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

The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me

       In borrow’d robes?

       ANGUS.

       Who was the Thane lives yet;

       But under heavy judgement bears that life

       Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d

       With those of Norway, or did line the rebel

       With hidden help and vantage, or that with both

       He labour’d in his country’s wreck, I know not;

       But treasons capital, confess’d and proved,

       Have overthrown him.

       MACBETH.

       [Aside.] 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

       Promis’d no less to them?

       BANQUO.

       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’s

       In deepest consequence.—

       Cousins, a word, I pray you.

       MACBETH.

       [Aside.] Two truths are told,

       As happy prologues to the swelling act

       Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.—

       [Aside.] 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 smother’d in surmise; and nothing is

       But what is not.

       BANQUO.

       Look, how our partner’s rapt.

       MACBETH.

       [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me

       Without my stir.

       BANQUO.

       New honors come upon him,

       Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould

       But with the aid of use.

       MACBETH.

       [Aside.] Come what come may,

       Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

       BANQUO.

       Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

       MACBETH.

       Give me your favor:—my dull brain was wrought

       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 chanc’d; and, at more time,

       The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak

       Our free hearts each to other.

       BANQUO.

       Very gladly.

       MACBETH.

       Till then, enough.—Come, friends.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE IV. Forres. A Room in the Palace.

       [Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and

       Attendants.]

       DUNCAN.

       Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not

       Those in commission yet return’d?

       MALCOLM.

       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 confess’d his treasons;

       Implor’d 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 ow’d

       As ‘twere a careless trifle.

       DUNCAN.

       There’s no art

       To find the mind’s construction in the face:

       He was a gentleman on whom I built

       An absolute trust.—

       [Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.]

       O worthiest cousin!

       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 deserv’d;

       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.

       MACBETH.

       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 honor.

       DUNCAN.

       Welcome hither:

       I have begun to plant thee, and will labor

       To make thee full of growing.—Noble Banquo,

       That hast no less deserv’d, nor must be known

       No less to have done so,let me infold thee

       And hold thee to my heart.

       BANQUO.

       There if I grow,

       The harvest is your own.

       DUNCAN.

       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,