All. Paddock calls :-Anon.—

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[WITCHES vanish.

SCENE II-A camp near Fores.

Alarum within. Enter KING DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding SOLDIER.

Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report,

As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

Mal. This is the sergeant,

Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity:-Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil,
As thou didst leave it.

Sold. Doubtfully it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel; for, to that,

The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him) from the western isles
Of Kernes and Gallowglassest is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore: But all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion,

Carved out his passage, till he faced the slave;
And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection,
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark :
No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd,

Compell'd these skipping Kernes to trust their heels;
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,

With furbish'd arms, and new supplies of men,

Began a fresh assault.

Dun Dismay'd not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

Sold. Yes;

As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks;
So they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foc:

* A toad.

† Light and heavy armed troops.

Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize* another Golgotha,

I cannot tell :

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

Dun. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds ; They smack of honour both :-Go, get him surgeons.

[Exit SOLDIER, attended.

Who comes here?

Enter ROSSE.

Mal. The worthy thane of Rosse.

Len. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look,

That seems to speak things strange.

Rosse. God save the king!

Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?

Rosse. From Fife, great king,

Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,

And fan our people cold.

Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor

The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict:
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,†
Confronted him with self-comparisons,

Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: And, to conclude,
The victory fell on us;-

Dun. Great happiness!

Rosse. That now

Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;

Nor would we deign him burial of his men,

Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes' inch,

Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest:-Go, pronounce his death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Rosse. I'll see it done.

Dun. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III-A Heath. 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
Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon§ cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the 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.

me,

quoth I:

+ Avaunt.

2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind.

1 Witch. Thou art kind.

3 Witch. And I another.

1 Witch. I myself have all the other;
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.*

I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall, neither night nor day,
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
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-toss'd.
Look what I have.

2 Witch. Show me, show me.

1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd, as homeward he did come.

3 Witch. A drum, a drum;

Macbeth doth come.

All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about;

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again, to make up nine:
Peace!-the charm's wound up.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.

[Drum within.

Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores?-What are these,

So wither'd, and so wild in their attire;

That look not like the inhabitants o' the 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,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

Macb. 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.
Ban. Good Sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?-I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical‡ or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace, and great prediction
Of noble having,§ and of royal hope,

*Sailor's chart.

Creatures of the imagination.

+ Accursed.

§ Estate.

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,
Your favours, nor your hate.

1 Witch. Hail! 2 Witch. Hail!

3 Witch. Hail!

1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 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!

Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
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
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.

Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them :-Whither are they vanish'd?
Macb. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted
As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid!

Ban. Were such things here, as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten of the insane root,*

That takes the reason prisoner?

Macb. Your children shall be kings.

Ban. You shall be king.

Macb. And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?

Ban. To the self-same tune, and words. Who's here?

Enter ROSSE and ANGUS.

Rosse. The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend,

Which should be thine, or his: Silenced with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
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.

Ang. We are sent,

To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
To herald thee into his sight, not pay thee.

* Henbane.

Rosse. 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.

Ban. What, can the devil speak true?

Macb. The thane of Cawdor lives; Why do you dress me In borrow'd 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 labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess'd, and proved,
Have overthrown him.

Macb. Glamis, the 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,t

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 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 smother'd 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.

* Title.

T Completely.
Firmly fixed.

+ Temptation.

I Weak.