Macb. 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 By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up3 I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: It shall make honour for you. So I lose none, Good repose, the while! Macb. She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. [Exit Servant. Is this a dagger, which I see before me, 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. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done; the bell invites the. [Exit. It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, 8 Dryden's well known lines in the Conquest of Mexico are here transcribed, that the reader may ob serve the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare: In All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, 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 Unequall'd in revenge :---you horrid scouts 5 Consent is accord, agreement, a combination for a particular purpose. By if you shall cleave to my consent,' 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 9 The old copy has sleepe. The emendation was which he expected to obtain in consequence of the mur-proposed by Steevens, and is well worthy of a place in der that he was about to commit. We comprehend all the text; the word now having been formerly acmitted that passes in his mind; but Banquo is still in ignorance to complete the metre. of it. His reply is only that of a man who determines to 10 The old copy reads sides: Pope made the alteration. combat every possible temptation to do ill; and there- Johnson objects to the epithet ravishing strides. But fore expresses a resolve that, in spite of future com- Steevens has shown that a stride was not always an ac. binations of interest or struggles for power, he will at-tion of violence, impetuosity, or tumult. Thus in The tempt nothing that may obscure his present honours, Faerie Queene, b. iv. c. viii. alarm 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 mur. der 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 box. 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 Tor riano. 7 Gouts drops; from the French gouttes. '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 und 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 becausé they are terrible.' So brainsickly of things:-Go, get some water, 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. [Looking on his hands. Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, murder! That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them: But they did say their prayers, and address'd them There are two lodg'd together. Mach. One cried, God bless us! and, Amen, the other; As' they had seen me, with these hangman's hands. Consider it not so deeply. Lady M. These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad. Macb. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep ; house: Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more! Lady M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, 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. eyes! Will all great Neptune's occan wash this blood* Re-enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart so white. [Knock.] I hear a knocking At the south entry:-retire we to our chamber: Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us, Macb. To know my deed,-'twere best not know myself.10 [Knock Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would, thou could'st? [Exeunt. SCENE III. The same. Enter a Porter. [Knocking within. Porter. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old11 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 name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator,' that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equiing.] Knock, knock, knock; Who's there? 'Faith, vocate to heaven: 0, come in, equivocator. [Knock 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 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 12 Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the exmurder'd sleep; and therefore my lately acquired dig-pectation of plenty.' So in Hall's Satires, b. iv. nity can afford no comfort to one who suffers the agony sat. 6:of remorse,-Cawdor shall sleep no more; nothing can 'Each muckworme will be rich with lawless gaine, restore me to that peace of mind which I enjoyed in a Altho' he smother up mowes of seven yeares graine, comparatively humble state; the once innocent Mar-Anthang'd himself when corne grows cheap aga ne 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 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 doc. trine of equivocation here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing Enter MACDUFF and LENOX. Macd. 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. Maed. 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. Mied. 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. Len. Good-morrow, noble sir! Good-morrow, both! Not yet. Macd. He did command me to call timely on him; Macb. The labour, we delight in, physics pain. Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! With a new Gorgon :-Do not bid me speak; 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: Our royal master's murder'd! Woe, alas! Ban. Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX. Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. You are, and do not know it: done't: Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood, They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life That I did kill them. Macd. Wherefore did you so? Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man : And in The Puritan, 1607: The punishments that 8 His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood.' Tu 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, su 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? Macd. Look to the lady. Help me hence, ho! Why do we hold our tongues, Here, where our fate hid in an augre-hole, May rush, and seize us? Let's away; our tears Mal. Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion. Look to the lady :- Of treasonous malice. Macb. All. Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day, Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last, Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Old M. eyes, That look'd upon't. Here comes the good Mac duff: Enter MACDUFF. goes the world, sir, now? And so do I. So all. How To show an unfelt sorrow, is an office There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood, Mal. left. Old M. Threescore and ten I can remember well: Hath trifled former knowings. Ah, good father, 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? i. 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, 4 The nearer bloody.' Meaning that he suspects Macbeth to be the murderer; for he was the nearest in blood to the two princes, being the cousin-german of Duncan. Why, see you not? Rosse. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed? 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 Holinshed, 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 is evident that Shakspeare had this passage in his thoughts. the portents here mentioned are related by Hohusted, 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.' Most of 7 A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place, a techni 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, 19 design, or lay for a thing before it come,' as the old dictionaries explain it. mother of Macbeth.-Holinshed. 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 The allusion of the unlighted shaft appears to be--whom was the mother of Duncan, the younger the the death of the king only could neither insure the crown to Macbeth, nor accomplish any other purpose, while his sons were yet living, who had therefore just reason to apprehend that they should be removed by the same means. Malcolm therefore means to say, 'The shaft 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 of chapel of St. Columbo. ACT 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 BANQUO. Ban. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, But that myself should be the root and father Macb. Here's our chief guest. If he had been forgotten, Mach. To-night we hold a solemn supper,' sir, And I'll request your presence. Ban. Let your highness Command upon me; to the which, my duties Are with a most indissoluble tie For ever knit. Macb. Ride you this afternoon? Ban. Ay, my good lord. Mach. We should have else desir'd your good advice (Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,) In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow. Is't far you ride? Ban. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,2 I must become a borrower of the night, For a dark hour, or twain. Macb. Ban. My lord, I will not. Fail not our feast. Mach. We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow'd In England, and in Ireland; not confessing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention: But of that to-morrow: When, therewithal, we shall have cause of state, Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: Adieu, Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you? Ban. Ay, my good lord; our time does call upon us. Reigns that, which would be fear'd: 'Tis much he And, to that dauntless temper of his mind, Macb. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot; And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell.[Exit BANQUO. Let every man be master of his time Till seven at night; to make society The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself Till supper-time alone: while then, God be with you. [Exeunt LADY MACBETH, Lords, Ladies, &c. Sirrah, a word with you: attend those men Our pleasure? Atten. They are, my lord, without the palace-gate. Mach. Bring them before us.-Exit Atten.] To be thus is nothing; 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 by B. J. [Ben Jonson,] where you were deeply remembered.' 2 i. e. if my horse does not go well. Shakspeare often uses the comparative for the positive and superlalive. 4 Nobleness. 3 i. e. commit. 5 And to that,' i. e. in addition to. 6 For defiled. To make them kings; the seed of Banquo kings! 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 fend, Johnson remarks, signifies enemy. there? -Who's Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers. 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 : instruments; Who wrought with them; and all things else, that might, To half a soul, and to a notion craz'd, You made it known to us. All by the name of dogs: the valued file14 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. 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 now call shocks. Nashe, in his Lenten Stuffe, mentions them, a trundletail tike or shough or two.' 13 Cleped. called. 14 The valud file is the descriptice 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 |