evil fate. — Sev'n-night is a week.
* To peak is to grow thin. This was supposed to be wrought by means
of a waxen figure. Holinshed, describing the means used for destroying
King Duff, says that the witches were found roasting an image of him before
the fire; and that, as the image wasted, the King's body broke forth in
sweat, while the words of enchantment kept him firom sleep.
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 55
Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.
Look what I have.
2 Witch, Show me, show me.
I Witch, Here I have a pilot's thumb,
Wrecked as homeward he did come.
\Drutn within,
3 Witch, A drum, a drum !
Macbeth doth come.
All. The Weird Sisters,i<> hand in hand,
Posters ^^ of the sea and land.
Thus do go about, about :
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine.^^
Peace ! — the charm's wound up.
Enter Macbeth and Banquo.
Macb. So foul and fair a day ^^ I have not seen.
"^^ Weird is from the Saxon wyrd, and means the same as the \jaX\n fatum ;
so that weird sisters is the fatal sisters, or the sisters of fate, Gawin Doug-
las, in his translation of Virgil, renders Parca by weird sisters. Which
agrees well with Holinshed in the passage which the Poet no doubt had in
his eye: "The common opinion was, that these women were either the
weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) Xh^ goddesses ofdestinie, or else some
nymphs or feiries, indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necroman-
ticall science, bicause everie thing came to passe as they had spoken."
11 Posters is rapid travellers; going with a postman's speed.
12 Here the Witches perform a sort of incantation by joining hands, and
dancing round in a ring, three rounds for each. Odd numbers and multi-
ples of odd numbers, especially three and nine, were thought to have great
magical power in thus winding up a charm.
18 A day fouled with storm, but brightened with victory. Professor Dow-
den, however, thinks a deeper meaning is here intended : " Observe that the
last words of the witches in the opening scene of the play are the first words
which Macbeth himself utters : * Fair is foul, and foul is fair.' Shakespeare
intimates by this that, although Macbeth has not yet set eyes upon these
hags, the connection is already established between his soul and them.
Their spells have ahready wrought upon his blood."
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S6 MACBETH. ACT I.
Ban. How far is't call*d to Forres? — What are these
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not Hke th' inhabitants o' the Earth,
And yet are on't ? — Live you ? or are you aught
5 That man may question ? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips : you should be women.
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
Macb. Speak, if you can : what are you ?
10 J Witch. All hail, Macbeth 1 hail to thee, Thane of
Glamis !
2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth ! hail to thee. Thane of Caw-
dor !
3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter !
Ban. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair ? — I' the name of truth,
IS Are ye fantastical,^^ or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show ? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope.
That he seems rapt withal : ^^ to me you speak not :
1* That is, " Are ye imaginary beings, creatures oi fantasy f "
15 Here, again, tAat has the force of so that, — Present grace refers to
noble having, and great prediction to royal hope; and the Poet often uses
having for possession. A similar distribution of terms occurs a little after :
*' Who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate." — Macbeth 's rap-
ture or trance of thought on this occasion is deeply significant of his moral
predispositions. Coleridge remarks upon the passage as follows : " How
truly Shakespearian is the opening of Macbeth's character given in the
unpossessedness of Banquo's mind, wholly present to the present object ; an
unsullied, unscarified mirror! And how strictly true to nature it is that
Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our notice to the effect produced
on Macbeth's mind, rendered temptable by previous dalliance of the £ucy
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 57
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
5 J Witch. Hail I
2 Witch. Hail !
3 Witch. Hail I
1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier.
lo J Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
All Three. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo !
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail !
Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more :
By SinePs death I know I'm Thane of Glamis ;^^
15 But how of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman ; ^"^ and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief.
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe ^® this strange intelligence ; or why
with ambitious thoughts. Banquo*s questions are those of natural curiosity,
such as a girl would put after hearing a gipsy tell her school-fellow's fortune ;
—all perfectly general, or rather planless. But Macbeth, lost in thought,
raises himself to speech only by the witches being about to depart ; and all
that follows is reasoning on a problem already discussed in his mind, — on
a hope which he welcomes, and the doubts concerning the attainment of
which he wishes to have cleared up."
1* Macbeth was the son of Sinel, Thane of Glamis, so that this title was
rightfully his by inheritance.
