Macbeth Act I - Who Is The Speaker

With one that saw him die, who did report That very frankly he confessed his treasons, Implored your highness' pardon, and set forth A deep repentance.

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!

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man

Look how our partner’s rapt.

Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.

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.

We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks, Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee.

He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy thane, For it is thine.

What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt The newest state.

As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald— Worthy to be a rebel, for to that The multiplying villanies of nature Do swarm upon him—from the Western Isles Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied, And fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling,

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseamed him from the nave to th' chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements.

There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.

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.

€ƒThere, if I grow, The harvest is your own.

My plenteous joys, Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes, And you whose places are the nearest, know We will establish our estate upon

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it.

This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath Smells wooingly here.