Stop up th* access and passage to remorse,^
That no compunctious visitings of nature
10 Shake my fell purpose, nor break peace between
The effect and it !® Come to my woman's breasts.
And take my milk for gall,^ you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
5 Meaning, probably, the raven has made himself hoarse with croaking^ or "
has croaked so loud and long as to become hoarse, over the fatal entrance,
&c. The figure of speech called prolepsis, Shakespeare has other allu-
sions to the ominousness of the raven's croak ; as he also has many such
proleptical, or anticipative, expressions.
« Mortal and deadly were synonymous in Shakespeare's time. Later in
this play we have " the mortal sword," and " mortal gashes." — The spirits
here addressed are thus described in Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse : " 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, and all manner of cruelties."
7 Remorse here means pity, the relentings of compassion; as it generally
does in the writings of Shakespeare's time.',
8 Peace is of course broken between the effect and the purpose when the
two stand in conflict or at odds with each other ; that is, when the purpose
remains unexecuted. See Critical Notes.
* " Take away my milk, and give me gall instead," is probably the mean-
ing. In her fiery thirst of power, Lady Macbeth feels that her woman's
heart is unequal to the calls of her ambition, and she would £un exchange
her " milk of human kindness," for a fiercer infusion.
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SCENE V. MACBETH. 69
You wait on Nature's mischief ! Come, thick night,
And pall thee 1^ 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,!^
To cry Hold, hold I —
Enter Macbeth.
Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor !
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter !
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.^^
Macb. My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady M. And when goes hence?
Macb, To-morrow, — as he purposes.
Lady M, O, never
Shall Sun that morrow see !
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters : to beguile the time,
10 " Thick night " is explained by " light thickens*' later in the play. We
still have the phrase " /yi/^yJ darkness." — To pall is to robe, to shroud, to
wrap : from the Latin pallium, a cloak or mantle.
11 The metaphor of darkness being a blanket wrapped round the world,
so as to keep the Divine Eye from seeing the deed which Lady Macbeth
longs and expects to have done, is just such a one as it was fitting for the
boldest of poets to put into the mouth of the boldest of women. The old
poets, however, were rather fond of representing night in some such way.
So in Romeo and yuliet, iii. 2 '. " Spread thy close curtain, love-performing
night." Also in The Faerie Queene, i. 4, 44 : " Now whenas darksome night
had all displayd her coleblacke curtein over brightest skye." And in Mil-
ton's Ode on the Passion : " Befriend me, night ; over the pole thy thickest
mantle throw."
12 Instant in the Latin sense of instans; that which is pressing. The
enthusiasm of her newly-kindled expectation quickens the dull present with
the spirit of the future, and gives to hope the life and substance of fruition.
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70 MACBETH. ACT L
Look like the time ; ^^ bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for : and you shall put
5 This night's great business into my dispatch ;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Macb, We will speak further.
Lady M. Only look up clear;
To alter favour^^ ever is to fear :
to Leave all the rest to me. \Exeunt.
Scene VI. — The Same, Before Macbeth's Castle.
Hautboys and torches. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donal-
BAiN, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus, and
Attendants.
Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.^
Ban. The guest of Summer,
18 Time is here put for its contents, or what occurs in time. It is a time
of full-hearted welcome and hospitality ; and such are the looks which Mac-
beth is urged to counterfeit.
14 Favour is countenance. — Lady Macbeth is here mad, or inspired, with
a kind of extemporized ferocity, so that she feels herself able to perform
without flinching the crime she has conceived, if her husband will only keep
his face from telling any tales of their purpose. As Coleridge says, " hers
is the mock fortitude of a mind deluded by ambition : she shames her hus-
band with a superhuman audacity of fancy which she cannot support, but
sinks in the season of remorse, and dies in suicidal agony."
1 That is, " The air, by its purity and sweetness, attempers our senses to
its own state, and so makes them gentle, or sweetens them into gentleness.'*
Another proleptical form of speech. See page 68, note 5.
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SCENE VI. MACBETH. 7 1
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,^
By his loved mansionry, that the heavens* breath
Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage,^ but this bird
5 Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle :
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
The air is delicate."* —
Enter Lady Macbeth.
Dun, See, see, our honoured hostess 1 —
The love that follows us sometime ^ is our trouble.
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
lo How you shall bid God *ield us^ for your pains
And thank us for your trouble.
