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And, like a rat without a tail,

I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind.'

1 Witch. Thou art kind.

3 Witch. And I another.

1 Witch. I myself have all the other;

And the very ports they blow,

All the quarters that they know

I' the shipman's card.2

I will drain him dry as hay:

Sleep shall, neither night nor day,
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid :3
Weary sev'n-nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine:4
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd."
Look what I have.

2 Witch. Show me, show me.

1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb,

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more:

Wreck'd, as homeward he did come. [Drum within. By Sinel's11 death, I know, I am thane of Glamis;

3 Witch. A drum, a drum

Macbeth doth come.

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All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about;

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again, to make up nine:
Peace!-the charm's wound up.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.
Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores?-What are
these,

So wither'd, and so wild in their attire ;

That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand

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sell them.

2 i. e. the sailor's chart; carte-marine.

3 Forbid, i. e. forespoken, unhappy, charmed or bewitched. The explanation of Theobald and Johnson, 'interdicted or under a curse,' is erroneous. A forbodin fellow, Scotice, still signifies an unhappy one.

4 This mischief was supposed to be put in execution by means of a waxen figure. Holinshed, speaking of the witchcraft practised to destroy King Duff, says that they found one of the witches roasting, upon a wooden broach, an image of wax at the fire, resembling in each feature the king's person, &c.- for as the image did waste afore the fire, so did the bodie of the king break forth in sweat; and as for the words of the inchantment, they served to keepe him still waking from sleepe.' This may serve to explain the foregoing passage:'Sleep shall, neither night nor day, Hang upon his pent-house lid.'

> In the pamphlet about Dr. Fian, already quoted• Againe it is confessed, that the said christened cat was the cause of the Kinge's majestie's shippe, at his coming forth of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of his shippes then being in his companie.''And further the said witch declared, that his majestie had never come safely from the sea, if his faith had not prevailed above their intentions.' To this circumstance, perhaps, Shakspeare's allusion is sufficiently plain.

|

But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,

A

prosperous gentleman; and to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence
You owe this strange intelligence! or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?-Speak, I charge
[Witches vanish.
Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them:-Whither are they va
nish'd?

you.

Macb. Into the air: and what seem'd corporal, melted

As breath into the wind.-'Would, they had staid! Ban. Were such things here, as we do speak

about?

Or have we eaten of the insane root,12
That takes the reason prisoner?

Macb. Your children shall be kings.
Ban.
You shall be king
Macb. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?
Ban. To the selfsame tune, and words. Who's
here?

Enter Rosse and ANGUS.
Rosse. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend,
Which should be thine, or his: Silenc'd with that,13
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. As thick as tale, 14

7 The thaneship of Glamis was the ancient inheri. tance of Macbeth's family. The castle where they lived is still standing, and was lately the magnificent residence of the earl of Strathmore. Gray has given a particular description of it in a Letter to Dr. Wharton. 8 i. e. creatures of fantasy or imagination. 9 Estate, fortune.

10 Rapt is rapturously affected; extra se raptus. 11 Sinel. The late Dr. Beattie conjectured that the real name of this family was Sinane, and that Dunsi nane, or the hill of Sinane from thence derived its name. 12 The insane root was probably henbane. In Bat man's Commentary on Bartholome de Propriet. Rerum. a book with which Shakspeare was familiar, is the following passage:- Henbane is called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason.'

13 i. e. admiration of your deeds, and a desire to do them justice by public commendation, contend in his mind for pre-eminence: he is silenced with wonder.

14 i. e. posts arrived as fust as they could be counted. Thicke (says Baret,) that cometh often and thicke together: creber, frequens, frequent, souvent venant.' And again. 'Crebritas literarum, the often sending, or thicke coming of letters. Thicke breathing, anhelitus 6 The old copy has 10cyward, evidently by mistake. creber.' Shakspeare twice uses 'to speak thick' for Weird, from the Saxon, a witch, Shakspeare found into speak quick. To tale or tell is to score or number. Holinshed. Gawin Douglas, in his translation of Vir- Rowe, not understanding this passage, altered it to 'as ii, renders the parca by weird sisters. quick as huil.

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That, trusted home,2
Might yet enkindle3 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 us
In deepest consequence.

Cousins, a word, I pray you.

Macb.

Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act4
Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen.-
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: 8

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother'd in surmise;1o and nothing is,
But what is not.11
Ban.

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SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace.
Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONAI
BAIN, Lenox, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet return'd?
Mal.
My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,'
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,15
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.

