Macb. 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 me, Promised no less to them? 2 Ban. Cousins, a word, I pray you. Macb. 1 Two truths are told As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.— This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill; cannot be good.-If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, 3 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, But what is not. Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt. Macb. If chance will have me king, why, charce may crown me, Without my stir. Ban. New honors come upon him Like our strange garments; cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use. 1 i. e. entirely, thoroughly relied on. 2 "Encourage you to expect the crown." 3 By his single state of man, Macbeth means his simple condition of human nature. Come what come may; Macb. Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Macb. Give me your favor;1-my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are registered where every day I turn The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.Think upon what hath chanced; and, at more times, The interim having weighed it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other. Ban. Very gladly. [Exeunt. Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends. SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Mal. Dun! There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face.4 1 Favor is countenance, good will, and not pardon, as it has been here interpreted. Vide Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2. 2 Studied in his death, is instructed in the art of dying. 3 Qwed, owned, possessed. 4 We cannot construe the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, Rosse, and Angus. The sin of my ingratitude even now To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less deserved; Are to your throne and state, children and servants; Dun. Welcome hither; I have begun to plant thee, and will labor To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo, Ban. The harvest is your own. Dun. There if I grow, My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name, hereafter, 1 Holinshed says, " Duncan having two sons, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his successor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease. Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered (where, by the old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of blood unto him should be admitted), he began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just Not, unaccompanied, invest him only, 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! [Exit. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant; 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. [Flourish. Exeunt. SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter. Lady M. 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 great quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might in time to come pretend, unto the crowne." ness; 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' 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, Glamis, That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it; Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither, To have thee crowned withal.-What is your tidings? Enter an Attendant. Attend. The king comes here to-night. Thou'rt mad to say it. Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so, Would have informed for preparation. Attend. 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 M. Give him tending; 1 "That I may pour my spirits in thine ear." So in Lord Sterline's Julius Cæsar, 1607:— "Thou in my bosom used to pour thy spright.” 2 "Which fate and metaphysical aid," &c. ; i. e. supernatural aid. We find metaphysics explained "things supernatural" in the old dictionaries. “To have thee crowned," is to desire that you should be crowned. |