Lady M, All our service
In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single '^ business, to contend
2 Approve in the sense of prove simply, or make evident,
* " Coigne of vantage " is a convenient nook or comer ; coigfie being a
comer-stone at the exterior angle of a building. So in Coriolanus^ v. 4 :
•* See you yond coigne o' the Capital, — yond comer-stone? "
* The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so
necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes,
and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds.
This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who, from the midst of bat-
tles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introduc-
ing some quiet rural image or picture of feimiliar domestic life. — Sir J.
Reynolds.
^ Sometime and sometimes were used indiscriminately.
* ** God yield us," that is, reward us. The Poet has yield or *ield repeat-
edly so. — To bid is here used in its old sense of to pray. So to bid the
beads is to pray through the rosary. See Richard the Second, page 103,
note II. — The kind-hearted monarch means that his love is what puts him
upon troubling them thus, and therefore they will be grateful for the pains
he causes them.
T Here, again, too is understood before poor. Single, again, also, in the
sense of weak or small. See page 61, note 31, and page 64, note 4.
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72 MACBETH. ACT I.
Against ® those honours deep and broad wherewith
Your Majesty loads our House ; for those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to^ them,
We rest your hermits.^®
Dun, Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
5 We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his piirveyor : ^^ but he rides well ;
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp ^^ him
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest to-night.
Lady M. Your servants ever
10 Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,^^
To make their audit at your Highness* pleasure.
Still to return your own.
Dun. Give me your hand ;
Conduct me to mine host : we love him highly,
And shall continue our graces towards him.
15 By your leave, hostess.^^ \^Exeunt
8 " To contend against " here means to vie with, to counterpoise or match,
• Here, as often, to has the force of in addition to,
1® That is," We remain as hermits or beadsmen to pray for you." — Here,
again, I quote from Coleridge: "The lyrical movement with which this
scene opens, and the free and unengaged mind of Banquo, loving Nature,
and rewarded in the love itself, form a highly dramatic contrast with the
laboured rhythm and hypocritical over-much of Lady Macbeth's welcome,
in which you cannot detect a ray of personal feeling, but all is thrown upon
the dignities, the general duty."
11 Purveyor is, properly, one sent before, to provide food and drink for
some person or party that is to follow.
12 Holp is the old preterite of help. So in The Psaltet, generally.
1' " Theirs, and what is theirs," means their kindred and dependants, and
wAfl/«/^r belongs to them as property, — In compt is ready to answer, subject
to account or reckoning. So in Othello, v. 2: "When we shall meet at
compt, this look of thine will hurl my soul from Heaven, and fiends will
snatch at it" : at compt for the day of reckoning, or the Judgment-day.
14 " By your leave " is probably meant as a respectful prologue to a kiss.
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SCENE VIL MACBETH. 73
Scene VII. — The Same. Macbeth's Castle,
Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer/ and divers Servants
with dishes and service^ and pass over the stage. Then
enter Macbeth.
Macb, If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly : ^ if th* assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success ; ^ that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here.
But here, upon this bank arid shoal of time,
We'd jump^ the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here ; that^ we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
1 An officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. From
the French essayeur, used of one who tasted each dish to show that there
was no poison in the food.
2 " If all were done when the murder is done, or if the mere doing of the
deed were sure to finish the matter, then the quicker it were done the bet-
ter." He then goes on to amplify and intensify the same thought in other
language : " If the murdering of Duncan could be secure against all after-
claps," *&c.
* That is, if the assassination could foreclose or shut off all sequent
issues, and end with itself. His for its, referring to assassination. So his
was continually used. See Hamlet, page 47, note 8. — To trammel up is to
entangle as in a net. So Spenser has the noun in The Faerie Queene, iii.
9, 20* " Her golden locks, that were in tramells gay upbounden." — Surcease
is, properly, a legal term, meaning the arrest or stay of a suit. So in Ba-
con's essay Of Church Controversies: " It is more than time that there were
an end and surcease made of this immodest and deformed manner of writ-
ing," &c. — Here, as often, success probably has the sense of sequel, succes-
sion, or succeeding events. So that to catch success is to arrest and stop off
all further outcome, or all entail of danger.
* To Jump is to risk, to hazard. Repeatedly so.
6 That, in old English, often has the force of since or inasmuch as.
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74 MACBETH. ACT I.
