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Macbeth: Act I, Scene 3

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Macbeth
Act I, Scene 3

A heath near Forres.

Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

Henry Fuseli, circa 1825

  1. Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

First Witch

1
  1. Where hast thou been, sister?

Second Witch

2
  1. Killing swine.

Third Witch

3
  1. Sister, where thou?

First Witch

4 - 10
  1. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
  2. And mounch’d, and mounch’d, and mounch’d. “Give me!” quoth I.
  3. “Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed ronyon cries.
  4. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger;
  5. But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
  6. And like a rat without a tail,
  7. I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Second Witch

11
  1. I’ll give thee a wind.

First Witch

12
  1. Th’ art kind.

Third Witch

13
  1. And I another.

First Witch

14 - 26
  1. I myself have all the other,
  2. And the very ports they blow,
  3. All the quarters that they know
  4. I’ th’ shipman’s card.
  5. I’ll drain him dry as hay:
  6. Sleep shall neither night nor day
  7. Hang upon his penthouse lid;
  8. He shall live a man forbid;
  9. Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,
  10. Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine;
  11. Though his bark cannot be lost,
  12. Yet it shall be tempest-toss’d.
  13. Look what I have.

Second Witch

27
  1. Show me, show me.

First Witch

28 - 29
  1. Here I have a pilot’s thumb,
  2. Wrack’d as homeward he did come.
  1. Drum within.

Third Witch

30 - 31
  1. A drum, a drum!
  2. Macbeth doth come.

Three Witches

32 - 37
  1. The weird sisters, hand in hand,
  2. Posters of the sea and land,
  3. Thus do go, about, about,
  4. Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
  5. And thrice again, to make up nine.
  6. Peace, the charm’s wound up.
  1. Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

Macbeth

38
  1. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Banquo

39 - 47
  1. How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these
  2. So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
  3. That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
  4. And yet are on’t? Live you? Or are you aught
  5. That man may question? You seem to understand me,
  6. By each at once her choppy finger laying
  7. Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
  8. And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
  9. That you are so.

Not so happy, yet much happier.

Frederick Gilbert, 1867

Macbeth

48
  1.                  Speak, if you can: what are you?

First Witch

49
  1. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

Second Witch

50
  1. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee. Thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch

51
  1. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!

Banquo

52 - 62
  1. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
  2. Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
  3. Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
  4. Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
  5. You greet with present grace, and great prediction
  6. Of noble having and of royal hope,
  7. That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not.
  8. If you can look into the seeds of time,
  9. And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
  10. Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
  11. Your favors nor your hate.

First Witch

63
  1. Hail!

Second Witch

64
  1. Hail!

Third Witch

65
  1. Hail!

First Witch

66
  1. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Second Witch

67
  1. Not so happy, yet much happier.

Third Witch

68 - 69
  1. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
  2. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

First Witch

70
  1. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

Macbeth

71 - 79
  1. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
  2. By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis,
  3. But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives
  4. A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
  5. Stands not within the prospect of belief,
  6. No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
  7. You owe this strange intelligence, or why
  8. Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
  9. With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
  1. Witches vanish.

Banquo

80 - 81
  1. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
  2. And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?

Macbeth

82 - 83
  1. Into the air; and what seem’d corporal melted,
  2. As breath into the wind. Would they had stay’d!

Banquo

84 - 86
  1. Were such things here as we do speak about?
  2. Or have we eaten on the insane root
  3. That takes the reason prisoner?

Macbeth

87
  1. Your children shall be kings.

Banquo

88
  1.                               You shall be king.

Macbeth

89
  1. And Thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?

Banquo

90
  1. To th’ self-same tune and words. Who’s here?
  1. Enter Rosse and Angus.

Rosse

91 - 102
  1. The King hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth,
  2. The news of thy success; and when he reads
  3. Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight,
  4. His wonders and his praises do contend
  5. Which should be thine or his. Silenc’d with that,
  6. In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ self-same day,
  7. He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
  8. Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
  9. Strange images of death. As thick as tale
  10. Came post with post, and every one did bear
  11. Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense,
  12. And pour’d them down before him.

They were stopped by the strange appearance of three figures. - Lamb's Tales

Arthur Rackham, 1909

Angus

103 - 106
  1.                                  We are sent
  2. To give thee from our royal master thanks,
  3. Only to herald thee into his sight,
  4. Not pay thee.

Rosse

107 - 110
  1. And for an earnest of a greater honor,
  2. He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor;
  3. In which addition, hail, most worthy thane,
  4. For it is thine.

Banquo

111
  1.                  What, can the devil speak true?

Macbeth

112 - 113
  1. The Thane of Cawdor lives; why do you dress me
  2. In borrowed robes?

Angus

114 - 121
  1.                    Who was the thane lives yet,
  2. But under heavy judgment bears that life
  3. Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d
  4. With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
  5. With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
  6. He labor’d in his country’s wrack, I know not;
  7. But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d,
  8. Have overthrown him.

Macbeth

122 - 127
  1. Aside.
  2.                      Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
  3. The greatest is behind.
  4. To Rosse and Angus.
  5.                         Thanks for your pains.
  6. Aside to Banquo.
  7. Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
  8. When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
  9. Promis’d no less to them?

Banquo

128 - 135
  1. Aside to Macbeth
  2.                           That, trusted home,
  3. Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
  4. Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange;
  5. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
  6. The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
  7. Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s
  8. In deepest consequence.—
  9. Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Macbeth

136 - 151
  1. Aside.
  2.                              Two truths are told,
  3. As happy prologues to the swelling act
  4. Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.
  5. Aside.
  6. This supernatural soliciting
  7. Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,
  8. Why hath it given me earnest of success,
  9. Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
  10. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
  11. Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
  12. And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
  13. Against the use of nature? Present fears
  14. Are less than horrible imaginings:
  15. My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
  16. Shakes so my single state of man that function
  17. Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
  18. But what is not.
Macbeth and the witches

Macbeth and the witches

Ary Scheffer, early or mid-19th century

Banquo

152
  1.                  Look how our partner’s rapt.

Macbeth

153 - 154
  1. Aside.
  2. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
  3. Without my stir.

Banquo

155 - 157
  1.                  New honors come upon him,
  2. Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
  3. But with the aid of use.

Macbeth

158 - 159
  1. Aside.
  2.                          Come what come may,
  3. Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Banquo

160
  1. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

Macbeth

161 - 167
  1. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought
  2. With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
  3. Are regist’red where every day I turn
  4. The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
  5. Aside to Banquo.
  6. Think upon what hath chanc’d; and at more time,
  7. The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak
  8. Our free hearts each to other.

Banquo

168
  1.                                Very gladly.

Macbeth

169
  1. Till then, enough.—Come, friends.
  1. Exeunt.

So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

John Masey Wright, circa 1900

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