Like valour's minion, carv'd out his passage, Till he fac'd the slave; Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! Dun. Dismay'd not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? Sold. Yes: As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion. If I say sooth, I must report they were As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks; So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe: I cannot tell : But I am faint, my gashes cry for help. Dun. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds; They smack of honour both :-Go, get him surgeons. [Exit Soldier, attended. Who comes here? Mal. Enter Rosse. The worthy thane of Rosse. Len. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look that seems to speak things strange. Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane? Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, Norway himself, with terrible numbers, The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict: Dun. Rosse. That now Great happiness! 1 Witch. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd :-"Give me," quoth I: a The word break is not in the original. The second folio adds breaking. Some verb is wanting; and the reading of the second folio is some sort of authority for the introduction of break, Beiluna's bridegroom is here undoubtedly Macbeth. This is the original punctuation, which we think, with Tierk, is better than "Point against point rebellious. arm 'gainst arm. b "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries. 2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind. 1 Witch. Th' art kind. 3 Witch. And I another. 1 Witch. I myself have all the other, I'll drain him dry as hay: 2 Witch. Show me, show me. 1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wrack'd, as homeward he did come. 3 Witch. A drum, a drum: Macbeth doth come. All. The weird sisters, hand in hand, [Drum within. Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. So wither'd and so wild in their attire; That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, Macb. Speak, if you can;-What are you? I Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! 2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter. Ban. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?-I' the name of truth, Are ye fantastical.d or that indeed Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace, and great prediction Of noble having, and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not: you can look into the seeds of time, If And say, which grain will grow, and which will not, 1 Witch. Hail! 2 Witch. Hail! 3 Witch. Hail! 1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happies. a Aroint thee.-See King Lear, Act III. Scene 4. b Ronyon.-See As You Like It, Act II. Scene 2. c Weird. There can be no doubt that this term is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wyrd, word spoken; and in the same way that the word fate is anything spoken, weird and futai a synonymous, and equally applicable to such mysterious S as Macbeth's witches. a Fantastical-belonging to fantasy-imaginary 3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none : So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! 1 Witch. Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail! No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid! Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root,a That takes the reason prisoner? Macb. Your children shall be kings. Rosse. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth, Ang. Ban. What, can the devil speak true? As happy prologues to the swelling act Cannot be ill; cannot be good :—If ill, My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical, Ban. Look, how our partner's rap. Macb. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir. Ban. New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten. Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, Ban. Very gladly. Macb. Till then, enough.--Come, friends. Exeunt SCENE IV.-Forres. A Room in the Falace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM. DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Mal. Maeb. The thane of Cawdor lives: Why do you Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth dress me In borrow'd robes? Ang. Whether he was combin'd with those of Norway; 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, Macb. Ban. That, trusted home, Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence.— Cousins, a word, I pray you. Heabane is called insane in an old book of medicine, which hakspere might have consulted. 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, As 't were a careless trifle. To find the mind's construction in the face: An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin! Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserv'd; Are to your throne and state, children and servants; Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter. Lady M. "They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who all hailed me, Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred 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 be ng ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell." Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be To catch the nearest way: Thou wouldst be great; The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it: To have thee crown'd withal.- -What is your tidings? Atten. The king comes here to-night. Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message. Lady M. Give him tending, He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men But be the serpent under it. He that's coming To alter favour ever is to fear: Only look up clear; Dun. Enter LADY MACBETH. See, see! our honour'd hostess Thou 'rt mad to say it: The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you, Is not thy master with him? who, wer 't so, Atten. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming: aif fear, compassion, or any other compunctious visitin stand between a cruel purpose and its realization, they may said to keep peace between them, as one who interieres re tween a violent man and the object of his wrath keeps peace Enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M. He has almost supp'd: why have you. left the chamber? Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. To be the same in thine own act and valour, Macb. Prithee, 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 Mach. If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place, It were done quickly: If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, We have restored the old familiar expression God-eyld, as suiting better with the playfulness of Duncan's speech than the God yield us of the modern text. There is great refinement in the sentiment of the passage, but the meaning is tolerably clear. The love which follows us is sometimes troublesome; so we give you trouble, but look you only at the love we bear to you, and so bless us and thank us. Hermits-beadsmen-bound to pray for a benefactor. Shoal in the original, schoole. Theobald corrected the word to shoal, "by which," says Steevens, "our author means the shallow ford of life." We shall not disturb the received reading, which is unquestionably the safest. It has been proposed to read, instead of itself, its sell, its saddle. However clever may be the notion, we can scarcely admit the necessity for the change of the original. A person (and vaulting ambition is personified) might be said to overleap himself, as well as overbalance himself, or overcharge himself, er overlabour himself, or overmeasure himself, or overreach himself. The word over in all these cases is used in the sense of too much. After other Hanmer introduced side. The commentators say that the addition is unnecessary, inasmuch as the plural noun sides, occurs just before. But surely this notion is to uro Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: I would, while it was smiling in my face, If we should fail,——— We fail. Macb. 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,b That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only: When in swinish sleep Their drenched 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 d c Macb. Bring forth men-children only, For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd, When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers, That they have done 't? Lady M. Who dares receive it other As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Upon his death? Macb. I am settled, and bend up 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. duce a jumble of the metaphor. Macbeth compares his intert to a courser: I have no spur to urge him on. Unprepared I am about to vault into my seat, but I overleap myself and fall. It appears to us that the sentence is broken by the entrance of the messenger; that it is not complete in itself; and would not have been completed with side. We find the adage in Heywood's Proverbs, 1586;—“The cat would eat fish and would not wet her feet." b Convince-overpower. • Limbeck--alembic. d Quell murder. With Tarquin's ravishing sides,* towards his design, Fle. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat he lives: Their candles are all out.-Take thee that too. Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch. Who's there? Macb. A friend. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. SCENE II.-The same. Enter LADY MACBETH. [A bell rings. [Erit Lady M. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold: What hath quench'd them hath given me fire:- Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king 's a-bed: The fatal bellman which gives the stern'st good night. He hath been in unusual pleasure, and Sent forth great largess to your offices: This diamond he greets your wife withal, Ban. Thanks, sir; the like to you! [Exit BANQUO. Macb. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. [Exit Serv. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going, Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, Husbandry-fiugality. He is about it: The doors are open; And the surfeited grooms do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets, That death and nature do contend about them, Macb. [Within.] Who's there?-what, hoa! Lady M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak`d, And 't is not done :- the attempt, and not the deed. Confounds us :--Hark!--I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss them.-Had he not resembled My father as he slept I had done 't—My husband! Macb. I have done the deed :-Didst thou not hear a noise? Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry Did not you speak? Macb. Lady M. Macb. Lady M. Ay. Macb. Hark! When? Now. As I descended? Consider it not so deeply. Mach. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen! I had most need of blessing, and amen Lady M. These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad. "Sides. This is the word of the old copies; but Pope changed it to strides. A doubt arises whether this word is compatible with "stealthy pace." The word, in its usual acceptation, and looking at its etymology, does not convey the notion of stealthy and silent movement. Can we reconcile then the word n with the context? Tieck contends that sides has been received as the seat of the passions, and is so here poetically used. |