10
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, ROSSE and ANGUS.
O worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude even now
15
Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,
That 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,
20
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH 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;
25
Which do but what they should, by doing everything
Safe toward your love and honour.
DUNCAN 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
30
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 fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow. – Sons, kinsmen, Thanes,
35
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,
40
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 labour, which is not us’d for you:
I’ll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
45
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!
50
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;
55
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.
1.5 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 burn’d in desire to
question them further, they made themselves air, into
which they vanish’d. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of
5
it, came missives from the King, who all-hail’d me,
‘Thane of Cawdor’; by which title, before, these Weïrd
Sisters saluted me, and referr’d 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
10
thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being
ignorant of what greatness is promis’d thee. Lay it to thy
heart, and farewell.
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. – Yet do I fear thy nature:
15
It is too full o’th’ 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,
20
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 hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
25
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 a Messenger.
What is your tidings?
MESSENGER The King comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH Thou’rt mad to say it.
30
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
35
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,
40
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of Nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
45
Th’effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murth’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,
50
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
55
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.
MACBETH My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH And when goes hence?
MACBETH To-morrow, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH O! never
Shall sun that morrow see!
60
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 th’innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t. He that’s coming
65
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;
70
To alter favour ever is to fear.
Leave all the rest to me. Exeunt.
1.6 Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN,
MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX,
MACDUFF, ROSSE, 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
5
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d
The air is delicate.
Enter LADY MACBETH.
DUNCAN See, see! our honour’d hostess. –
10
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you,
How you shall bid God ‘ild us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH All our service,
In every point twice done, and then done double,
15
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 heap’d up to them,
We rest your hermits.
DUNCAN Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?
20
We cours’d 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.
LADY MACBETH Your servants ever
25
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.
30
By your leave, hostess. Exeunt.
1.7 Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the
stage, a sewer and divers servants with dishes
and service. Then enter MACBETH.
MACBETH
If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: if th’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,
5
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 th’inventor: this even-handed Justice
10
Commends th’ingredience of our poison’d 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 murtherer shut the door,
15
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-tongu’d, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
20
And Pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s Cherubins, hors’d
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
25
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other –
Enter LADY MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp’d. Why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH Hath he ask’d for me?
LADY MACBETH Know you not, he has?
30
MACBETH We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour’d 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 MACBETH Was the hope drunk,
35
Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 339
