strangled by an owV,* and that " horses of singular beauty and swiftness did
eat their ownfieshy
* Suborned is a technical term in law for bribed or hired. So we have the
phrases ** suborn felse witnesses," and *^ subornation of perjury."
* To ravin up is to consume or devour ravenously. The Poet elsewhere
has ravin dovm in exactly the same sense.
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96 MACBETH. ACT II.
Macd, He is already named, and gone to Scone
To be invested.
Ross, Where is Duncan's body?
Macd. Carried to Colme-kill,^
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
And guardian of their bones.
Ross, Will you to Scone ?
Macd. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
Ross. Well, I will thither.''
Macd. Well, may you see things well done there ; adieu f
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new I^
Ross. Farewell, father.
> Old M. God's benison ^ go with you, and with those
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes /
. [Exeunt.
• Colme-kill is the femous lona, one of the Western Isles mentioned by
Holinshed as the burial-place of many ancient kings of Scotland. Colme-
kill means the cell or chapel of St. Columba. The place was visited by
Dr. Johnson during his tour in Scotland, and drew from him the following
memorable passage : " We were now treading that illustrious island which
was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and
roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of
religion. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as
may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been
dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied
whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or
whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona."
7 Tliat is, " I will go to Scone"
8 This latter clause logically connects with " see things well done there" ;
adieu/ being awkwardly thrust in for a rhyming couplet.
8 Benison is blessing, and is used whenever the verse requires a trisylla-
ble. The opposite sense was es^ressed by malison.
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«CENR I. MACBETH. 97
ACT III.
Scene I. — Forres. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Banquo.
Ban. Thou hast it now, — king, Cawdor, Glamis, all
As the Weird Women promised ; and I fear
Thou play'dst most foully for*t : yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity ;
5 But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them, —
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,^ —
Why, by the verities on thee made good.
May they not be my oracles as well,
lo And set me up in hope ? But, hush ! no more.
Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth, as King ; Lady Macbeth,
as Queen ; Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.
Macb. Here's our chief guest.
Lady M. If he had been forgotten.
It had been as a gap in our great feast.
And all things unbecoming.^
Macb. To-night we hold a solemn supper,^ sir.
And I'll request your presence.
1 Their speeches prosper, or appear in the lustre of manifest truth ; a con-
spicuous instance, to warrant belief in their predictions.
* That is, such an oversight would have disordered the whole feast, and
rendered all things unfitting and discordant.
« This was the phrase of Shakespeare's time for a feast or banquet given
on a particular occasion, to solemnize any event, as a birth, marriage, coro-
nation.
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98 MACBETH. ACT in.
Ban, Lay your Highness'
Command upon me ; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit.
Macb. Ride you this afternoon?
5 Ban, Ay, my good lord.
Macb. We should have else desired your good advice —
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous —
In this day's Council ; but we'll take to-morrow.
Is't far you ride ?
10 Ban. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
Twixt this and supper : go not my horse the better,^
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
Macb, Fail not our feast.
Ban. My lord, I will not.
15 Macb. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd
In England and in Ireland ; not confessing
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
With strange invention : but of that to-morrow ;
When, therewithal, we shall have cause of State
20 Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse : adieu,
Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
Ban. Ay, my good lord : our time does call upon's.
Macb. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot ;
And so I do commend you to their backs.
25 Farewell. — [-fi'jr/V Banquo.
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night : to make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
* Probably meaning, " Ifv[iy horse go not better than usualj^
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 99
Till supper-time alone : while then, God b* wi* you ! ^ —
{^Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant.
Sirrah, a word with you : attend those men
Our pleasure ?
Atten, They are, my lord, without the palace-gate.
Macb. Bring them before us. — [^Exit Attendant.
5 To be thus is nothing.
But to be safely thus.^ Our fears in ^ Banquo
Stick deep ; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would ® be fear*d : 'tis much he dares ;
And, to ^ that dauntless temper of his mind,
lo He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear : and under him
My Genius is rebuked ; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar's.^® He chid the Sisters,
15 When first they put the name of king upon me,
* " God be with you " is the original of our phrase good by,- and the text
here aptly illustrates the process of the contraction : God be with you, God
b* wi' you, God by you, good by. — WhiU here means until; a sense in
which it was often used. See King Richard the Second, page 57, note 13.
And even in Defoe's Colonel Jack : " I could not rest night or day while I
made the people easy from whom the things were taken."
« That is, "nothing, without being safely thus," or, "unless toe be safely
thus." The exceptive but^ from be out, is used repeatedly so by the Poet.
See Hamlet, page^68, note 3.
7 Here in has the force of on account of. So in Julius Ctssar, ii. i :
** There is no fear in him ; let him not die." Spoken upon the question of
putting Antony to death along with Caesar.