There's no art,
To find the mind's construction in the face:16
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin!
Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. 'Would, thou hadst less deserv'd
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Look, how our partner's rapt. Are to your throne and state, children, and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every
thing

1 Came post.' The old copy reads can. Rowe made the emendation.

2 i. e. entirely, thoroughly relied on.

3 Enkindle means 'encourage you to expect the

crown.'

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Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.'
So in The Tragedie of Croesus, by Lord Sterline, 1604:
For as the shadow seems more monstrous still
Than doth the substance whence it hath the being,
So th' apprehension of approaching ill

Seems greater than itself, whilst fears are lying.'
9 By his single state of man, Macbeth means his
simple condition of human nature. Single soul, for a
simple or weak guileless person, was the phraseology
of the poet's time. Simplicity and singleness were
synonymous.
10
that function

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Is smother'd in surmise.'

The powers of action are oppressed by conjecture.
11 But what is not.' Shakspeare has something like
this sentiment in The Merchant of Venice :--

'Where every something, being blent together,
Turns to a wild of nothing.'

12 F uvour is countenance, good will, and not pardon,

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Safe toward your love and honour.18

as it has been here interpreted. Vide Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2.

13 The interim having weigh'd it.' The interim is probably here used adverbially-You having weighed it in the interim.'

14 Studied in his death is well instructed in the art of dying. The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793 His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historiSteevens thinks that an allusion was intended to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend 15 Ow'd, owned, possessed.

an.'

16 We cannot construe the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face.

17 i. e. I owe thee more than all; nay, more than all which I can say or do will requite.

18'Safe toward your love and honour.' Sir William Blackstone would read:

Safe toward you love and honour which he explains thus:- Our duties are your child ren, and servants or vassals to your throne and state who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you.' He | says that it has reference to the old feudal simple ho

Dun, Welcome luther:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing.'-Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is

Dun.

your own.

There if I grow,

My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.2-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The prince of Cumberland:3 which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers.-From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.

|title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and refer-
red me to the coming on of time, with, Hail, king that
shalt be! This have I thought good to deliver thee,
my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest
not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of
what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart,
and farewell.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis'd:-Yet do I fear thy nature.
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way: Thou would'st be great;
Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it. What thou would'st
highly,

That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false,
And yet would'st wrongly win; thou'dst have, great
Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it :
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither you:

I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So, humbly take my leave.
Dun.

My worthy Cawdor! Mach. The prince of Cumberland!-That is a step,

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

[Aside.
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. [Exit.
Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant ;4
And in his commendations I am fed ;
It is a banquet to me. Let us after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt.

8

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical" aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal.-

tidings?

What is your

Enter an Attendant.
Attend. The king comes here to-night.
Lady M.
Thou'rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so,
Would have inform'd for preparation.

Attend. So please you, it is true; our thane is
coming:

One of my fellows had the speed of him;
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.

Exit Attendant.

Give him tending, Lady M. He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse, SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a Letter. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits Lady M. They met me in the day of success; and That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; I have learned by the perfectest report, they have And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, in desire to question them further, they made them-Stop up the access and passage to remorse; selves—air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood That no compunctious visitings of nature rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between king, who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor; by which The effect; and it!11 Come to my woman's breasts, mage, which when done to a subject was always accompanied with a saving clause- saulf le foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy ;' which he thinks suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. Malone and Steevens seem to favour this explanation: but safe may merely mean respect ful, loyal; like the old French word sauf. Shakspeare has used the old French phrase, sauf votre honneur, several times in King Henry V.

1 i. e. exuberant.

•) In drops of sorrow.'

lachrymas non sponte cadentes ffudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto; on aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis Gaudia, quam lachrymis.' Lucan, lib. ix.

7 Thou would'st have that [i. e.. the crown] which cries unto thee, 'thou must do thus, if thou would'st have it, and thou must do that which rather,' &c. The difficulty of this passage in Italics seems to have arisen from its not having been considered as all uttered by the object of Macbeth's ambition. Malone is the author of this regulation, and furnished the explanation. 8 That I may pour my spirits in thine ear.' Lord Sterline's Julius Cæsar, 1607:

