[Enter Ross.]
ROSS.
God save the King!
DUNCAN.
Whence cam’st thou, worthy thane?
ROSS.
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm ‘gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
DUNCAN.
Great happiness!
ROSS.
That now
Sweno, the Norways’ king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme’s-inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN.
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest:—go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS.
I’ll see it done.
DUNCAN.
What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. A heath.
[Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]
FIRST WITCH.
Where hast thou been, sister?
SECOND WITCH.
Killing swine.
THIRD WITCH.
Sister, where thou?
FIRST WITCH.
A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And mounch’d, and mounch’d, and mounch’d:—“Give me,” quoth I:
“Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.
SECOND WITCH.
I’ll give thee a wind.
FIRST WITCH.
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!
