The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  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.

  MACBETH (to the Witches)

  Speak, if you can. What are you?

  FIRST WITCH

  All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.

  SECOND WITCH

  All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.

  THIRD WITCH

  All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

  BANQUO

  Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear

  Things that do sound so fair? (To the Witches) 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

  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

  Your favours nor your hate.

  FIRST WITCH Hail!

  SECOND WITCH Hail!

  THIRD WITCH Hail!

  FIRST WITCH

  Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

  SECOND WITCH

  Not so happy, yet much happier.

  THIRD WITCH

  Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.

  So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

  FIRST WITCH

  Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

  MACBETH

  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.

  The Witches vanish

  BANQUO

  The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

  And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

  MACBETH

  Into the air, and what seemed corporal

  Melted as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed.

  BANQUO

  Were such things here as we do speak about,

  Or have we eaten on the insane root

  That takes the reason prisoner?

  MACBETH

  Your children shall be kings.

  BANQUO

  You shall be king.

  MACBETH

  And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?

  BANQUO

  To th’ self-same tune and words. Who’s here?

  Enter Ross and Angus

  ROSS

  The King hath happily received, Macbeth,

  The news of thy success, and when he reads

  Thy personal venture in the rebels’ sight

  His wonders and his praises do contend

  Which should be thine or his; silenced with that,

  In viewing o‘er the rest o’th’ self-same day

  He finds thee in the stout Norwegian 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 poured them down before him.

  ANGUS (to Macbeth)

  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 judgement bears that life

  Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined

  With those of Norway, or did line the rebel

  With hidden help and vantage, or that with both

  He laboured in his country’s wrack, I know not;

  But treasons capital, confessed, and proved

  Have overthrown him.

  MACBETH (aside)

  Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor.

  The greatest is behind. (To Ross 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

  Promised no less to them?

  BANQUO

  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.

  (To Ross and Angus) Cousins, a word, I pray you.

  MACBETH (aside) Two truths are told

  As happy prologues to the swelling act

  Of the imperial theme. (To Ross and Angus) 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 smothered in surmise, and nothing is

  But what is not.

  BANQUO (to Ross and Angus)

  Look how our partner’s rapt.

  MACBETH(aside)

  If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown

  me

  Without my stir.

  BANQUO (to Ross and Angus)

  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. (To Ross and Angus) Kind

  gentlemen, your pains

  Are registered where every day I turn

  The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.

  (Aside to Banquo) Think upon what hath chanced, and

  at more time,

  The interim having weighed it, let us speak

  Our free hearts each to other.

  BANQUO Very gladly.

  MACBETH

  Till then, enough. (To Ross and Angus) Come, friends.

  Exeunt

  1.4 Flourish. Enter King Duncan, Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain, and attendants

  KING DUNCAN

  Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not

  Those in commission yet returned?

  MALCOLM

  My liege,

  They are not yet come back. But I have spoke

  With one that saw him die, who did report

  That very fr
ankly he confessed 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.

  KING 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

  (To Macbeth) 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 everything

  Safe toward your love and honour.

  KING DUNCAN

  Welcome hither.

  I have begun to plant thee, and will labour

  To make thee full of growing.—NoHe 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.

  KING DUNCAN

  My plenteous joys,

  Wanton in fullness, 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. (To Macbeth) 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.

  KING 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

  KING 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

  1.5 Enter Lady Macbeth, with a letter

  LADY MACBETH (reading) ‘They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st 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‘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,

  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

  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 crowned withal.

  Enter a Servant

  What is your tidings?

  SERVANT

  The King comes here tonight.

  LADY MACBETH

  Thou’t mad to say it.

  Is not thy master with him, who, were’t so,

  Would have informed for preparation?

  SERVANT

  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 Servant

  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 th‘access and passage to remorse,

  That no compunctious visitings of nature

  Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

  Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,

  And take my milk for gall, you murd‘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,

  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 tonight.

  LADY MACBETH

  And when goes hence?

  MACBETH

  Tomorrow, as he purposes.

  LADY MACBETH O never

  Shall sun that morrow see.

  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 the innocent flower,

  But be the serpent under’t. He that’s coming

  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.

  To alter favour ever is to fear.

  Leave all the rest to me. Exeunt

  1.6 ⌈Hautboys and torches.⌉ Enter King Duncan, Mal
colm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and attendants

  KING 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 heavens’ breath

  Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,

  Buttress, nor coign of vantage but this bird

  Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;

  Where they most breed and haunt I have observed

  The air is delicate.

  Enter Lady Macbeth

  KING DUNCAN See, see, our honoured hostess!

  The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,

  Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you

  How you shall bid God ’ield us for your pains,

  And thank us for your trouble.

  LADY MACBETH

  All our service

  In every point twice done, and then done double,

  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 heaped up to them,

  We rest your hermits.

  KING DUNCAN

  Where’s the Thane of Cawdor?

  We coursed 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 tonight.

  LADY MACBETH

  Your servants ever

  Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs in count

  To make their audit at your highness’ pleasure,

  Still to return your own.

  KING DUNCAN

  Give me your hand.

  Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,

  And shall continue our graces towards him.

  By your leave, hostess. Exeunt

  1.7 Hautboys. Torches. Enter a sewer and divers servants with dishes and service over the stage. 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,

  But here upon this bank and shoal of time,

  We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

  We still have judgement here, that we but teach

  Bloody instructions which, being taught, return

  To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice

  Commends th‘ingredience of our poisoned chalice