Macbeth

What bloody man is that? He can report, as seemeth by his plight, of the revolt, the newest state.

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.

Doubtful it stood.

as two spent swimmers, that do cling together and choke their art.

The merciless Macdonald, from the Western Isles, is supplied

and fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling showed like a rebel's whore.

But all's too weak

for brave Macbeth. Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,

which smoked with bloody execution carved out his passage till he faced the slave which ne'er shook hands,

nor bade farewell to him, till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps and fixed his

head upon our battlements.

Oh, valiant cousin!

worthy gentleman!

Mark, king of Scotland, Mark, no sooner justice had with valour armed, but the Norweyan lord

surveying vantage with furbished arms and new supplies of men began a fresh assault.

Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

Yes as sparrows, eagles, or the hare, the lion.

If I say sooth, I must report they were as cannons overcharged with

double cracks, whether they meant to bathe in reeking wounds

or memorise another Golgotha, I cannot tell.

But I

am faint, my gashes cry for help.

So well thy words become thee as thy wounds.

They smack of honour both.

Go get him surgeons.

When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning or in rain?

When the hurly-burly is done.

When the battle is lost and won.

That will be the set of sun.

Where the place? Upon the Heath.

There to meet with... ALL: Macbeth.

SQUELCHING

Fair is foul.

And foul is fair.

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Fair is foul and foul is fair, hover through the fog

and the filthy air.

Who comes here? The worthy thane of Ross.

What a haste looks through his eyes! God save the king! Whence camest thou, worthy thane?

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, began a dismal conflict till that the dauntless Macbeth

confronted him with self-comparisons, point against point, rebellious arm against arm. And to conclude...

..the victory fell on us.

YES! YES!

Great happiness!

No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive our bosom interest.

Go pronounce his present death

and with his former title greet Macbeth. I'll see it done.

What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

I'd rather, I'd rather Macbeth just come.

The weird sisters, hand in hand, posters over 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.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

What are these

that look not like the inhabitants of the earth and yet are on it?

Live you?

Or are you aught that man may question?

You seem to understand me,

by each at once her chappy finger laying upon her skinny lips.

You should be women

and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.

Speak, if you can, what are you?

All hail, Macbeth!

Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

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

All hail, Macbeth,

thou shalt be king hereafter!

Good sir, why do you start

and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?

In 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, that he seems rapt with all.

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.

Hail! Hail! Hail!

Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Not so happy,

yet much happier.

Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none,

so all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

Banquo and Macbeth,

all hail.

Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.

By my father'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 you stop our way with such prophetic greeting?

Speak, I charge you.

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them.

Whither are they vanished?

Into the air

And what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind.

Would they had stayed!

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?

Your children shall be kings.

You shall be king. And thane of Cawdor too, went it not so?

To the selfsame tune and words.

Who's here?

The king hath happily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success,

We are sent to give thee from our royal master thanks, only to herald thee into his sight, not pay thee.

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.

What, can the devil speak true?

The Thane of Cawdor lives.

Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

Who was the thane lives yet,

but under heavy judgment bears that life which he deserves to lose.

Treasons capital, confessed and proved, have overthrown him.

Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!

The greatest is behind.

Do you not hope your children shall be kings, when those that gave the

Thane of Cawdor to me promised no less to them?

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 us in deepest consequence.

Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Two truths are told, as happy prologues to the swelling act

of the imperial theme....

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 makes

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.

If chance will have me king, why,

chance may crown me, without my stir.

Come what come may,

time and the hour run through the roughest day.

Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

I ask your favour.

My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.

Let us toward the king.

Think upon what hath chanced, and, in good time, the interim having

weighed it, let us speak our free hearts each to other. Very gladly.

Till then, enough. Come, friends.

GUNSHOT

Is execution done on Cawdor?

Are not those in commission yet returned?

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 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.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.

O worthiest cousin!

The sin of my ingratitude even now was heavy on me.

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.

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.

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.

There if I grow, the harvest is your own.

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 Glamis, and bind us further to you.

I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyful the hearing of my wife with your approach.

Humbly take my leave. My worthy Cawdor!

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