Enter an Attendant. Attend. The king comes here to-night. Thou'rt mad to say it: Attend. 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 Than would make up his message. Lady M. Give him tending, He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse, [Exit Attendant. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse; dictionaries. To have thee crown'd' is to desire that you should be crown'd. Thus in All's Well that Ends Well : our dearest friend Prejudicates the business, and would seem This phrase of Baret's :-'If all things be as ye would have them, or agreeable to your desire,' is a common mode of expression with old writers. 6 That tend on mortal thoughts.' Mortal and deadly were synonymous in Shakspeare's time. In another part of this play we have the mortal sword,' and 'mortal murders.' We have 'mortal war,' and mortal hatred.' In Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse is a particular description of these spirits, and of their office. 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: and they command certain of the southern spirits to wait upon them, as also great Arioch, that is termed the spirit of revenge.' VOL. IV. X That no compunctious visitings of nature You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, 8 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold! Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor! 7 Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by action. "To keep peace between the effect and purpose,' means 'to delay the execution of her purpose, to prevent its proceeding to effect.' Sir Wm. Davenant's strange alteration of this play sometimes affords a reasonably good commentary upon it. Thus in the present instance : make thick My blood, stop all passage to remorse; Shake my design, nor make it fall before 8 To pall, from the Latin pallio, to wrap, to invest, to cover or hide as with a mantle or cloak. 9 Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, 1596, has an expression resembling this :- The sullen night in mistie RUGGE is wrapp'd.' And in his Polyolbion, which was not published till 1612, we again find it : 'Thick vapours that like ruggs still hang the troubled air.' On this passage there is a long criticism in the Rambler, No.168; to which Johnson in his notes refers the reader with much complacency. He however sets out with ascribing the speech to Macbeth; and the whole of it is a puerile cavil at the low words with which he is pleased to say it is disfigured. So uninstructed was the lexicographer in the language of Shakspeare's age, that he takes knife, in the literal sense, for an instrument used by butchers and cooks!' Whereas quotations without end might be adduced to show that it was then a common expression for a sword or dagger. The epithet dun he treats with utter contempt, and says that it is now seldom heard but in the stable.' He did not or would not know that it was the ancient synonyme of fuscus, Enter MACBETH. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! 10 O, never Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men But be the serpent under it. He that's coming [Exeunt. and meant no more than dark, obscure. Milton has represented Satan as flying in the dun air sublime;' and in Comus we have 'dun shades.' At the expression 'blanket of the dark,' he says that he can scarce check his risibility! Surely this is outraging the squeamish finicalness of the French critics in their remarks upon the poet, and need only be mentioned to excite a smile. A serious reply to such criticism would now be superfluous. 10 i.e. beyond the present time, which is, according to the process of nature, ignorant of the future. u Favour is countenance. SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BAN- Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat1: 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 vantage2, 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 3. 1 i. e. situation. 2 i. e. convenient corner. 3 This short dialogue,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. The conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of the castle's situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. 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. It seems as if Shakspeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who, from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image or picture of familiar domestic life.' Dun. Enter LADY MACBETH. See, see! our honour'd hostess! The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. 4 Herein I teach you, us for your pains, All our service, In every point twice done, and then done double, We rest your hermits 5. 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. + The explanation by Steevens of this obscure passage seems the best which has been offered:- Marks of respect importunately shown are sometimes troublesome, though we are still bound to be grateful for them, as indications of sincere attachment. If you pray for us on account of the trouble we create in your house, and thank us for the molestations we bring with us, it must be on such a principle. Herein I teach you, that the inconvenience you suffer is the result of our affection; and that you are therefore to pray for us, or thank us only as far as prayers and thanks can be deserved for kindnesses that fatigue, and honours that oppress. You are, in short, to make your acknowledgments for intended respect and love, however irksome our present mode of expressing them may have proved.'-To bid is here used in the Saxon sense of to pray. God yield us, is God reward us. 5 i.e. we as hermits, or beadsmen, shall ever pray for you. 6 In compt, subject to accompt. |