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So in

"Thou in my bosom used to pour thy spright.' 9 Which fate and metaphysical aid,' &c.; i. e. supernatural aid. We find metaphysics explained things supernatural' in the old dictionaries. To have thee crown'd,' is to desire that you should be crown'd. 10 That tend on mortal thoughts.' Mortal and deadly 3 Holinshed says, 'Duncan having two sons, &c. were synonymous in Shakspeare's time. In another he made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of part of this play we have the mortal sword,' and 'morCumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his suc- tal murders." We have mortal war,' and mortal cessor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease. hatred.' In Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse is a particular Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by description of these spirits, and of their office. The this means his hope sore hindered (where, by the old second kind of devils, which he most employeth, are laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that those northern Martii, called the spirits of revenge, should succeed were not of able age to take the charge and the authors of massacres, and seedsmen of mis upon himself, he that was next of blood unto him chief; for they have commission to incense men to should be admitted,) he began to take counsel how he rapines, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just manner of cruelties: and they command certain of the quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter) for that Dun-southern spirits to wait upon them, as also great Arioch, cane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner that is termed the spirit of revenge.'

of title and claime, which he might in time to come pre- 11 Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by tend, unto the crowne.'

4True, worthy Banquo,' &c. We must imagine that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding Imes, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium supposed to have been bestowed on him by Banquo, the reply of Duncan refers.

5 The perfectest report is the best intelligence. 6 Missives, messengers.

action. To keep peace between the effect and purpose,' means 'to delay the execution of her purpose, to prevent its proceeding to effect. Sir Wm. Davenant's strange alteration of this play sometimes affords a rea. sonably good commentary upon it Thus in the present instance:

-make thick

My blood, stop all passage to remorsa,
That no relapses into mercy may

And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, | Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle:
Wherever in your sightless substances
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd,
The air is delicate."

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall1 thee in the funnest smoke of hell!
That
my keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,2
To cry, Hold, hold!- -Great Glamis! worthy

Cawdor!

Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

Macb.

Duncan comes here to-night.

Lady M.

hence?

My dearest love,

And when goes

O, never

Macb. To-morrow, -as he purposes.
Lady M.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters :-To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent
flower,

But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my despatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Macb. We will speak further.
Lady M.

To alter favour4 ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

Only look up clear;

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Haut-
boys. Servants of Macbeth attending. Enter
DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO,
LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attend-

ants.

Dun.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

See, see our honour'd hostess! The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you How you shall bid God yield3 us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.

In

Lady M.
All our service,
every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business, to contend
Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: For those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
We rest your hermits.9
Dun.
Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well:
To his home before us: Fair and noble hostess,
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
We are your guest to-night.
Lady M.

Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,

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SCENE VII. The same. A Room in the Castle.
Hautboys and Torches. Enter, and pass over the
Stage, a Sewer,11 and divers Servants with Dishes
and Service. Then enter MACBETH.

Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere
well

Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air It were done quickly: If the assassination Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.
Ban.

This guest. of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird

Shake my design, nor make it fall before
'Tis ripen'd to effect.'

1 To pall, from the Latin pallio, to wrap, to invest, to cover or hide as with a mantle or cloak.

2 Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, 1596, has an expression resembling this :

'The sullen night in mistie RUGGE is wrapp'd.' And in his Polyolbion, which was not published till 1612, we again find it :

'Thick vapours that like ruggs still hang the troubled air.'

On this passage there is a long criticism in the Rambler, No. 168; to which Johnson in his notes refers the reader with much complacency.

3 i. e. beyond the present time, which is, according to the process of nature, ignorant of the future. 4 Favour is countenance.

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come.12-But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice

8 The explanation by Steevens of this obscure passage seems the best which has been offered :- Marks of respect importunately shown are sometimes troublesome, though we are still bound to be grateful for them, as indications of sincere attachment. If you pray for us on account of the trouble we create in your house, and thank us for the molestations we bring with us, it must be on such a principle. Herein I teach you, that the inconvenience you suffer is the result of our affection; and that you are therefore to pray for us, or thank us only as far as prayers and thanks can be deserved for kindnesses that fatigue, and honours that oppress. You are, in short, to make your acknowledgments for intended respect and love, however irksome our present mode of expressing them may have proved.'-To bid is here used in the Saxon sense of to pray. God yield us, is God reward us.

9 i. e. we as hermits, or beadsmen, shall ever pray for you.

