[To Ross and ANGUS.]

The greatest is behind.

Thanks for your pains.

[To BAN.] Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me

Promised no less to them?

Ban.

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.

Macb. [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'm 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:

120

130

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.

140 Ban.

Look, how our partner's rapt.

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

Macb. [Aside.]

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Macb. Give me your favor: my dull brain was wrought

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

150 The leaf to read them. - Let us toward the king. [70 BAN.] 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. [Exeunt.

Forres. A Room in the Palace

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN,

Lennox, 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
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
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.

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, Ross, and ANGUS

O worthiest cousin!

The sin of my ingratitude even now

10

Was heavy on me; thou'rt 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

20 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,
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.

Dun.

Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labor

To make thee full of growing. - Noble Banquo,

30 That hast no less deserved, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me infold 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,

40

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

And bind us further to you.

Macb. The rest is labor, which is not us'd 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. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! - That is a step

On which I must fall down or else o'er-leap,

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;

And in his commendations I am fed;

It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,

Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
It is a peerless kinsman.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

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