ACT 1
Scene 1
Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

FIRST WITCH 
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH 
When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH 
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH 
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH  Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH 
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH  I come, Graymalkin.
SECOND WITCH  Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH  Anon.
ALL 
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
They exit.



Scene 2
Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm,
Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding
Captain.

DUNCAN 
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
MALCOLM  This is the sergeant
Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
’Gainst my captivity.—Hail, brave friend!
Say to the King the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
CAPTAIN  Doubtful it stood,
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 villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the Western Isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak;
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like Valor’s minion, carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
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.
DUNCAN 
O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
CAPTAIN 
As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
Shipwracking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seemed to
come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN 
Dismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and
Banquo?
CAPTAIN 
Yes, as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks,
So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell—
But I am faint. My gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN 
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds:
They smack of honor both.—Go, get him surgeons.
The Captain is led off by Attendants.