Things that do found so fair?—I' the name of truth, Only to herald thee into his fight,

Are ye fantastical', or that indeed

Which outwardly ye fhew? My noble partner
You greet with present grace, and great prediction
Of noble having 2, and of royal hope,

That he seems wrapt withal; to me you speak not:
If you can look into the feeds of time, [not;
And fay, which grain will grow, and which will
Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear,
Your favours, nor your hate.

1 Witch. Hail!

2 Witch. Hail!

3 Witch. Hail!

1 Witch. Leffer than Macbeth, and greater.

2 Witch. Not fo happy, yet much happier.

3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be So, all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

3

[none:

5

10

Not pay thee.

Roffe. And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane!
For it is thine.

Ban. What, can the devil speak true? [drefs me
Macb. The thane of Cawdor lives; Why do you
In borrow'd robes?

Ang. Who was the thane, lives yet;

But under heavy judgment bears that life,
Which he deferves to lofe. Whether he was
Combin'd with Norway; or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage; or that with both
15 He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treafons capital, confefs'd, and prov'd,
Have overthrown him.

1 Witch. Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail!
Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis ; 20
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A profperous gentleman; and, to be king,
Stands not within the profpect of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With fuch prophetick greeting?-Speak, I charge
you.
[Witches vanife.

Mach. Glamis, and thane of Cawdor:
The greateft is behind.-Thanks for your pains.-
Do you not hope your children fhall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me,
Promis'd no lefs to them?

Ban. That, trufted home 6,

Might yet enkindle 7 you unto the crown,

25 Befides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis ftrange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The inftruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honeft trifles, to betray us
In deepest confequence.-Coufins, a word, I pray
Macb. Two truths are told,

Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them:-Whither are they va-30| nish'd? [melted

Mach. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid! Ban. Were fuch things here, as we do speak Or have we eaten of the infane root 4,

That takes the reafon prisoner?

Mach. Your children fhall be kings.

Ban. You shall be king.

[about

[fo?

35

Macb. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not Ban. To the felf-fame tune, and words. Who's 40 here?

Enter Reffe and Angus.

Reffe. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
The news of thy fuccefs: and when he reads
Thy perfonal venture in the rebel's fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend,
Which should be thine, or his : Silenc'd with that,
In viewing o'er the reft o' the self-fame day,
He finds thee in the ftout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afraid of what thyfelf didft make,
Strange images of death. As thick as tale,
Came poft with post 5; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And pour'd them down before him.

Cannot be ill: cannot be good:-If ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of fuccefs,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that fuggeftion
Whofe horrid image doth unfix my air,
And make my feated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are lefs than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes fo my fingle state of man, that function
Is fmother'd in furmife 9: and nothing is,

1 i. e. creatures of fantasy or imagination. 2 Having, we have before obferved, is eftate, poffeffion, fortune. 3 The father of Macbeth. 4 Shakspeare here alludes to the qualities anciently affcribed to hemlock. 5 That is, pofts arrived as faft as they could be counted. 6 i. e. carried as far as it will go. 7 Enkindle, for to ftimulate you to seek. 8 Warburton thinks foliciting is here put for information; while Johnson rather thinks it means incitement.

9 Meaning," Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence." 10 i. e. was worked, @gitated.

That is, inftructed in the art of dying. 2 i. e. the frame or difpofition of the mind, whether it is determined to good or ill. 3 i. e. We do but perform our duty when we contract all our views to your fervice. 4 Mr. Steevens obferves, that "the crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. When a fucceffor was declared in the life-time of a king (as was often the cafe), the title of Prince of Cumberland was immediately bestowed on him as the mark of his defignation. Cumberland was at that time held by Scotland of the crown of England, as a fief.” 5 i. e. By the best intelligence.

1 Metaphyfical is here put for fupernatural.

Wherever in your fightless substances [night,
You wait on nature's mischief 4! Come, thick 25
And pall thee in the dunneft smoke of hell!
That my keen knife fee not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Held,bold?!--Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Enter Macbeth.

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

8

This ignorant prefent time, and I feel now
The future in the inftant.

Mach. My deareft love,

Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady. And when goes hence?

Macb. To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady. Oh, never

Shall fun that morrow fee!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read ftrange 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 ferpent under it. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great bufinefs into my dispatch;
Which fhall to all our nights and days to come

Give folely fovereign fway and masterdom.
Macb. We will speak further.

