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 deserved;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
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 honor.

Dun. Welcome hither;

I have begun to plant thee, and will labor
To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me infold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.
Dun.

There if I grow,

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

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name, hereafter,
The prince of Cumberland; 1 which honor must

1 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

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 labor, which is not used 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.
Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant;
And in his commendations I am fed;

Let us after him,

Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.

It is a banquet to me.

It is a peerless kinsman.

[Exit.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

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 report, 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 missives 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 great

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."

ness; that thou mightst 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 promised.-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; thou'dst 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 undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;1
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical 2 aid doth seem

To have thee crowned 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 informed 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;

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

"Thou in my bosom used to pour thy spright."

2 "Which fate and metaphysical aid,” &c. ; i. e. supernatural aid. We find metaphysics explained "things supernatural" in the old dictionaries. "To have thee crowned," is to desire that you should be crowned.

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 mortal1 thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and it. Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall3 thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,1
To cry, Hold, hold!Great Glamis! worthy

Cawdor!

Enter МАСВЕТН.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond

1 "That tend on mortal thoughts." Mortal and deadly were sy

nonymous.

2 Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by action. "To keep peace between the effect and purpose," means "to delay the execution of her purpose, to prevent its proceeding to effect." Sir Wm. Davenant's strange alteration of this play sometimes affords a reasonably good commentary upon it. Thus in the present instance:—

My blood, stop all passage to remorse;

That no relapses into mercy may

Shake my design, nor make it fall before
'Tis ripened to effect."

3 To pall, from the Latin pallio, to wrap, to invest, to cover or hide as

with a mantle or cloak.

4 Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, 1596, has an expression resembling this:

"The sullen night in mistie RUGGE is wrapped."

And in his Polyolbion, which was not published till 1612, we again find it:

"Thick vapors that like ruggs still hang the troubled air." On this passage there is a long criticism in the Rambler, No. 168; to which Johnson, in his notes, refers the reader.

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

Duncan comes here to-night.

Macb.

Lady M.

Lady M.

My dearest love,

And when goes hence?

O, never

Macb. To-morrow,-as he purposes.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters.-To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night's great business into my despatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come,
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Macb. We will speak further.
Lady M.

To alter favor1 ever is to fear.

Leave all the rest to me.

Only look up clear;

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

The same.

The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending.

Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUo, Lenox, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attendants.

Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

Ban.

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle :

1 Favor is countenance.

2 i. e. convenient corner.