Act I

O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

As whence the sun ’gins his reflection

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,

So from that spring whence comfort seem’d to come

Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:

No sooner justice had with valour arm’d

Compell’d these skipping kerns to trust their heels,

But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,

With furbish’d arms and new supplies of men

Began a fresh assault.

Dismay’d not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

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.