SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of MAC- Ban. This guest of summer, 7 6 The temple-haunting martlet,5 does approve, Enter Lady MACBETH. Dun. See, see! our honour'd hostess ! The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble, Lady M. All our service In every point twice done, and then done double, Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith [4] This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo whilst they are ap proaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situ ation and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakspeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented.-This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of domestic life. SIR J REYNOLDS. [5] This bird is in the old edition called barlet. JOHNS. [6] A jutty, or jetty, (for so it ought rather to be written) is not here, as has been supposed, an epithet to frieze, but a substantive; signifying that part of a building which shoots forward beyond the rest. MAL. [7] Coinage of vantage-Convenient corner. JOHNS. [8] To bid any one God-yeld him, i. e. God-yield him, was the same as God reward him. WARB. And the late dignities heap'd up to them, Dun. Where's the thane of Cawdor? We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose 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, Dun. Give me your hand : Conduct me to mine host; we love him highly, The same. х SCENE VII. [Exeunt. A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and torches. Enter and pass over the stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH. Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly :5 if the assassination [3] That is, we as hermits shall always pray for you. STEEV. [4] A sewer was an officer so called from his placing the dishes upon the table. Asseour, French; from asseior, to place. Another part of the sewer's office was to bring water forthe guests to wash their hands with. It may be worth while to observe, for the sake of preserving an ancient word, that the dishes served in by sewers were called sewes. STEEV. [5] Of this soliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus: "If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and executed, were done and ended without any following effects, it would then be best to do it quickly; if the murder could terminate in itself, and restrain the regular course of consequences, if its success could secure its surcease, if, being once done successfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance and enquiry, so that this blow might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to suffer; if this could be my condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of temporal existence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future state. But this is one of those cases in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our present life We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example." JOHNS. We are told by Dryden, that "Ben Jonson, in reading some bombast speeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horrour."-Perhaps the present passage was one of those thus depreciated. Any person but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the transcendent beauties of this sublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's greatest work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into "strong shudders" and blood-freezing "agues," by its Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,7. And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.'-I have no spur Lady M. He has almost supp'd; Why have you left the chamber? interesting and high-wrought scenes than to have been offended by any im. aginary hardness of its language; for such it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour. MALONE. [6] Surcease is cessation, stop. STEEV. [7] By the shoal of time, our author means the shallow ford of life, between us and the abyss of eternity. STEEV [8] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARB. [9] Courier is only runner. Couriers of air are winds, air in motion. Sightless is invisible. JOHNS The thought of the cherubin (as has been somewhere observed) seems to have been borrowed from the eighteenth Psalm: "He rode upon the cherubins and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind." Again, in Job, ch. xxx. v. 22: "Thou causest me to ride upon the wind" MALONE. [1] Alluding to the remission of the wind in a shower. JOHNS. [2] The arguments by which lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the house-breaker, 33* VOL. III. Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. 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, Lady M. Was the hope drunk, Wherein you drest yourself? hath it slept since ? I dare do all that may become a man ; Lady M. What beast was it then, That made you break this enterprize to me? and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has forever destroyed, by distinguishing true from faise fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost: I dare do all that may become a man ; Who dares do more is none. This topic, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene, with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier; and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman without great impatience. She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duacan, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument, Shakspeare, whose plan obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter; that obligations, laid on us by a higher power, could not be overruled by obligations which we lay upon urselves. JOHNS. [4] The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her feet: Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas. JOHNS How tender 'tis, to love the babe that milks me : Macb. If we should fail, Lady M. We fail! 8 But screw your courage to the sticking-place, Macb. Bring forth men-children only! When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twe Lady M. Who dares receive it other, As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Macb. I am settled, and bend up2 [5] Selden conjectures this to have been a usual ceremony among the Saxons before Hengist, as a note of health-wishing, supposing the expression to be corrupted from wish-heil. Wassel or Wassait is a word still in use in the mid and counties, and signifies at present what is called Lambs'-Wool, i. c. roasted apples in strong beer, with sugar and spice. JOHNS. [6] To convince is, in Shakspeare, to overpower or subdue JOHNS: A warder is a guard, a sentinel. STE. [8] i. e. the receptacle. MAL. [9] That is, shall be only a vessel, to emit fumes or vapours. JOHNS. [Quell is murder, manquellers being, in the old language the term for which murderers is now used. JOHNS. The word is used in Wicliff's translation of the New Testament, "and Herod sent forsh manquellers," &c. STEEV. [2] A metaphor from the bow. Till this intstant, the mind of Macbeth has been in a state of uncertainty and fluctuation. He has hitherto proved neither resolutely good, nor obstinately wicked Though a bloody idea had arisen in his mind, after he had heard the prophecy in his favour, yet he contentedly leaves the completion of his hopes to chance. At the conclusion, however, of his interview with Duncan, he inclines to hasten the deeree of fate, |