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 1

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 3
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

3 The actual presence of objects of terror.

4 The powers of action are oppressed by conjectures concerning the future.

Like our strange garments; cleave not to their

mould,

But with the aid of use.

Come what come may,

Macb. Time and the hour 1 runs through the roughest day. Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your lei

sure.

Macb. Give me your favor: 2-my dull brain was

wrought 3

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn

The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.— Think upon what hath chanced; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

Ban.

Very gladly.

Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Fores. A room in the palace.

Florish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd?

Mal.

My liege,

They are not yet come back: but I have spoke

1 Time and opportunity.

2 Pardon. 3 Agitated.

With one that saw him die; who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd 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,1
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.

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!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.

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.

Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,
Your highness' part

In doing it, pays itself.

Is to receive our duties; and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children and servants,

Owned, possessed.

2 We cannot discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face.

Which do but what they should, by doing every

thing

Safe toward your love and honor.

Dun.

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.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.

Dun.

There if I grow,

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 honor must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only;

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,

And bind us farther to you.

Macb. The rest is labor, 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.

Dun.

My worthy Cawdor!

Macb. The prince of Cumberland!-That is a

step,

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, [aside.
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. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant ; 1 And in his commendations I am fed :

It is a banquet to me.

Let us after him,

Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

It is a peerless kinsman.

[florish. Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Inverness. A room in Macbeth's castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter.

L. Macb. They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report," they have more in them than mortal knowlege. When I burned in desire to question them farther, they made themselves-air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives 3 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

Full as valiant as described. 3 Messengers.

2 Best intelligence.