Mach. A friend. I see thee yet, in form as palpable Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed: As this which now I draw. He hath been in unusual pleasure, and Sent forth great largess to your officers: 2 This diamond he greets your wife withal, By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up3 In measureless content. Mach. Being unprepar'd, Our will became the servant to defect; Which else should free have wrought. Ban. I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood, Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half world All's well. Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, Would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time. Ban. At your kind'st leisure. Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, It shall make honour for you. So I lose none, Macb. Good repose, the while! Ban. Thanks, sir; The like to you! [Exit BAN. Mach. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. [Exit Servant. 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. 1 Largess, bounty. 2 The old copy reads offices. Officers of a household was the common term for servants in Shakspeare's time. He has before called the king's chamberlains 'his spongy officers. 3 Steevens has rightly explained 'to shut up, by 'to conclude, and the examples he has adduced are satisfactory; but Mr. Boswell supposed that it meant enclosed, and quoted a passage from Barrow to support his opinion. The authorities of the poet's time are against Mr. Boswell's interpretation. 4 Being unprepared, our will (or desire to entertain the king honourably) became the servant to defect (i. e. was constrained by defective means,) which else should free have wrought (i. e. otherwise our zeal should have been manifest by more liberal entertainments.) Which relates not to the last antecedent, defect, but to will. 5 Consent is accord, agreement, a combination for a particular purpose. By if you shall cleave to my con. sent, Macbeth means, if you shall adhere to me (i. e. agree or accord with my views,) when tis, (i. e. when events shall fall out as they are predicted,) it shall make honour for you.' Macbeth mentally refers to the crown which he expected to obtain in consequence of the mur der that he was about to commit. We comprehend all that passes in his mind; but Banquo is still in ignorance of it. His reply is only that of a man who determines to combat every possible temptation to do ill; and there. fore expresses a resolve that, in spite of future combinations of interest or struggles for power, he will attempt nothing that may obscure his present honours, alarım his conscience, or corrupt loyalty. Macbeth could never mean, while yet the success of his attack on the life of Duncan was uncertain, to afford Banquo the most dark or distant hint of his criminal designs on the crown. Had he acted thus incautiously, Banquo would naturally have become his accuser as soon as the murder had been discovered. Malone proposed to read content instead of consent; but his reasons are far from convincing, and there seems no necessity for change. 6 Dudgeon for handle; 'a dudgeon dagger is a dagger whose handle is made of the root of box, according to Bishop Wilkins in the dictionary subjoined to his Real Character. Dudgeon is the root of bor. It has not been remarked that there is a peculiar propriety in giving the word to Macbeth, Pugnale alla scoccese, being a Scotch or dudgeon haft dagger, according to Torriano. 7 Gouts drops; from the French gouttes. Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. [Exit. SCENE II. The same. Enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire:- It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, their possets, 8 Dryden's well known lines in the Conquest of Mexico are here transcribed, that the reader may observe the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare: All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, Even lust and envy sleep!? In the second part of Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602, we have the following lines: "Tis yet the dead of night, yet all the earth is clutch'd -I am great in blood, 9 The old copy has sleepe. The emendation was proposed by Steevens, and is well worthy of a place in the text; the word now having been formerly acmitted to complete the metre. 10 The old copy reads sides: Pope made the alteration. Johnson objects to the epithet ravishing strides. But Steevens has shown that a stride was not always an ac. tion of violence, impetuosity, or tumult. Thus in The Faerie Queene, b. iv. c. viii. With easy steps so soft as foot could stride. And in other places we have an easy stride, a leisurable stride, &c. Warburton observes, that the justness of the similitude is not very obvious. But a stanza in Shakspeare's Tarquin and Lucrece will explain it : Now stole upon the time in dead of night, When heavy sleep had clos'd up mortal eyes; No comfortable star did lend his light, No noise but owls' and wolves' dead-boding cries; Now serves the season that they may surprise The silly lambs. Pure thoughts are dead and still, While lust and murder wake to stain and kill. 11 Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that added such horror to the night, as well suited with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, observes, that all general privations are great because they are terrible.' Did not you speak ? Mach. When? Now. Who lies i' the second chamber? I am afraid to think what I have done; Lady M. Mach. [Erit. Knocking within. Whence is that knocking? How is't with me, when every noise appals me? As I descended? What hands are here! Ha! they pluck out mine Donalbain. Mach. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands. Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. one cried, murder! them: That they did wake each other; I stood and heard Mach. One cried, God bless us! and, Amen, the As1 they had seen me, with these hangman's hands. Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. Mach. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen? Lady M. These deeds must not be thought Mach. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep; Lady M. What do you mean? Mach. Still it cried, Sleep no more! to all the house: Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more !4 worthy thane, Porter. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. (Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, 12 that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: Come in time; have napkins13 enough about you; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there i' the other devil's namel 'Faith, here's an equivocator, 14 that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knock Lady M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, ing.] Knock, knock, knock; Who's there? 