8 Would, again, for should. See page 75, note 9. — " Royalty of nature "
is roycU or noble nature. The Poet has many like forms of expression. See
Hamlet, page 61, note 24.
^ To, again, for in addition to. See page 7a, note 9.
10 Octavius Caesar is the person referred to. In Antony and Cleopatra^
ii. '^, genius is explained by the words demon, angel, and "thy spirit which
keeps thee."
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lOO MACBETH. ACT III.
And bade them speak to him ; then, prophet-like,
They hail'd him father to a line of kings :
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre iif my gripe,
5 Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand.
No son of mine succeeding. Ift be so,
For Banquo's issue have I filed ** my mind ;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd ;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peafce
lo Only for them ; and mine eternal jewel ^^
Given to the common enemy of man.
To make them kin^, the seed of Banquo kings !
Rather than so, come, fate, into the list.
And champion me to th* utterance ! ^^ — Who's there ? —
Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers.
15 Now go to th' door, and stay there till we call. —
{Exit Attendant
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
I Mur, It was, so please your Highness.
Macb, Well then, now
Have you considered of my speeches ? Know
II File for defile. So in Wilkins's Inforced Marriage: "Oaths are nec-
essary for nothing ; they pass out of a man's mouth like smoke through a
chimney, that files all the way it goes." Foul and fiUk ^e from the same
original.
12 " Eternal jewel " is immortal saul. So in Othello^ iii. 3 : "Or, by the
worth of man's eternal soul."
18 Champion me is be my antagonist, or fight it out with me in single com-
bat; the only instance I have met with oi champion so used. — To th* utter-
ance is to the uttermost, or to the last extremity. So in Cotgrave: ^'Com-
batre a oultrance : — To fight at sharp, to fight it out, or to the uttermost."
So that the sense of the passage is, " Let Fate, that has decreed the throne
to Banquo's issue, enter the lists in support of its own decrees, I will fight
against it to the last extremity, whatever be the consequence."
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SCENE I. . MACBETH. lOl
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune ; which ^ou thought had been
Our innocent self : this I made good to you
In our last conference, passed in probation ^^
5 With you, how you were borne in hand ; ^^ how crossed ;
The instruments ; who wrought with them ;
And all things else that might to half a soul
And to a notion ^^ crazed say TAus did Banquo,
I Mur. You made it known to us.
'0 Macb, I did so ; and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature,
That you can let this go ? Are you so gospell*d,
To pray ^^ for this good man and for his issue,
>5 Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave.
And beggar'd yours for ever !
I Mur. We are men, my liege.
Macb, Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ;
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi- wolves, are clept *®
20 All by the name of dogs : the valued file ^^
1* Probation here means /fw^ or rather the act of proving,
16 To bear in hand is to encourage or tead on by false assurances and
expectations. So used several times by the Poet. — In what follows, crossed
is thwarted or bajled ; instruments is agents; and the general idea is, that
Banquo has managed to hold up their ho^es,. while secretly preventing frui-
tion ; thus using them as tools, and cheating them dut of their pay.
l« Notion for understanding or judgment. Repeatedly so.
1' Alluding to the Gospel precept, " Pray for them which despitefully use
you." " So gospell'd as to pray," of course.
18 Shoughs are shaggy dogs : now called shocks. — Clept is an old word
for called, Shakespeare has it repeatedly so.
19 •• The valued file " is the list or schedule wherein their value and pe-
culiar qualities are discriminated and set down.
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tOi MACBETH. ACT III.
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous Nature
Hath in him closed ; whereby he does receive
5 Particular addition,^® from the bill
That writes them all alike : and so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
And not i' the worser rank of manhood, say*t ;
And I will put that business in your bosoms,
lo Whose execution takes your enemy off;
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
2 Mur, I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
15 Have so incensed, that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
/ Mur. And I another
So wearied with disasters, tugg'd with fortune.
That I would set my life on any chance.
To mend it, or be rid on*t.
Macb, Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
20 Both Mur, True, my lord.
Macb, So is he mine ; and in such bloody distance,^^
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my nearest of life : and though I could
20 Addition, again, for title or note of distinction. See page 59, note 24.
21 Distance here carries the sense of degree or measure. It is a term of
fencing for the space between two antagonists. When men are in a hot
mortal encounter with swords, they stand at just the right distance apart for
the bloodiest strokes or thrusts. Hence the word came to be used for enmiiy
in general.
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 103
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight,
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For 22 certain friends that are both his and mine.
Whose loves I may not drop ; but wail his fall ^3
S Who I myself struck down : and thence it is,
That I to your assistance do make love ;
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.
2 Mur, We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.
I Mur, Though our lives —
Macb. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour
10 at most,
I will advise you where to plant yourselves ;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o* the time,^^
The moment on't ; for*t must be done to-night.
