A wounded captain reports Macbeth and Banquo's valor in defeating the rebels. Ross announces that the Norwegian forces have been defeated and the Thane of Cawdor has betrayed Scotland. Duncan orders Cawdor's execution and grants his title to Macbeth.
SCENE III. A heath.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
FIRST WITCH
Where hast thou been, sister?
SECOND WITCH
Killing swine.
THIRD WITCH
Sister, where thou?
FIRST WITCH
A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,And mounch’d, and mounch’d, and mounch’d. “Give me,” quoth I.“ArointBegone; go away. thee, witch!” the rump-fedpampered and well fed, especially on choice pieces of meat.ronyona scabby, mangy woman, used as a term of abuse. 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.
SECOND WITCH
I’ll give thee a wind.
FIRST WITCH
Th’art kind.
THIRD WITCH
And I another.
FIRST WITCH
I myself have all the other,And the very ports they blow,All the quarters that they knowI’ the shipman’s carda mariner's compass card, marked with the directions of the compass..I will drain him dry as hay:Sleep shall neither night nor dayHang upon his pent-house lidan eyelid, imagined as a projecting roof over the eye.;He shall live a man forbid.Weary sev’n-nightsa week; a period of seven nights. nine times nine,Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:Though his bark cannot be lost,Yet it shall be tempest-tost.Look what I have.
SECOND WITCH
Show me, show me.
FIRST WITCH
Here I have a pilot’s thumb,Wrack’d as homeward he did come.
Drum within.
THIRD WITCH
A drum, a drum!Macbeth doth come.
ALL
The Weird Sisters, hand in hand,PostersA swift traveller or courier riding by relays of horses. 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.
MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is’t call’d to ForresForres, a royal residence and town in northern Scotland where Duncan holds court.?—What are these,So wither’d, and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth,And yet are on’t?—Live you? or are you aughtThat man may question? You seem to understand me,By each at once her choppy finger layingUpon her skinny lips. You should be women,And yet your beards forbid me to interpretThat you are so.
MACBETH
Speak, if you can;—what are you?
FIRST WITCH
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of GlamisGlamis, a Scottish thanedom whose title is held by Macbeth at the beginning of the play.!
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 fearThings that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,Are ye fantastical, or that indeedWhich outwardly ye show? My noble partnerYou greet with present grace and great predictionOf 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 fearYour 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 kingStands not within the prospect of belief,No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whenceYou owe this strange intelligence? or whyUpon this blasted heath you stop our wayWith 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?
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 rootThat 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 the selfsame tune and words. Who’s here?
Enter Ross and Angus.
ROSS
The King hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth,The news of thy success, and when he readsThy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,His wonders and his praises do contendWhich 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,Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,Strange images of death. As thick as taleCame post with post; and everyone did bearThy praises in his kingdom’s great defence,And pour’d them down before him.
ANGUS
We are sentTo 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 meIn borrow’d robes?
ANGUS
Who was the Thane lives yet,But under heavy judgement bears that lifeWhich he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’dWith those of Norway, or did line the rebelWith hidden help and vantage, or that with bothHe labour’d in his country’s wrack, I know not;But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d,Have overthrown him.
MACBETH
Glamis, and 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 mePromis’d 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’sIn deepest consequence.—Cousins, a word, I pray you.
MACBETH
Two truths are told,As happy prologues to the swelling actOf the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.—This supernatural solicitingCannot 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 suggestionWhose horrid image doth unfix my hair,And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,Against the use of nature? Present fearsAre less than horrible imaginings.My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of mana person's whole individual being or constitution.That function is smother’d in surmise,And nothing is but what is not.
BANQUO
Look, how our partner’s rapt.
MACBETH
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown meWithout my stir.
BANQUO
New honours come upon him,Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mouldBut with the aid of use.
MACBETH
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 wroughtWith things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your painsAre register’d where every day I turnThe leaf to read them.—Let us toward the King.—Think upon what hath chanc’d; and at more time,The interim having weigh’d it, let us speakOur free hearts each to other.
BANQUO
Very gladly.
MACBETH
Till then, enough.—Come, friends.
Exeunta stage direction indicating that two or more characters leave the stage..