'Faith, You do unbend your noble strength, to think 1 As for as if. 2 i. e. listening to their fear the particle omitted. 3 Sleave is unwrought silk, sometimes also called floss silk. It appears to be the coarse ravelled part separated by passing through the slaie (reed comb) of the weaver's loom; and hence called sleaved or sleided silk. I suspect that sleeveless, which has puzzled the etymologists, is that which cannot be sleaved, sleided, or unravelled; and therefore useless: thus a sleeveless errand would be a fruitless one. 4 Steevens observes that this triple menace, accomodated to the different titles of Macbeth, is too quaint to be received as the natural ebullition of a guilty mind; but Mr. Boswell thinks that there is no ground for his objection. He thus explains the passage; Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore my lately acquired dignity can afford no comfort to one who suffers the agony of remorse, Cawdor shall sleep no more; nothing can restore me to that peace of mind which I enjoyed in a comparatively humble state; the once innocent Mac. beth shall sleep no more. 5 This quibble too occurs frequently in old plays. Shakspeare has it in King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 4:- England shall double gild his treble guilt. 6 Thus in The Insatiate Countess, by Marston, 1613:Although the waves of all the northern sea Should flow for ever through these guilty hands, Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be." 7 To incarnardine is to stain of a red colour. 8 In the old copy the line stands thus:'Making the Green one, Red.' The punctuation in the text was adopted by Stevens at the suggestion of Murphy. Malone prefers the old punctuation. Steevens has well defended the arrangement of his text, which seems to me to deserve the preference. 9 Your constancy hath left you unattended. Vide note on King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 2. 10 This is an answer to Lady Macbeth's reproof. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were best not know, or be lost to myself." 11 i. e. frequent 12 Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. So in Hall's Sanres, b. iv. sat. 6: Each muckworme will be rich with lawless gaine, Altho' he smother up mowes of seven yeares graine, Anthang'd himself when corne grows cheap againe." 13 i. e. handkerchiefs. In the dictionaries of the time sudarium is rendered by 'napkin or handkerchief, wherewith we wipe away the sweat. 14 i. e. a Jesuit. That order were troublesome to the state, and held in odium in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. They were inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing Enter MACDUFF and LENOX. Maed. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late? Port. 'Faith, sir we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke ? Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: Therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in' a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. Macd. I believe, drink gave thee the lie, last night. Port. That it did, sir, i' the very throat o' me: But I requited him for his lie: and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him. Macd. Is thy master stirring? Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes. For 'tis my limited service. [Exit MACDUFF. Len. Goes the king hence to-day? He does: he did appoint it so. And prophesying, with accents terrible, 'Twas a rough night. Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it. Re-enter MACDUFF. Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! What is't you say? the life? Len. Mean you his majesty? sight With a new Gorgon:-Do not bid me speak; To countenance this horror! Enter LADY MACBETH. [Bell rings. Enter BANQUO. Our royal master's murder'd! Ban. Woe, alas! Too cruel, any where, Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX. Mach. Had I but died an hour before this chance, Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. Don. What is amiss? You are, and do not know it: The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Mal. O, by whom? Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't: Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood, They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life Macb. O, yet, I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them. Wherefore did you so ? Mach. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: The expedition of my violent love Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor Outran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan, heart, His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;" Cannot conceive, nor name thee! And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature, Mach. Len. What's the matter? For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers, Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers And in The Puritan, 1607:- The punishments that shall follow you in this world would with horrour kill the ear should hear them related.' 8 His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood. To gild with blood is a very common phrase in old plays See also King John, Act ii. Sc. 2.-Johnson says, 'it is not improbable that Shakspeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy and the natu ral outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech, so considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists of antithesis only. Unmannerly breech'd with gore: Who could re- Thou see'st, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, frain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage, to make his love known? Lady M. Macd. Look to the lady. Mal. Help me hence, ho! Why do we hold our tongues, That most may claim this argument for ours? Don. What should be spoken, Here, where our fate hid in an augre-hole, May rush, and seize us? Let's away; our tears Are not yet brew'd. Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day, 'Tis unnatural, Rosse. And Duncan's horses (a thing most strange Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Mal. Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion. Ban. Look to the lady : [LADY MACBETH is carried out. War with mankind. And when we have our naked frailties hid, Old M. 