Macbeth (Including The Biography of the Infamous Author). William Shakespeare

Thou 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 know

       I’ the shipman’s card.

       I will drain him dry as hay:

       Sleep shall neither night nor day

       Hang upon his penthouse lid;

       He shall live a man forbid:

       Weary 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,

       Wreck’d as homeward he did come.

       [Drum within.]

       THIRD WITCH.

       A drum, a drum!

       Macbeth doth come.

       ALL.

       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.

       [Enter Macbeth and Banquo.]

       MACBETH.

       So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

       BANQUO.

       How far is’t call’d to Forres?—What are these

       So wither’d, and so wild in their attire,

       That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,

       And yet are on’t?—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.

       MACBETH.

       Speak, if you can;—what are you?

       FIRST WITCH.

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

       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 fear

       Things that do sound so fair?— I’ 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 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 fear

       Your favors 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 king

       Stands not within the prospect of belief,

       No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence

       You owe this strange intelligence? or why

       Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

       With 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 root

       That 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 reads

       Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,

       His wonders and his praises do contend

       Which should be thine or his: silenc’d with that,

       In viewing o’er the rest o’ the selfsame day,

       He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,

       Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,

       Strange images of death. As thick as hail

       Came post with post; and every one did bear

       Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,

       And pour’d them down before him.

       ANGUS.

       We are sent

       To 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 honor,

       He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:

       In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,

       For it is thine.

       BANQUO.

       What, can