And something from the palace : always thought
15 That I require a clearness.^^ And, with him, —
To leave no rubs ^^ nor botches in the work, —
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
20 Of that daik hour. Resolve yourselves apart :
1*11 come to you anon.
23 ForS& here because of, or on account of. Repeatedly so.
** The language is elliptical ; the sense being " but / must wail."
^ Will furnish you with an exact and sure note or signal of the time when
to strike ; which is probably done by or through the third murderer, who
joins them just before the murder is done. The success of the undertaking
depends on the assault being rightly timed. So that " the perfect spy of the
time " is the sure means of spying or knowing the time.
26 That is, " it being always borne in mind that I must stand clear of
blame or suspicion."
2« Rubs is hindrances or impediments. See Hdmlet, page 127, note 7.
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I04 MACBETH. ACT ill.
Both Mur. We are resolved, my lord.
Macb, ril call upon you straight :^ abide within. —
\Exeunt Murderers.
It is concluded : Banquo, thy soul's flight,
If it find Heaven, must find it out to-night. \^Exit.
Scene II. — The Same, Another Room.
Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.
5 Lady M. Is Banquo gone fi*om Court ?
Serv. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
Lady M, Say to the King, I would attend his leisure '
For a few words. .
Serv. Madam, I will. [^Exit,
Lady M, Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content ;
10 Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy. —
27 straight for straightway, presently. So the word was often used in all
sorts of writing, verse and prose. See Hamlet , page 199, note i.
1 *• Attend his leisure " is wait for him to be at leisure. — Heraud's Inmr
Life of Shakespeare has a passage that may not unfitly come in here : " Lady
Macbeth is not demonstratively imaginative. She therefore neither sees
witches, airy daggers, nor ghosts, and ridicules the two latter as phantoms.
And it is her provisional freedom from such imaginary terrors which makes
her superior to her husband in the first instance. No sooner, however, is
the crime committed than the feelings, which are latent even in apparently
the most insensate natures, are awakened by the act ; and the £uicies which
till then had slept begin to haunt the guilty woman, and to kindle the same
remorse after the act which her husband had felt before it. She has now
become * brainsickly,' and retires apart ' of sorriest fencies her companions
making ' ; while Macbeth, restored to his normal state of consciousness, is
busy with the murderers planning the death of Banquo. . Yet, judging of
his condition by her own, she charges him with affecting loneliness, and
' using those thoughts which should indeed have died with them they think
on.' "
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SCENE II. MACBETH. • 105
Enter Macbeth.
How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making ;
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on ? Things without ^ all remedy
5 Should be without regard : what's done is done.
Macb, We have but scotched ^ the snake, not kilPd it :
She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let
The frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
10 Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly : ^ better be with the dead.
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
15 In restless ecstasy.^ Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;
Treason has done his worst ; nor steel, nor poison,
2 Without, here, is beyond. Often so. In The Tempest, v. i, the witch
Sycorax is described as " one so strong, that could control the Moon, and
deal in her command without her power."
• Scotch d is scored or cut. So in Coriolanus, iv. 5 : " Before Corioli he
scotch* d and notch' d him like a carbonado."
^ What " these terrible dreams " are, is shown in Lady Macbeth's sleep-
walking agonies. It is of her state of mind, not of his own, that Macbeth is
here thinking. I quote again from Professor Dowden : " No witches have
given her ' hail * ; no airy dagger marshals her the way she is going ; nor is
she afterwards haunted by the terrible vision of Banquo's gory head. As
long as her will remains her own she can throw herself upon external
facts, and maintain herself in relation with the definite, actual surroundings ;
it is in her sleep,- when the will is incapable of action, that she is persecuted
by the past which perpetually renews itself, not in ghostly shapes, but by the
imagined recurrence of real and terrible incidents."
* Ecstasy, in its general sense, is any violent perturbation of mind.
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I06 MACBETH. ACT UL
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing.
Can touch him further.
Lady M. Come on ; gentle my lord,^
Sleek o'er your rugged looks ; be bright and jovial
Among your guests to-night.
Macb, So shall I, love ;
And so, I pray, be you : let your remembrance
Apply ^ to Banquo ; present him eminence, both
With eye and tongue : ^ unsafe the while, that we
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams ; ^
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
Lady M, You must leave this.
Macb. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife !
Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance live.*®
6 We should say ** my gentle lord." The Poet abounds in such inver-
sions. " Good my lord," " dread my lord," " dear my brother," " sweet my
sister," and " gracious my lord," are instances.
7 Here apply has the force oi attach itself. So in Antony and Cleopatra^
V. 2 : " If you apply yourself to our intents, — which towards you are most
gentle, — you shall find a benefit in this change."
8 " Treat him with the highest consideration, or as the most eminent of
our guests." Rather strange language, and not very happy withal ; but
such appears to be the meaning. — Is this a piece of irony? or is it meant as
a blind, to keep his wife ignorant and innocent of the new crime on foot?
