Sister, where thou?
1 WITCH A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And mounch’d, and mounch’d, and mounch’d: ‘Give
me,’ quoth I: –
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‘Aroynt thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ 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.
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2 WITCH I’ll give thee a wind.
1 WITCH Th’art kind.
3 WITCH And I another.
1 WITCH I myself have all the other;
And the very ports they blow,
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All the quarters that they know
I’th’ shipman’s card.
I’ll drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
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He shall live a man forbid.
Weary sev’n-nights nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
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Look what I have.
2 WITCH Show me, show me.
1 WITCH Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
Wrack’d, as homeward he did come.
[Drum within.]
3 WITCH A drum! a drum!
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Macbeth doth come.
ALL The Weïrd Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
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And thrice again, to make up nine
Peace! – the charm’s wound up.
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.
MACBETH So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is’t call’d to Forres? – What are these,
So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
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That look not like th’inhabitants o’th’earth,
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,
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And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH Speak, if you can: – what are you?
1 WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
2 WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
3 WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter.
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BANQUO Good Sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? – I’th’ name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace, and great prediction
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Of noble having, and of royal hope,
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,
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Your favours nor your hate.
1 WITCH Hail!
2 WITCH Hail!
3 WITCH Hail!
1 WITCH Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
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2 WITCH Not so happy, yet much happier.
3 WITCH Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
1 WITCH Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
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By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
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You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? – Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish.
BANQUO The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. – Whither are they vanish’d?
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MACBETH Into the air; and what seem’d corporal,
Melted as breath into the wind. Would they had stay’d!
BANQUO Were such things here, as we do speak about,
Or have we eaten on the insane root,
That takes the reason prisoner?
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MACBETH Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO You shall be King.
MACBETH And Thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?
BANQUO To th’ selfsame tune, and words. Who’s here?
Enter ROSSE and ANGUS.
ROSSE The King hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth,
The news of thy success; and when he reads
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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’th’ selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
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Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail,
Came
post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence,
And pour’d them down before him.
ANGUS We are sent,
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To give thee from our royal master thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
ROSSE And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
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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 Thane, lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
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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 wrack, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d,
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Have overthrown him.
MACBETH [aside] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behind.
[to Rosse and Angus] Thanks for your pains. –
[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 That, trusted home,
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Mighty 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
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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
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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,
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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,
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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,
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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
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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. –
[to Banquo] Think upon what hath chanc’d; and at more time,
The Interim having weigh’d it, let us speak
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Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO Very gladly.
MACBETH Till then, enough. – Come, friends. Exeunt.
1.4 Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX and attendants.
DUNCAN Is execution done on Cawdor? Or 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,
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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,