When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to mePromis’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