I suspect he is trying to jest off the pangs of remorse.
9 Flattering streams is streams of flattery. The meaning is, " The very
fact of our being obliged thus to use the arts of hypocrisy and dissimulation
proves that we are not safe in our seats, not secure in the tenure of our
honours : we can retain them only by making our life, even in social inter-
course, a studied, continuous lie."
10 Macbeth mistranslates the recoilings and ominous whispers of con-
science into prudential and selfish reasonings, and, after the deed is done,
the terrors of remorse into fear from external dangers ; like delirious men
who run away from the phantoms of their own brains^ or, raised by terror
to rage, stab the real object that is within their reach. — Coleridge.
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SCENE 11. MACBETH. 107
Lady M. But in them nature's copy's not eteme.^^
Macb. There's comfort yet ; they are assailable ;
Then be thou jocund : ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd ^^ flight ; ere, to black Hecate's summons,
5 The shard-borne beetle ^^ with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
Lady M, What's to be done ?
Macb, Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. — Come, seeling ^^ night,
10 Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me paled \^^ — Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th' rooky wood : ^^
11 Ritson has justly observed that nature's copy alludes to copyhold tenure ;
in which the tenant holds an estate for life, having nothing but the copy of
the rolls of his lord's court to show for it, A life-hold tenure may be well
said to be not eternal,
12 The bats wheeling round the dim cloisters of Queen's College, Cam-
bridge, have frequently impressed on me the singular propriety of this
original epithet. —Steevens.
18 Shard or sherd is an old word for scale. So that " the shard-borne
beetle" is the beetle borne along the air by its shards or scaly ynngs. —
" Night's yawning peal " is the nocturnal signal for going to sleep.
1* Seeling is blinding; a term in falconry. To seel the eyes of a hawk
was to close them by sewing the eyelids together,
15 "That great bond" is Banquo's life; the "copyhold tenure" of note
w.^- Paled is shut in or confined with palings. As Macbeth afterwards
puts it, Banquo's life has the effect of keeping him " cabin'd, cribb'd, con-
fined, bound-in to saucy doubts and fears."
1^ To thicken seems to have been a common expression for it grows
dark. So in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess : " Fold your flocks up, for the
air 'gins to thicken." — Crvw and rook were used of the same bird. So that
the meaning is, the crows are hastening to their nightly resort, the wood
where they gather for society and sleep.
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Io8 MACBETH. ACT III.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse ;
While night's black agents ^^ to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words ; but hold thee still ;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So, pr'ythee, go with me. [^Exeunt
Scene III. — The Same, A Park near the Palace,
Enter three Murderers.
1 Mur, But who did bid thee join with us?
J Mur, Macbeth.
2 Mu/, He needs not our mistrust ; ^ since he delivers
17 A covert allusion to the exploit which Macbeth's murderers are going
about. He seems to want that his wife should suspect the new crime he has
in hand, while he shrinks from. telling her of it distinctly. And the purpose
of his dark hints probably is, to prepare her, as far as may be, for a further
strain upon her moral forces, which he sees to be already overstrained.
For he fears that, if she has full knowledge beforehand of the intended mur-
der, she may oppose it, and that^ if she has no suspicion of it the shock may
be too much for her.
1 The meaning is, '^ We need not mistrust him ^ ; his perfect knowledge
of what is to be done, and how, being a sufficient guaranty of his right to be
with them. — Mr. A. P. Paton has lately made a strong argument to the
point that the third murderer is Macbeth himself in disguise. The thing
sounds rather startling, indeed, yet I am by no means sure but he is right.
I can but condense a portion of his argument : That, although the banquet
was to be at seven, Macbeth was not there till near midnight : That he has
hardly more than entered the room before the murderer is at the door:
That the third murderer repeats the precise directions given to the other
two, and has perfect knowledge of the place, and the habits of visitors:
That at the banquet Macbeth plays with the murderer at the door, as if
exulting in the success of his disguise : That, when the Ghost rises, he asks
the company, " Which of you have done this ?" as if to take suspicion off
himself, and says, in effect, to the Ghost, **^In yon black struggle you could
never know me." — For the matter of this note, I am indebted, directly, to
Mr. Fumess's variorum edition of the play. Perhaps the strongest point
against the writer's view is, that Macbeth seems surprised, and goes into a
rapture, on being told that " Fleance is *scaped" ; but this may not be very
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 109
Our offices, and what we have to do,
To the direction just.
1 Mur, Then stand with us.
The West yet glimmers with some streaks of day :
Now spurs the lated traveller apace ^
5 To gain the timely inn ; and near approaches
The subject of our watch.
3 Mur, Hark ! I hear horses.
Ban, [ Within 7^ Give us a light there, ho !
2 Mur, Then 'tis he : the rest