To plague th* inventor : this even-handed justice
Commends th* ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust :
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
5 Strong both against the deed ; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties ^ so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
10 Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off ;
And pity, like a naked new-bom babe
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers^ of the air,
15 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,®
And falls on th* other side. —
Enter Lady Macbeth.
How now ! what news ?
Lady M, He has almost supp'd : why have you left the
20 chamber ?
Macb, Hath he ask'd for me ?
« Faculties in an official sense ; honours, dignities, prerogatives, whatever
pertains to his regal seat
7 " Sightless couriers of the air " means the same as what the Poet else-
where calls "the viewless winds." — The metaphor of tears drowning the
wind is taken from what we sometimes see in a thunder-shower ; which is
ushered in by a high wind ; but when the rain gets to felling hard, the wind
presently subsides, as if strangled by the water.
8 Self\\^xt^ stands for aim or purpose ; as we often say such a one overshot
himself ^ that is, overshot his mark or aim.
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SCENE VII. MACBETH. 75
Lady M. Know you not he has ?
Macb. We will proceed no further in this business :
He hath honoured me of late ; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
5 Which would ^ be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Lady M, Was the hope drunk
Wherein you 'dressed yourself? ^^ hath it slept since ?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely ? From this time
10 Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire ? Wouldst thou lack that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
1 5 Letting / dare not wait upon / would.
Like the poor cat i* the adage ? ^^
Macb, Pr'ythee, peace :
I dare do all that may become a man ;
Who dares do more is none.
8 Would for should. The two were often used indiscriminately.
10 Every student of Shakespeare knows that he often uses to address for
to make ready or to prepare. And he repeatedly has the shortened form
W/ifw in the same sense. So in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3: "As he being
* dress* d to some oration." From oversight of this, some strange comments
have been made upon the present passage, as if it meant that Macbeth had
put on hope as a dress. The meaning I take to be something thus : " Was
it a drunken man's hope, in the strength of which you made yourself ready
for the killing of Duncan ? and does that hope now wake from its drunken
sleep, to shudder and turn pale at the preparation which it made so freely?"
In accordance with this explanation, the Lady's next speech shows that at
some former time Macbeth had been, or had fancied himself, ready to make
an opportunity for the murder.
11 The adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs^ 1566: **The cat
would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete."
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76 MACBETH. ACT I.
Lady M. What beast '^ was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me ?
When you durst do it, then you were a man ;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
5 Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere,^^ and yet you would make both :
They've made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. IVe given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me :
10 I would, while it was smiling in my face.
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.^^
Macb. If we should fail, —
Lady M, We fail.^^
But, screw your courage to the sticking-place,^^
12 The word beast is exceedingly well chosen here : it conveys a stinging
allusion to what Macbeth has just said : " If you dare do all that may be-
come a man, then what beast \i2& it that put this enterprise into your head ? "
See Critical Notes.
18 Adhere in the sense of cohere ; that is, agree or consist with the pur-
pose. — This passage seems to infer that the murdering of Duncan had
been a theme of conversation between Macbeth and his wife long before
the weird salutation. He was then for making a time and place for the
deed ; yet, now that they have made themselves to his hand, he is unmanned
by them.
1* In reference to this most appalling speech, see the Introduction, page 36.
15 The sense of this much-disputed passage I take to be simply this : " If
we should feiil, why, then, to be sure, we feiil, and it is all over with us." So
long as there is any hope or prospect of success, Lady Macbeth is for going
ahead ; and she has a mind to risk all and lose all, rather than let slip any
chance of being queen. And why should she not be as ready to jump the
present life in such a cause as her husband is to "jump the life to come" ?
See Critical Notes.
18 A metaphor from screwing up the cords of stringed instruments to
the proper tension, when the peg remains £oist in its sticking-place.
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SCENE VII. MACBETH. 77
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 wassail so convince,^^
5 That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only : ^^ when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death.
What cannot you and I perform upon
10 Th' unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy ^^ officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell ?20
Macb. Bring forth men-children only ;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
15 When we have marked with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers.
That they have done't ?
" To convince is to overcome or subdue, — Wassail is an old word for
quaffing, carousing, or drinking to one's health; meaning literally, be of
health.
