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SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish.

Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN,
LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet return'd?

Mal.

My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death1,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd2,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.
There's no art,
To find the mind's construction in the face3:
He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.- O worthiest cousin!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, Rosse, and ANGUS.
The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

To overtake thee. 'Would, thou hadst less deserv'd;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment

1 Studied in his death is well instructed in the art of dying. "The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian.` Steevens thinks that an allusion was intended to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend.'

2 Ow'd, owned, possessed.

3 We cannot construe the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. In Shakspeare's ninety-third Sonnet we have a contrary assertion:

In many's looks the false heart's history
Is writ.'

Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay1.
Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children, and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour5.

Dun.

Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing6.- Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.

There if I grow,

Dun.
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow 7.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

4 i. e. I owe thee more than all; nay, more than all which I can say or do will requite.

5 'Safe toward your love and honour. Sir William Blackstone would read:

Safe toward you love and honour;

which he explains thus:-Our duties are your children, and servauts or vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you.' He says that it has reference to the old feudal simple homage, which when done to a subject was always accompanied with a saving clause-saulf le foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy;'-which he thinks suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. Malone and Steevens seem to favour this explanation: but safe may merely mean respectful, loyal; like the old French word sauf. Shakspeare has used the old French phrase, sauf votre honneur, several times in King Henry V.

6 i. e. exuberant.

7 In drops of sorrow.

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" -lachrymas non sponte cadentes

Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore laeto;

Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis
Gaudia, quam lachrymis.'

Lucan, lib. ix.

The same sentiment again occurs in The Winter's Tale. It is likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing.

more

Our eldest Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for

you:

I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So, humbly take my leave.

Dun.

My worthy Cawdor! Macb. The prince of Cumberland! - That is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

[Aside. For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. [Exit. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant 9; And in his commendations I am fed;

It is a banquet to me. Let us after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:
It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt.

8 Holinshed says, Duncan having two sons, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his successor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease, Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered (where, by the old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of blood unto him should be admitted), he began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might in time to come pretend, unto the crowne.'

9 "True, worthy Banquo,' &c. We must imagine that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding lines, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium supposed to have been bestowed on him by Banquo, the reply of Duncan refers.

SCENE V.

Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a Letter.

Lady M. They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report1, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives2 from the king, who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, Hail, king that shalt be! This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promis'd:-Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way: Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win; thoud'st have, great

Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishest should be undone3. Hie thee hither,

1 The perfectest report is the best intelligence.

2 Missives, messengers.

3 Thou wouldst have that [i. e. the crown] which cries unto thee, thou must do thus, if thou wouldst have it, and thou must do that which rather,' &c. The difficulty of this passage in Italics seems to have arisen from its not having been considered as all uttered by the object of Macbeth's ambition. Malone is the author of this regulation, and furnished the explanation.

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical5 aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal. What is your
tidings?

Enter an Attendant.

Attend. The king comes here to-night.
Lady M.

Thou'rt mad to say it:

Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so,
Would have inform'd for preparation.

Attend. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming:

One of my fellows had the speed of him;

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more Than would make up his message.

Lady M.

Give him tending,

He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse,

[Exit Attendant. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;

4 "That I may pour my spirits in thine ear." So in Lord Sterline's Julius Caesar, 1607 :

Thou in my bosom used to pour thy spright.'

5 Which fate and metaphysical aid,' &c.; i. e. supernatural aid. We find metaphysics explained things supernatural in the old dictionaries. To have thee crown'd' is to desire that you should be crown'd. Thus in All's Well that Ends Well:

'▬▬▬▬our dearest friend

Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial,'

This phrase of Baret's:-'If all things be as you would have them, or agreeable to your desire, is a common mode of expression with old writers.

6 That tend on mortal thoughts.' Mortal and deadly were synonymous in Shakspeare's time. In another part of this play we have the mortal sword,' and 'mortal murders.' We have 'mortal war,' and 'mortal hatred.' In Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse is a particular description of these spirits, and of their office. "The second kind of devils, which he most employeth, are those northern Martii, called the spirits of revenge, and the authors of massacres, and seedsmen of mischief; for they have commission to incense men to rapines, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury,

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