Lady. Only look up clear;

To alter favour ever is to fear:

Lady. All our fervice

In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and fingle business, to contend
Against thofe honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majefty loads our houfe: For thofe of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
30 We reft your hermits 12.

King. Where's the thane of Cawdor?

[him

We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor; but he rides well;
And his great love, fharp as his fpur, hath holp
35 To his home before us: Fair and noble hoftefs,
We are your guest to-night.

40

45

50

Lady. Your fervants ever

[compt 13,

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in
To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,

Still to return your own.

King. Give me your hand:

Conduct me to mine hoft: we love him highly,
And fhall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.

SCENE VII.

[Exeunt.

Hautbeys and Torches. Enter a Serwer 14, and divers
Servants with dishes and fervice over the stage.
Then enter Macbeth.

Mach. If it were done, when 'tis done, then

'twere well

It were done quickly: If the affaffination

3 i. e.

5 i. e.

That is, murtherous, or deadly defigns. 2 i. e, nor delay the execution of my purpose. Take away my milk, and put gall into the place. 4 Nature's mifchief is mitchief done to nature. wrap thyfelf in a pall, which was a robe of state, as well as a covering thrown over the dead. The word knife was anciently used to exprefs a fword. 7 Mr. Tollet explains this paffage thus: The thought is taken from the old military laws, which inflicted capital punishment upon "whofoever shall strike ftroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry bold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight in a combat in a place inclosed: and then no man shall be so hardy as to bid bold, but the general." 8 i. e. unknowing. 10 Meaning, 9 i. e. our calm compofed fenfes. 12 Hermits, convenient corner. 11 i. e. God reward; or, perhaps, as Dr. Johnson suggests, protect us. for beadfmen. 13 i. e. fubject to account. 14 The office of a fewer was to place the dishes in order at a feaft. His chief mark of diftinction was a towel round his arm.

Could

Could trammel up the confequence, and catch,
With his furceafe, fuccefs; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come.-But, in these cafes,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody inftructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips'. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinfman and his fubject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his hoft,
Who fhould against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myfelf. Befides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties fo meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blaft, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the fightlefs couriers of the air 2,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.-—I have no spur
To prick the fides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other-How now! what news?
Enter Lady.

Lady. He has almost supp'd; Why have you

left the chamber?

Macb. Hath he afk'd for me?
Lady. Know you not, he has ?

Mach. We will proceed no farther in this bufinefs:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all forts of people,

20 But fcrew your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,
(Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him) his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and waffel 4 fo convince 5,
25 That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt 7 of reafon
A limbeck only 8: When in fwinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
30 The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His fpungy officers; who fhall bear the guilt
Of our great quell 9 ?

Macb. Bring forth men-children only!
For thy undaunted mettle should compofe

Which would be worn now in their neweft glofs, 35 Nothing but males.
Not caft afide so soon.

Lady. Was the hope drunk,

Wherein you dreft yourself? hath it slept fince?
And wakes it now, to look fo green and pale
At what it did fo freely? From this time,
Such I account thy love. Art thou afraid
To be the fame in thine own act and valour,
As thou art in defire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou efteem'ft the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

Will it not be receiv'd,

When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have done 't?

40 Lady. Who dares receive it other,

As we fhall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?

Macb. I am fettled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

45 Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
Falfe face muft hide what the false heart doth know.
[Exeunt.

This obfcure foliloquy, about the meaning of which none of the readers of Shakspeare agree, Dr. Johnfon explains 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 confequences, if its fuccefs could secure its furcease, if being once done fuccefsfully, 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 fuffer; 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 ftate. But this is one of thefe cafes in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our prefent life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example." 2 Couriers of air mean winds, air in motion. Sightless is invisible. 3 The proverb alluded to is," The cat loves fifn, but dares not wet ber fect." 4 Waffel or Waffail is a word ftill used in Staffordshire, and the adjoining counties, and fignifies at prefent what is called Lambs Wool, i. e. roafted apples in strong beer, with fugar and spice. Waffel, however, may be put here for riot or intemperance. 5 i. e. overpower or fubdue. Or, the centinel. 7 i. e. the receptacle. Meaning, it fhall be only a veffel to emit fumes or vapours. 9 Quell is murder.

6

ACT

Fle. The moon is down; I have not 5 And on thy blade, and dudgeon 3, gouts of blood,

2 Confent for will.

of a dagger, and is used for that particular fort of handle which has fome ornament carved on the top of

4 i. e. fpots: the phrafe is borrowed from heraldry. 5 It was the general cuftom in those days to eat poffets juft before bed-time.