Then I'll sit down.-
I drink to the general joy of the whole table,

Give me some wine; fill full:

Ghost rises.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss ;
'Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.1

Lords.

Our duties, and the pledge.

Macb. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation2 in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!

Lady M.

Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom. "Tis no other
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

Macb. What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword:
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!

3

[Ghost disappears. Unreal mockery, hence!-Why, so;-being gone,

I am a man again.-'Pray you, sit still.

Lady M. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.

Macb.

Can such things be,

And overcome.us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe,

4

1 That is, "we desire to drink" all good wishes to all.

2 "Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, explains "speculation, the inward knowledge or beholding of a thing."

确

3 Dare me to the desert with thy sword; if then I do not meet thee there; if, trembling, I stay in my castle, or any habitation; if I then hide my head, or dwell in any place through fear,-protest me the baby of a girl.

4 i. e. possess.

When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanched with fear.

Rosse.

What sights, my lord?

Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse

and worse;

Question enrages him. At once, good night.

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

Len.

Good night, and better health

Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have

blood;

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augures1 and understood relations have,

By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.-What is the night?
Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is

which.

2

Macb. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his

person,

At our great bidding?

Lady M.

Did you send to him, sir?

Macb. I hear it by the way; but I will send :
There's not a one of them, but in his house

I keep a servant feed. I will, to-morrow,

(And betimes I will,) to the weird sisters.

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood

1 i. e. auguries, divinations; formerly spelled augures, as appears by Florio in voce augurio. By understood relations, probably, connected circumstances relating to the crime are meant. In all the modern editions we have it, erroneously, augurs. Magot-pie is the original name of the magpie: stories, such as Shakspeare alludes to, are to be found in Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and in Goulart's Admirable Histories.

2 i. e. what say'st thou to this circumstance? Thus, in Macbeth's address to his wife, on the first appearance of Banquo's ghost:

"Behold! look! lo! how say you?

Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned.

Lady M. You lack the season1 of all natures, sleep.
Macb. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self

abuse

Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use.-
We are yet but young in deed.2

SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder.

[Exeunt.

Enter HECATE, meeting the three Witches.

1 Witch. Why, how now,

angerly.

now, Hecate ? you

Hec. Have I not reason, beldames, as you are,

Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth,

In riddles and affairs of death;

And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?

And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful, and wrathful; who, as others do,

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now. Get you gone,

And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i' the morning; thither he

Will come to know his destiny.

look

"You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require."

2 The editions previous to Theobald's read

"We're but young indeed."

The initiate fear is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by hard use or frequent repetition of it.

Your vessels, and your spells, provide,
Your charms and every thing beside;
I am for the air; this night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.

Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon

1

There hangs a vaporous drop profound;"
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As, by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security

Is mortal's chiefest enemy.

Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c.2

Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

back again.

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LENOX and another Lord.

Len. My former speeches have but hit your

thoughts,

Which can interpret further: only, I say,
Things have been strangely borne.

Duncan

The gracious

Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead.— And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late; Whom you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed,

1 The vaporous drop profound seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment.

2 This song is to be found entire, in The Witch, by Middleton.

For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot1 want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and Donalbain,

To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For, 'twould have angered any heart alive,
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well; and I do think,
That, had he Duncan's sons under his key,

(As, an't please Heaven, he shall not,) they should find What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance. But peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he

failed

His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?

Lord.

The son of Duncan,

From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court; and is received
Of the most pious Edward with such grace,
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid

Is

To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward ;
That, by the help of these, (with Him above
To ratify the work,) we may again

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives;
Do faithful homage, and receive free honors,"
All which we pine for now.
And this report
Hath so exasperate the king, that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.

3

1 "Who cannot want the thought," &c. The sense requires “who can want the thought;" but it is probably a lapse of the Poet's pen.

2 It has been shown that free sometimes meant pure, chaste, consequently unspotted, which may be its meaning here. Free also meant noble. 3 Exasperate, for exasperated.