17 We have a strange discrepancy here. In the preceding scene, Mac-
beth is said to have met Cawdor face to face in the ranks of Norway : he
must therefore have known him to be a rebel and traitor; yet he here
describes him in terms quite inconsistent with such knowledge.
18 To owe for to own, to have, to possess, occurs continually in Shake-
speare. The original form of the word was owen ; and the shortened form
of ffum finally carried the day against owe.
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58 MACBETH. ACT L
Upon this blasted heath you stop our ^ay
With such prophetic greeting : speak, I charge you.
[Witches vanish.
Ban, The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanished ?
5 Macb, Into the air ; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd !
Ban, Were such things here as we do speak about ?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner P^^
Macb. Your children shall be kings.
10 Ban, You shall be king.
Macb, And Thane of Cawdor too : went it not so ?
Ban. To th'^^ selfsame tune and words. Who's here?
Enter Ross and Angus.
Ross. The King hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success : and, when he reads
^ 5 Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight.
His wonders and his praises do contend
What should be thine or his : ^^ silenced with that,
19 " The insane root " is henbane or hemlock. So in Batman's Comment
tary on Bartholome de Proprietate Rerum : " Henbane is called insana, mad,
for the use thereof is perlUous ; for if it be eate or dronke it breedeth mad-
nesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is commonly called
mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason." And in Greene's Never too
Late : " You have gazed against the sun, and so blemished your sight, or
else you have eaten of the roots of hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit
unseen objects." — On and o/were used indifferently in such cases.
20 The Poet, especially in his later plays, very often thus elides Ihe, so as
to make it coalesce with the preceding word into one syllable. So he has
iy th\ for th\ from th\ and even the double elision wP th',
21 The meaning probably is, " His wonders and his praises are so earnest
and enthusiastic, that they seem to be debating or raising the question,
whether what is his ought not to be thine, — whether you ought not to be' in
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 59
In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,^^
Strange images of death. As thick as tale
5 Came post with post,^ and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And pour*d them down before him.
Angus, We are sent
To give thee, from our royal master, thanks ;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
lo Not pay thee.
Ross, 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 ?
15 Macb, The Thane of Cawdor lives : why do you dress me
In borrowed robes.
Angus. Who was the thane lives yet ;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
his place." Such a thought, or seeming thought, on the King's part, would
naturally act upon Macbeth as a further spur to his ambition. But that is
a thought which the King of course cannot breathe aloud ; it would be a
sort of treason to the State and to himself; he is silenced by it. See Critical
Notes.
22 That is, " not at all afraid of the death which you were dealing upon
the enemy." The Poet often uses nothing thus as a strong negative.
28 Meaning, " messengers came as fast as one can county The use of
thick for fast occurs repeatedly. So we have speaks thick used of one who
talks so fast that his words tread on each other's heels.— The Poet often has
to tell also for to count. And we still say " keep tally " for " keep count:*
So Milton in L Allegro : " And every shepherd tells his tale " ; that is, counts
the number oi his sheep, or to see whether the number is fulL
24 Here, as often, addition is title^ mark of distinctioH,
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6o MACBETH. ACT I.
With those of Norway, or did line^ the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He laboured in his country's wreck, I know not ;
But treasons capital, confessed and proved,
Have overthrown him.
5 Macb, \Aside^ Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor !
The greatest is behind. — \To Ross and Angus.] Thanks
for your pains. —
\Aside to Banquo.] Do you not hope your children shall be
kings.
When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
Promised no less to them ?
Ban, [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home,**
10 Might yet enkindle you unto the crown.
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange :
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm.
The instruments of darkness tell us truths ;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
15 In deepest consequence.^^ —
Cousins, a word, I pray you.
Macb, [Aside,"] Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.^ — I thank you, gentlemen. —
26 To line is to strengthen. The Poet has it repeatedly so.
26 Shakespeare often thus uses home fdr thoroughly or to the uttermost.
So in Measure for Measure, iv. 3 : " Accuse him home and home,'*
27 Betray' s for betray us. The Poet has many such contractions. — It is
nowise likely that Shakespeare was a reader of Livy ; yet we have here a
striking resemblance to a passage in that author, Book xxviii. 42, 4 : *' An
Syphaci Numidisque credis? satis sit semel creditum : non semper temeri-
tas est felix, tXjrausfidem in parvis sibi pnestruit ut, quum opera pretium sit,
cum mercede magna fallit,"
28 Happy is auspicious, like the LaXm felix; swelling is grand, imposing;
and cict is drama. Thus the image is of the stage, with an august drama
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 6 1
[^AstW^."] This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good : if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success.
