We’ve met the witches again and now get a glimpse of what is going on in Macbeth’s head.
oh, so scary.
The class discussion also includes me summarising scene IV, which promptly caused my student’s brain to fizzle out. We’re about to embark in the two scenes which contribute directly to the crime Macbeth is scheming.
But we still only begin with the dramatic and tragic irony
Come and listen ~ 🙂
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel’s death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish’d?MACBETH
Into the air; and what seem’d corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay’d!BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?MACBETH
To the selfsame tune and words. Who’s here?
Enter ROSS and ANGUS
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.
We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
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.
The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow’d robes?
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.
[Aside] Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!
The greatest is behind.
To ROSS and ANGUSThanks for your pains.
To BANQUODo you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them?
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.
[Aside] Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.–I thank you, gentlemen.
AsideCannot 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.
[Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.
New horrors come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.
[Aside] Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
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
SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.
Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet return’d?
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.
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 ANGUSO 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 deserved,
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.
The Write Elements 