Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Excerpt: ... had curtly declined his invitation. The King was again pressed to take a seat, and Lennox, to whom Banquo's ghost was invisible, showed him the chair where it sat. But Macbeth, with his eyes of genius, saw the ghost. He saw it like a form of mist and blood, and he demanded passionately, "Which of you have done this?" Still none saw the ghost but he, and to the ghost Macbeth said, "Thou canst not say I did it." The ghost glided out, and Macbeth was impudent enough to raise a glass of wine "to the general joy of the whole table, and to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss." The toast was drunk as the ghost of Banquo entered for the second time. "Begone!" cried Macbeth. "You are senseless, mindless! Hide in the earth, thou horrible shadow." Again none saw the ghost but he. "What is it your Majesty sees?" asked one of the nobles. The Queen dared not permit an answer to be given to this question. She hurriedly begged her guests to quit a sick man who was likely to grow worse if he was obliged to talk. Macbeth, however, was well enough next day to converse with the witches whose prophecies had so depraved him. He found them in a cavern on a thunderous day. They were revolving round a cauldron in which were boiling particles of many strange and horrible creatures, and they knew he was coming before he arrived. "Answer me what I ask you," said the King. "Would you rather hear it from us or our masters?" asked the first witch. "Call them," replied Macbeth. Thereupon the witches poured blood into the cauldron and grease into the flame that licked it, and a helmeted head appeared with the visor on, so that Macbeth could only see its eyes. He was speaking to the head, when the first witch said gravely, "He knows thy thought," and a voice in the head said, "Macbeth, beware Macduff, the chieftain of Fife." The head then descended Into the cauldron till it disappeared. "One word more," pleaded Macbeth. "He will not be commanded," said the first witch, and then a...