'Tis said, they are each other. That suffer in exposure, let us meet, And question this most bloody piece of work, Rosse. They did so; to the amazement of mine To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us: That look'd upon't. Here comes the good Mac In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence, eyes, duff: Enter MACDUFF. And so do I. So all. How goes the world, sir, now? Why, see you not? Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonous malice. Mach. All. 1 'Breech'd with gore, covered with blood to their hilts. 2 i. e. when we have clothed our half drest bodies, which may take cold from being exposed to the air. It is possible, as Steevens remarks, that in such a cloud of words, the meaning might escape the reader. The Porter had already said that this place is too cold for hell, meaning the court-yard of the castle in which Banquo and the rest now are. 3 Pretence is here put for design or intention. It is so used again in the Winter's Tale: The pretence whereof being by circumstance partly laid open. Thus again in this tragedy : What good could they pretend? 1. e. intend to themselves. Banquo's meaning is'in our present state of doubt and uncertainty about this murder, I have nothing to do but to put myself under the direction of God; and, relying on his support, I here declare myself an eternal enemy to this treason, and to all its further designs that have not yet come to light. the near in blood, Rosse. Is't known who did this more than bioody deed? Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons, 'Gainst nature still: Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up Macd. He is already nam'd; and gone to Scone, Where is Duncan's body? Macd. Carried to Colme-kill; The sacred storehouse of his predecessors, Rosse. Will you to Scone? Macd. No, cousin, I'll to Fife. Rosse. Well, I will thither. Macd. Well, may you see things well done there; -adieu! Lest our old robes sit easier than our new! Old M. God's benison go with you: and with those That would make good of bad, and friends of foes! [Exeunt. has not yet done all its intended mischief; I and my brother are yet to be destroyed before it will light on the ground and do no more harm.' 6 After the murder of King Duffe,' says Holinsbed, for the space of six months togither there appeared no sunne by daye, nor moon by night in anie part of the realme; but still the sky was covered with continual clouds; and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with lightenings and tempests, that the people were in great fear of present destruction. It vident that Shakspeare had this passage in his thoughts. Moet of the portents here mentioned are related by liohushet, as accompanying King Duffe's death: there was a sparhawk strangled by an owl, and horses of singular beauty and swiftness did eat their own flesh.' 7 A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place, a techti cal phrase in falconry for soaring to the highest pitch. Faulcon haultain was the French term for a towering or high flying hawk. 8 Pretend, in the sense of the Latin prætendo, to design, or lay for a thing before it come, as the old dictionaries explain it. 9 Macbeth, by his birth, stood next in succession to the crown, after the sons of Duncan. King Malcolm. Duacan's predecessor, had two daughters, the eldest of whom was the mother of Duncan, the younger the mother of Macbeth.-Holinshed. 10 Colme-kill is the famous Iona, one of the western isles mentioned by Holinshed, as the burial place of many ancient kings of Scotland. Colme-kill means the cell or chapel of St. Columbo. 1 P АСТ III. But to be safely thus:-Our fears in Banquo SCENE I. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Enter Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature Reigns that, which would be fear'd: 'Tis much he BANQUO. dares; Ban. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, And, to that dauntless temper of his mind, And set me up in hope? But, hush; no more. Seret sounded. Enter MACBETH, as King; LADY Lady M. He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour Mach. Here's our chief guest. Mach. To-night we hold a solemn supper,1 sir, And I'll request your presence. Ban. Let your highness Command upon me; to the which, my duties Ban. Mv lord, I will not. Fail not our feast. Mach. We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow'd With strange invention: But of that to-morrow: Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you? Mach. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot; And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell. [Exit BANQUο. Let every man be master of his time Atten. They are, my lord, without the palace-gate. 1 A solemn supper. This was the phrase of Shakspeare's time for a feast or banquet given on a particular occasion, to solemnize any event, as a birth, marriage, coronation, &c. Howel, in a letter to Sir T. Hawke, 1635, savs. 'I was invited yesternight to a solemne supper bv B. J. [Ben Jonson,) where you were deeply remembered. Only for them; and mine eternal jewel 2 i. e. 'if my horse does not go well. Shakspeare often uses the comparative for the positive and superlative. there? We are men, my liege. Mach. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; All by the name of dogs: the valued file14 That writes them all alike: and so of men. Let fate, that has foredoomed the exaltation of Banquo's sons, enter the lists against me in defence of its own decrees, I will fight against it to the extremity, whatever be the consequence." 9 i. e. 'passed in proving to you." 10 To bear in hand is to delude by encouraging hope and holding out fair prospects, without any intention of performance. 3 i. e. commit. 4 Nobleness. 5 And to that, i. e. in addition to. 6 For defiled. 7 The common enemy of man.' Shakspeare repeats the phrase in Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4: Defy the devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind. The phrase was common among his contemporaries; the word fiend, Johnson remarks, signifies enemy. 8 To the utterance. This phrase which is found in writers who preceded Shakspeare, is borrowed from the French; se battre a l'outrance, to fight desperately or to extremity, even to death. The sense therefore is: 11 i. e. 'are you so obedient to the precept of the gospel, which teaches us to pray for those who despitefully use us?" 12 Shoughs are probably what we row call shocks. Nashe, in his Lenten Stuffe, mentions them, a trundletail tike or shough or two.' 13 Cleped. called. 14 The valued file is the descriptive list wherein their value and peculiar qualities are set down; such a list of dogs may be found in Junius's Nomenclator, by Fleming, and may have furnished Shakspeare with the idea. 15 Particular addition, title, description |