Commencing in a truth ? I*m Thane of Cawdor :
5 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion ^
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature ? Present fears ^o
Are less than horrible imaginings :
lo My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical.
Shakes so my single state of man,3i that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.^^
Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt.
of kingly state to be performed : the inspiring prologfue has been spoken,
and the glorious action is about to commence.
29 The use of suggestion for temptation was common in the Poet's time.
— Macbeth construes the "prophetic greeting" into an instigation to mur-
der, and accepts it as such, though while doing so he shudders at the con-
ception.
w Fears for the objects of fear, dangers or terrors; the effect for the cause;
— a common figure of speech.
81 " My thought, though it is only of a murder in imagination or fantasy,
so disturbs my feeble manhood of reason." The Poet repeatedly uses single
thus for weak ox feeble.
«3 That IS, facts are lost sight of; he sees nothing but what is unreal, noth-
ing but the spectres of his own fancy. So, likewise, in the preceding clause :
the mind is crippled, disabled for its proper function or office by the appre-
hensions and surmises that throng upon him. Macbeth's conscience here
acts through his imagination, sets it all on fire, and he is terror-stricken, and
lost to the things before him, as the elements of evil within him gather and
£Eishion themselves into the wicked purpose. Of this wonderful development
of character Coleridge justly says : " So surely is the gfuilt in its germ ante-
rior to the supposed cause and immediate temptation." And again:
" Every word of his soliloquy shows the early birth-date of his guilt. Ho
wishes the end, but is irresolute as to the means ; conscience distinctly
warns him, and he lulls it imperfectly."
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62 MACBETH. ACT I.
Macb. \AsideI\ If chance will have me king, why, chance
may crown me,
Without my stir.
Ban, New honours come upon him,
like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.
Macb. \Aside^ Come what come may,
5 Time and the hour ^3 runs through the roughest day.
Ban, Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.^^
Macb, Give me your favour : my dull brain was wrought
With things forgotten.^^ Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are registered where every day I turn
10 The leaf to read them.^^ Let us toward the King. —
\Aside to Banquc] Think upon what hath chanced ; and at
more time.
The interim having weigh-d it, let us speak
Our free hearts ^7 each to other.
Ban. \Aside to Macbeth.] Very gladly.
Macb, \Aside to Banquc] Till then, enough. — Come,
friends. [Exeunt.
w " Time and the hour " is an old reduplicate phrase occurring repeat-
edly in the writers of Shakespeare's time. The Italians have one just like
it^ — il tempo e Vore, The sense of the passage is well explained by Heath :
" The advantage of time and of seizing the feivourable hour, whenever it
shall present itself, will enable me to make my way through all obstruction
and opposition. Every one knows the Spanish proverb, — 'Time and I
against any two.' "
84 " Stay upon your leisure" is stayy&ror await your leisure.
85 " Was exercised or absorbed in trying to recall forgotten things." A
pretext put forth to hide the true cause of his trance of guilty thought.
86 He means that he has noted them down on the tablets of his memoiy.
See Hamlet, page 8$, notes 20 and 21.
87 " Speak oxkT/ree hearts " is speak our hearts^^d^.
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SCENE IV. MACBETH. 63
Scene IV. — Forres. A Room in the Palace,
Flourish, Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox,
and Attendants.
Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor ? Are not
Those in commission yet returned ?
MaL My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die ; who did report
5 That very frankly he confessed his treasons.
Implored 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 death ^
10 To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As 'twere a careless trifle.^
Dun. There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face :
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.^ —
Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.
O worthiest cousin !
15 The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me : thou'rt so far before,
1 That is, well instructed in the art of d)ring.
2 " A careless trifle " is a trifle not worth caring for. Here as stands for
as if. Often so.
8 Duncan's childlike spirit makes a moment's pause of wonder at the act
of treachery, and then flings itself, like Gloster in King Lear, with still
more absolute trust and still more want of reflection, into the toils of a far
deeper and darker treason. — MOBERLY,
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64 MACBETH. ACT I.
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 IVe left to say,
5 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 ;^
10 Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour."^
Dun, Welcome hither :
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. — Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
' 5 No less to have done so, let me infold thee.
And hold thee to my heart.
Ban, There if I grow.
The harvest is your own.
