The Tragedy of Macbeth

When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

When the hurly-burly's done.

When the battle's lost and won.

Where the place?

Upon the heath.

There to meet with Macbeth.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Hail, brave friend.

Say to the king the knowledge of the broil as though didst leave it.

Doubtful it stood.

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

The merciless Macdonwald,

with fortune on his damned quarrel smiling,

showed like a rebel's whore.

But all's too weak.

For brave Macbeth-- well he deserves that name--

discerning fortune, with his brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution,

like valor's minion 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 chops

and fixed his head upon our battlements.

Valiant cousin. Worthy gentleman.

No sooner justice had with valor armed

compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels…

but the Norwegian 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.

So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.

I cannot tell.

My gashes cry for help.

God save the king.

Whence cam'st thou, worthy Thane?

From Fife, great King,

where the Norwegian 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 Macbeth and Banquo, lapped in proof,

confronted him with self-comparisons.

Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, curbing his lavish spirit.

And, to conclude…

the victory fell to us.

Great happiness.

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

-No. -Go pronounce his present death.

I'll see it done.

And with his former title…

greet Macbeth.

Where hast thou been, sister?

Killing swine.

Sister, where thou?

Look what I have.

Show me. Show me!

Here I have a sailor's thumb, wrecked as homeward he did come.

A drum. A drum!

Macbeth doth come.

Aye.

In a sieve I'll thither sail.

And, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do and I'll do.

I'll drain him dry as hay.

Sleep shall neither night nor day…

hang upon his penthouse lid.

He shall live a man forbid.

Weary sennights nine times nine

shall he dwindle, peak and pine.

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.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

How far is it to Forres?

What are these? So withered and so wild in their attire,

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

Live you? Or are you aught that man may question?

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.

That shalt be king hereafter.

Are ye fantastical? Or that indeed which outwardly ye show?

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 favor nor your hate.

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.

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.

Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence?

Or why upon this blasted heath you stop our way with such prophetic greeting?

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has.

And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

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 goes there?

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.

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 honor,

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.

Whether he was combined with those of Norway,

or did line the rebel with hidden help and vantage,

or that with both he labored in his country's wrack, I know not.

But treasons capital, confessed and proved…

have overthrown him.

Thanks for your pains.

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.

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.

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.

Come what come may.

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

"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 of 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.

Hie thee hither,

that I may pour my spirits in thine ear.

And chastise with the valor of my tongue

all that impedes thee from the golden round.

Is execution done on Cawdor?

My liege.

I have spoke with one that saw him die,

who did report that very frankly he confessed his treasons,

implored Your Highness's 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.

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.

Welcome hither.

I have begun to plant thee and will labor 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.