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 received, 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: silenced 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 defence, 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 honour, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
For it is thine. BANQUO What, can the devil speak true? MACBETH The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me In borrow'd robes? ANGUS Who was the thane lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined 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.
To ROSS and ANGUS
Thanks for your pains.
To BANQUO
Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me Promised 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 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 horrors 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 favour: 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 chanced, 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.