Dun. My plenteous joys.
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
* The meaning is, " too slow to overtake thee."
5 " That my return of thanks and payment might have been proportionable
to thy deserts, or in due proportion with them."
6 Duties is here put, apparently, for the faculties and labours of duty ;
the meaning being, " All our works and forces of duty are children and ser-
vants to your throne and state." Hypocrisy and hyperbole are apt to go
together ; and so here Macbeth overacts the part of loyalty, and tries how
high he can strain up his expression of it. We have a parallel instance in
Goneril and Regan's finely-worded professions of love. Such high-pressure
rhetoric is the right vernacular of hollowness.
' I am not quite clear whether this means " With a firm and sure purpose
to have you loved and honoured," or, " So as to merit and secure love and
honour fi-om you." Perhaps both ; as the Poet is fond of condensing two
or more meanings into one expression.
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SCENE IV. MACBETH. 65
In drops of sorrow.® — Son$, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm ; whom we name hereafter
5 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.
lo Macb. The rest is labour, 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. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! that is
a step
^5 On which I must fall down, or else overleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars , hide your fires /^^
Let not light see my black and deep desires :
8 The gentle and amiable sovereign means that his joys swell up so high
as to overflow in tears. The Poet has several like expressions.
• So in Holinshed : " Duncan, having two sons, 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,
began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having
a just quarrel so lO 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." Cumberland was
then held in fief of the English crown.
w Which refers to rest, not to labour, " Even the repose, which is not
taken for your sake, is a labour to me."
11 We are not to understand from this that the present scene takes place
in the night. Macbeth is evidently contemplating night as the time when
the murder is to be done, and his appeal to the stars has reference to that.
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66 MACBETH. ACT 1.
The eye wink ^^ at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye/ears, when it is done^ to see, [Exit.
Dun. True^ worthy Banquo :^^ he is full so valiant^
And in his commendations I am fed;
5 // is a banqnet to me. Let's after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome :
It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt.
Scene V. — Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle.
Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.
Lady M. [Reads.] They met me in the day of success ;
and I have learned by the perfec test report^ they have more in
^o them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to
question them furthery they made themselves air^ into which
they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came
missives ^from the King, who all-haitd me Thane of Caw-
dor ; by which title , before , these Weird Sisters saluted me,
«5 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 mightst not lose the
dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is prom-
ised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.
2o 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 :
M •• Let the eye wink " is the meaning. Wtnk at is encourage or prompt.
w During Macbeth's last speech Duncan and Banquo were conversing
apart, he being the subject of their talk. The beginning of Duncan's speech
refers to something Banquo has said in praise of Macbeth.
1 Missives for messengers. So in Antofty and Cleopatra, ii. a; "And
with taunts did gibe my missive out of audience."
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SCENE V. MACBETH. 67
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness 2 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,
5 That which cries. Thus thou must do? if thou have it. —
An act which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear.
And chdstise with the valour of my tongue
10 All that impedes thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysical^ aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal. —
Enter a Messenger.
What is your tidings ?
Mess, The King comes here to-night.
Lady M- Thou'rt mad to say it :
Is not thy master with him ? who, were't so,
15 Would have informed for preparation.
Mess, 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
s Illness in the sense, not only of wickedness, but of remorselessness or
hardness of heart, — " Macbeth," says Coleridge, " is described by Lady Mac-
beth so as at the same time to reveal her own character. Could he have
every thing he wanted, he would rather have it innocently; — ignorant, as,
alas, how many of us are ! that he who wishes a temporal end for itself does
in truth will the means ; and hence the danger of indulging fancies."
8 Editors differ a good deal as to how much is here uttered by the voice
which Lady Macbeth imagines speaking to her husband. See Critical
Notes.
* Metaphysical for supernatural. So in Florio's World of Words, 1598 :
" Metafisico, one that professeth things supematurall." And in Minsheu's
Spanish Dictionary, 1599 : " Metafisica, things supematurall, metaphisickes.**
— For the use of seem^ see page 5a, note 16.
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68 MACBETH. ACT I.
Than would make up his message.
Lady M. Give him tending ;
He brings great news. — [Exit Messenger.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance ^ of Duncan
Under my battlements. — Come, you spirits
5 That tend on mortal® thoughts, unsex me here ;
And fill me from the crown to th' toe top-full
Of direst cruelty 1 make thick my blood ;