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

All's well.

Ban.
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 entreat an hour to serve,
Would spend it in some words upon that business,
would grant the time.

If
you
Ban.
At your kind'st leisure.
Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent,-when
'tis,

It shall make honour for you.
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.
Ban. Thanks, sir; The like to you! [Exit BAN.
Macb. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is
ready,

Good repose, the while!

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.
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?

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.

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.11-Whiles I threat, he
lives;

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings.

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. [Exit.
SCENE II. The same.
Enter LADY MACBETH.
Lady M. That which hath made them drunk,
hath made me bold:

What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire :-
Hark! 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
their possets,

9 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:

In

'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!

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'
In the dull leaden hand of snoring sleep:
No breath disturbs the quiet of the air,
No spirit moves upon the breast of earth,
Save howling dogs, night-crows, and screeching owls,
Save meagre ghosts, Piero, and black thoughts
-I am great in blood,

Unequall'd in revenge :---you horrid scouts
That sentinel swart night, give loud applause
From your large palms.'

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 admitted to complete the metre.

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 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 which he expected to obtain in consequence of the murder 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 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 acbinations 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 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 box. It has not been remarked that there is a peculiar propriety in giv.ng the word to Macbeth, Pugnale alla scoccese, being a Scotch or dudgeon haft dagger,' according to Torrizno.

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 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,'

[Exit. 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

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 ex murder'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 restore me to that peace of mind which I enjoyed in a comparatively humble state; the once innocent Macbeth shall sleep no more.

nere's an English tailor come hither, for stealing
out of a French hose: Come in, tailor; here you
may roast your goose. [Knocking.] Knock, knock:
Never at quiet! What are you?But this place is
too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I
had thought to have let in some of all professions,
that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.1
[Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you, remember
the porter.
[Opens the gate.
Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.
Macd. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
you do lie so late?

That

Port. 'Faith, sir we were carousing till the second cock:2 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. it Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: 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 in3 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.
Enter MACBETH.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!
Macb.

Good-morrow, both!
Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.

Not yet.
Macd. He did command me to call timely on him;
I have almost slipp'd the hour.
Macb.
I'll bring you to him.
Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet, 'tis one.

Macb. The labour, we delight in, physics4 pain.
This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call.
For 'tis my limited service.5 [Exit MACDUff.
Len. Goes the king hence to-day?
Macb.
He does: he did appoint it so.
Len. The night has been unruly; Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of
death;

Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building.
Macb.

What is't you say? the life?
Len. Mean you his majesty?
Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your
sight

With a new Gorgon:-Do not bid me speak;
See and then speak yourselves.--Awake! awake !--
[Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX.
Ring the alarum-bell :--Murder! and treason!
Banquo, and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this drowsy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself!-up, up, and see
The great doom's image!
Malcolm Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights,
To countenance this horror!
[Bell rings

O, gentle lady,
'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
Would murder as it fell."O Banquo! Banquo?
Enter BANQuo.

Our royal master's murder'd!
Lady M.
What, in our house?

Ban.

Woe, alas'

Too cruel, any where,-
Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
And say, it is not so.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.
Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality:
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
All is but toys renown, and grace, is dead;
Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.
Don. What is amiss?

Macb.
You are, and do not know it:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.
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,
So were their daggers, which unwip'd, we found
Upon their pillows:

They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life
The obscure bird Was to be trusted with them.

And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
New hatch'd to the woful time.
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.
Mach.
'Twas a rough night.
Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.

Macb. O, yet, I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
Macd.

Wherefore did you so? Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious,

8

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man :
The expedition of my violent love
His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;"
Outran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan,
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature,
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 tha:
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 consists of antithesis only.