10 In compt, subject to accompt.

11 A sewer, an officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. Asseour, French; from asseoir, to place.

5 i. e. situation. 6 i. e. convenient corner. 7 This short dialogue,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. The conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of the castle's situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlets' nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt the 12 This passage has been variously explained. I have air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy con- attempted briefly to express what I conceive to be its versation gives that repose so necessary to the mind meaning-Twere well it were done quickly, if, when after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and 'tis done, it were done (or at an end;) and that no sinis perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately ter consequences would ensue. If the assassination, succeeds. It seems as if Shakspeare asked himself, at the same time that it puts an end to Duncan's life, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such could make success certain, and that I might enjoy the an occasion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on crown unmolested,we'd jump the life to come, i.e. hazard the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, or run the risk of what may happen in a future state. To such as would never occur to men in the situation which trammel up was to confine or tie up. The legs of horses is represented. This also is frequently the practice of were trammeled to teach them to amble. There was Homer, who, from the midst of battles and horrors re- also a trammel-net,' which was a long net to take lieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by intro- great and small fowl with by night.' Surcease is cesducing some quiet rural image or picture of familiarsation. To surcease or to cease from doing some Lomestic life.'

thing supersedeo, Lat. • cesser, Fr›—Baret

Commend the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
pon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

hat tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
fo prick the sides of my intent, but only
"aulting ambition,3 which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other-How now, what news?

Enter LADY MACBETH.

left the chamber?

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?
Lady M.

| I would, while it was siniling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn, as you
Have done to this.

If we should fail,-

We fail!

Mach.
Lady M.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,"
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep
(Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him,) his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassel so convince,10
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck' only: When in swinish sleep
Their drenchedi2 natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?s
Macb.
Bring forth men-children only!

Lady M. He has almost supp'd: Why have you For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,14
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have don't?
Lady M.
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?

Know you not, he has ?
Macb. We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Lady M.

Was the hope drunk,

Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage 24

Macb.

Pr'ythee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man ;
Who dares do more," is none.
Lady M.
What beast was't then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man ;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness

now

6

Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me :

1 To commend was anciently used in the sense of the Latin commendo, to commit, to address, to direct, to recommend.

2 The sightless couriers of the air are what the poet elsewhere calls the viewless winds.

3 So in the tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, 1607 : 'Why think you, lords, that 'tis ambition's spur That pricketh Cæsar to these high attempts?' Malone has observed that there are two distinct metaphors in this passage. I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent; I have nothing to stimulate me to the execution of my purpose but ambition, which is apt to overreach itself; this he expresses by the second image, of a person meaning to vault into his saddle, who, by taking too great a leap, will fall on the other side.'

Macb.

up

I am settled, and bend
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
[Exeunt.

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Ban. And she goes down at twelve.

Fle.
I take't, 'tis later, sir.
Ban. Hold, take my sword:-There's husband-
ry15 in heaven,

Their candles are all out.-Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: Merciful powers!
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts, that nature
Gives way to in repose :16-Give me my sword ;-
Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a Torch.
Who's there?

8 The circumstance relative to Macbeth's slaughter of Duncan's chamberlains is copied from Holinshed's account of King Duffe's murder by Donwald.

9 Wassel is thus explained by Bullokar in his Expositor, 1616: Wassaile, a term usual heretofore for quaffing and carowsing; but more especially signifying a merry cup (ritually composed, deckt and fill'd with country liquor) passing about amongst neighbours, meeting and entertaining one another on the vigil or eve of the new year, and commonly called the wassail-bol. 10 To convince is to overcome.

11 A limbeck is a vessel through which distilled liquors pass into the recipient. So shall the receipt (i. e. recep tacle) of reason be like this empty vessel.

12 i. e. drowned in drink.

13 Quell is murder; from the Saxon quellan, to kill 14 i. e. apprehended, understood.

+ This passage is perhaps sufficiently intelligible; out as Johnson and Steevens thought otherwise, I must offer a brief explanation.-'Would'st thou have the 15 Husbandry here means thrift, frugality. crown, that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 16 It is apparent from what Banquo says afterwards, and yet live a coward in thine own esteem,' &c. The that he had been solicited in a dream to attempt someadage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566: thing in consequence of the prophecy of the witches, The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete.' that his waking senses were shocked at; and Shak 5 Who dares do more is none.' The old copy, in-speare has here most exquisitely contrasted his charac stead of do more,' reads 'no more: the emendation is Rowe's.

6 Adhere, in the same sense as cohere. 7 But screw your courage to the sticking-place.' Shakspeare seems to have taken his metaphor from the screwing up the chords of stringed instruments to their proper degree of tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-piace; i. e. in the place from which it is not o recede, or go back.

ter with that of Macbeth. Banquo is praying against being tempted to encourage thoughts of guilt even in his sleep; while Macbeth is hurrying into temptation, and revolving in his mind every scheme, however flagitious, that may assist him to complete his purpose. The one is unwilling to sleep, lest the same phantoms should assail his resolution again, while the other is depriving himself of rest through impatience o commit the mur

der.

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