18 The language and imagery of this strange passage are borrowed from
the distillery, as it was in Shakespeare's time. Limbeck is alembic, the cap
of a still, into which the fumes rise before passing into the condenser. Re-
ceipt is receptacle, or receiver. The old anatomists divided the brain into
three ventricles, in the hindmost of which, the cerebellum, the memory was
posted like a keeper ox sentinel to warn the reason against attack. When
by intoxication the memory is converted to a fume, the sphere of reason
will be so filled therewith as to be like the receiver of a still ; and in this
state of the man all sense or intelligence of what has happened will be suf-
focated. Such appears to be the meaning of the passage ; which is feir
from being a felicitous one. The Poet elsewhere uses fume thus ; as in
Antony and CleopcUra, ii. i : " Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, keep
his bndn filming"
W Spongy because they soak up so much liquor.
^ Quell is murder; from the Saxon guellan, to kill.
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78 MACBETH. ACT IL
Lady M. Who dares receive it other,^^
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
Macb. Vm settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show :
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
[Exeunt
ACT II.
Scene I. — Inverness. Court of Macbeth's Castle,
Enter Banquo, and Fleance bearing a torch before him.
Ban, How goes the night, boy?
Flea, The Moon is down ; I have not heard the clock.
Ban, And she -goes down at twelve.
Flea, I take*t, 'tis lat'er, sir.
Ban, Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in
Heaven ; ^
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep. — Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose I^ —
21 That is, "Who will dare to understand it otherwise f" — As is here
equivalent to since or seeing that,
1 The heavens are economizing their light. Frugality or economy is one
of the old senses of husbandry. Heaven is here a collective noun.
2 It appears afterwards that Banquo has been dreaming of the Weird
Sisters. He understands full well how their greeting may act as an incen-
tive to crime, and shrinks with pious horror from the p>oison of such evil
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 79
Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.
Give me my sword. —
Who's there ?
Macb, A friend.
Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest ? The King's a-bed :
5 He hath been in unusual pleasure, and
Sent forth great largess to your officers : ^
This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By th* name of most kind hostess ; and shut up *
In measureless content.
Macb, Being unprepared,
lo Our will became the servant to defect ; ^
Which else should free have wrought.
Ban. AlPs well.
I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters :
To you they've show'd some truth.
Macb. I think not of them :
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
IS We'd spend it in some words upon that business.
If you would grant the time.
suggestions, and seeks refuge in prayer from the invjrsion of guilty thoughts
even in his sleep. Herein his character stands in marked contrast with
that of Macbeth, whose mind is inviting wicked thoughts, and catching
eagerly at temptation, and revolving how he may work the guilty sugges-
tions through into act.
* Officers are those having in charge the various branches of household
work, such as cook, butler, &c.; as the several rooms used for those
branches were called offices.
* Shut up probably means composed himself to rest. The phrase may be
a little quaint ; but I think it well expresses the act of closing one's mind to
the cares and interests of the world.
* A man may be said to be the servant of that which he cannot help :
and Macbeth means that his will would have made ampler preparation, but
that it was fettered by want of time.
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8o MACBETH. . ACT II.
Ban. At your kindest leisure.
Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent,^ when 'tis,
It shall make honour for you.
Ban. So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
5 My bosom franchise d, and allegiance clear,
I shall be counselFd.
Macb. Good repose the while !
Ban, Thanks, sir : the like to you !
{^Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.
Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready.
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. — [^jc/V Servant,
lo Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight ? or art thou but
15 A dagger of the mind, a false creation.
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw :
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going ;
20 And such an instrument I was to use. —
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses.
Or else worth all the rest."^ I see thee still ;
8 Meaning, apparently, " If you will stick to my side, to what has my
consent; if you will tie yourself to my fortunes and counsel."
7 Senses is here used with a double reference, to the bodily organs of
sense and the inward faculties of the mind. Either his eyes are deceived
by his imaginative forces in being made to see that which is not, or else his
other senses are at &ult in not being able to find the reality which his eyes
behold. — Dudgeon, next line, is the handle or haft of the dagger: gouis is
drops ; from the French gouUes,
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 8 1
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. — There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. — Now o'er the one half world
5 Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings ; ® and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch,^ thus with his stealthy pace,
lo With Tarquin's ravishing strides,*^ towards his design
Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth.
Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,^^
And take the present horror from the time,
15 Which now suits with it.^^ — WTiiies I threat he lives :
Words to the heat of deeds too cool breath gives.
[A bell rings.
B That is, makes offerings or sacrifices to Hecate, who was the Que6n of
Hades, the patroness of all infernal arts, and of course the mistress of all