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.

Macb. If we should fail,

Lady M. We fail!

6

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,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: 9 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?

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 twe
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 upa

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.

ACT II.

[Exeunt,

SCENE I-The same.

Court within the Castle. Enter BAN

quo and FLEANCE, and a Servant, with a torch before them.

Banquo.

HOW goes the night, boy?

Fle. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. Ban. And she goes down at twelve.

Fle. I take't, 'tis later, sir.

Ban. Hold, take my sword :-There's husbandry in

heaven, 3

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 !4-Give me my sword ;-

Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch.
Who's there?

Macb. A friend.

Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed : He hath been in unusual pleasure, and

and quits the stage with an apparent resolution to murder his sovereign. But no sooner is the king under his roof, than, reflectine on the peculiarities of his own relative situation, he determines not to offend against the laws of hospitality or the ties of subjection, kindred, and gratitude. His wife then assails his constancy afresh. He yields to her suggestions, and with his integrity his happiness is destroyed. I have enumerated these particulars, because the waverings of Macbeth have, by some critics been regarded as unnatural and contradictory circumstances in his character; not remembering that nemo repente fuit turpissimus, or that (as Angelo observes,)

"when once our grace we have forgot,

"Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not-"

a passage which contains no unapt justification of the changes that happen in the conduct of Macbeth. STÉEVENS.

[3] Husbandry here means thrift, frugality. MAL.

[4] It is apparent from what Banquo says afterwards, that he had been solicited in a dream to att mpt something in consequence of the prophecy of the Witches, that his waking senses were shocked at; and Shakespeare has here most exquisitely contrasted his character 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 to commit the murder. STEEV.

-"

Ams ulamonu ne greets your wire withat,

By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
n measureless content.

Macb. Being unprepar'd,

Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought.

Ban. All's well.

I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters :
To you they have show'd some truth.

Macb. I think not of them:

Yet, when we can intreat 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 'ti

It shall make honour for you.6

Ban. So I lose none,

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsel'd.

Macb. Good repose, the while !

Ban. Thanks, sir; The like to you! [Exit BANQU Macb. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is read She strike upon the bell. Get thee to-bed. [Exit Se -Is this a dagger, which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutc

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
A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o'the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs
Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world,
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.2 - Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.

[7] Dudgeon-the haft or handle of a dagger.

[A Bell rings.

STEEV.

[8] Or drops, French. POPE-Gouts is the rechnical term for the spots on some part of the plumage of a hawk: or perhaps Shakspeare used the word in allusion to a phrase in heraldry. STEEV.

[9] That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden, in his Conquest of Mexico:

All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead,
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,
And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat,
Even lust and envy sleep!"

These lines, though so well known. I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare may be more accurately observed. Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakspeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation He that peruses Shakspeare, looks around alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other of a murderer. JOHNS.

[1] Probably Shakspeare wrote: The curtain'd sleeper. The folio spells the word sleepe. STEEV.--Mr. S's emendation is entitled to a place in the text. It is clearly Shakspeare's own word. RITSON.

[2] Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that added such a horror to the night, as suited well with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Mr. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, observes that "all general privations are great, because they are all terrible;" and, with other things, he gives silence as an instance, illustrating the whole by that remarkable passage in Virgil, where amidst all the images of terror that could be united, the circumstance of silence is particularly dwelt upon :

"Dii quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque silentes,
Et Chaos et Phiegethon, loca nocte tacentia late."

STEEV.

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

[Ex

res;

sed the

right of arbers of

Jel with Ses Shak es the

Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, ha

made me bold :

What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire:-Har
-Peace!

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it :
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd the

possets, 3

That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live, or die.

what, ho!

Macb. [Within.] Who's there?
Lady M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
And 'tis 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. 4-My husband?

Enter MACСВЕТН.

Macb. I have done the deed : - Didst thou not hes a noise ?

Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cr

Did not you speak?

Macb. When?

Lady M. Now.

Macb. As I descended?

Lady M. Ay.

Macb. Hark!- Who lies i'the second chamber?
Lady M. Donalbain.

Macb. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hand
Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.