SCENE VI.

The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of MAC-
BETH attending. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN,
BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attendants.
Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Ban. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress,
Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made
His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they
Most breed and haunt, I have observ'd, the air
Is delicate.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

Dun. See, see! our honour'd hostess !
The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you,
How you shall bid God-yield 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
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?
We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: 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

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.
By your leave, hostess.

The same.

SCENE VII.

X

[Exeunt.

A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and torches. En ter and pass over the stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH.

Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly :5 if the assassination

STEEV.

[3] That is, we as hermits shall always pray for you. [4] A sewer was an officer so called from his placing the dishes upon the table. Asseour, French; from asseior, to place. Another part of the sewer's office was to bring water for the guests to wash their hands with. It may be worth while to observe, for the sake of preserving an ancient word, that the dishes served in by serwers were called sewes. STEEV.

[5] Of this soliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it 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 consequences, if its success could secure its surcease, if, being once done successfully, 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 suffer; 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 state. But this is one of those cases in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our present life We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example." JOHNS.

We are told by Doyden, that "Ben Jonson, in reading some bombast speeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horrour." Perhaps the present passage was one of those thus depreciated. Any person but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the transcendent beauties of this sublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's greatest work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into "strong shudders" and blood-freezing "agues," by its

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; 6 that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, 7-
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
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 kinsman and his subject,
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
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 9
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'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other. How now, what news?

Enter Lady MACBETH. 2

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

the chamber?

interesting and high-wrought scenes than to have been offended by any im. aginary hardness of its language; for such it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour.

MALONE.

[6] Surcease is cessation, stop. STEEV.

[7] By the shoal of time, our author means the shallow ford of life, be

tween us and the abyss of eternity. STEEV.

[8] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c.

WARB.

[9] Courier is only runner. Couriers of air are winds, air in motion. Sightless is invisible. JOHNS

The thought of the cherubin (as has been somewhere observed) seems to have been borrowed from the eighteenth Psalm: "He rode upon the cherubins and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind." Again, in Job, ch. xxx. v. 22: "Thou causest me to ride upon the wind" MALONE.

JOHNS.

[1] Alluding to the remission of the wind in a shower. [2] The arguments by which lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afforda proof of Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled ed mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the house-breaker, 33* VOL, HI.

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?

Lady M. Know you not, he has ?

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business :

He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Lady M. Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you drest yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time,
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 have that
Which thou esteem'st 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 ?4

Macb. Pr'ythee, peace :
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.

Lady M. What beast was it then,
That made you break this enterprize to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place,
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know

and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has forever destroy ed, by distinguishing true from faise fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost:

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

This topic, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene, with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier; and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman without great impatience.

She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Dun can, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument, Shakspeare, whose plan obliged him to make Macheth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter; that obligations, laid on us by a higher power, could not be overruled by obligations which we Jay upon urselves. JOHNS.

[4] The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her feet: Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas. JOHNS

How tender 'tis, to love the babe that milks me :
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains 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,
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 wassels so convince, 6
That memory, the warder of the brain, 7
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only:9 When in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie, as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?

Macb. Bring forth men-children only !
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twe
Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
That they have done't?

Lady M. Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?

Macb. I am settled, and bend up2