Macbeth

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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 chanced, and, at more time,
The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

Banquo Very gladly. Macbeth Till then, enough. Come, friends. Exeunt.

Scene IV

Forres. The palace.

	Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.
Duncan	Is execution done on Cawdor? Are 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, 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 ’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, Ross, and Angus.
	O worthiest cousin! 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.
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, Which do but what they should, by doing every thing 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 deserved, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me enfold 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, 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.
Macbeth	The rest is labour, which is not used for you: I’ll be myself the harbinger and make joyful 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; 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; 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. Macbeth’s castle.

	Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.
Lady Macbeth	“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 mightst 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 o’ the 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, And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou’ldst 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; 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: 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 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, 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 for gall, you murdering 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 Macbeth.
	Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor! 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.
Macbeth	My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night.