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 judgement bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d 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 wrack, I know not; But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d, 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 Promis’d 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.] This supernatural soliciting 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 honours 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. 

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