Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

ROSSE. Farewell, father.

OLD M. God's benison go with you, and with those 40 That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

[Exeunt.

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 promis'd; and I fear
Thou play'dst most foully for 't: yet it was said,
It should not stand in thy posterity;

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,

And set me up in hope? But, hush; no more.
Senet sounded.

ΙΟ

Enter MACBETH, as King; LADY MACBETH, as Queen; LENOX, ROSSE, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.

MACR. Here's our chief guest.

LADY M.

If he had been forgotten

It had been as a gap in our great feast,

And all-thing unbecoming.

MACB. To-night we hold a solemn supper, sir,

And I'll request your presence.

4I Good of bad-the simple creed of the poor, who cannot well make out why their superiors kill each other.

10 Hush, no more. From this it appears that the danger from Banquo to Macbeth is natural and real: for the witches' prophecy now begins really to work on his mind. But death stops him from plunging, after Macbeth's example, into the vortex of conspiracy and crime, and losing his 'royalty of nature' in the attempt to grasp a crown.

Senet. From the Italian 'segnare' (signare), to note: hence music played from note.

13 All-thing. Every way (allerdings) would have been unbecoming.

BAN.

Let your highness

Command upon me; to the which, my duties

Are with a most indissoluble tie

For ever knit.

MACB. Ride you this afternoon?

BAN.

Ay, my good lord. 20 MACB. We should have else desir'd 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?

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.

BAN. My lord, I will not.

Fail not our feast.

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,
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 us.
MACB. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;
And so I do commend you to their backs.

Farewell.

330

[Exit BANQUO. 40

Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night; to make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself

22

Grave and prosperous. And this, as we see in line 52, has of itself made him feared by Macbeth. Tyrants cannot endure the virtue of an Ormond, a Temple, even of a Clarendon; they are safe only with the Buckinghams, the Lauderdales, the Sunderlands of their day. That even a bad king should be forced to have good counsellors, and to act by their counsel, may be said to be an invention of the much maligned nineteenth century.

34 Cause of state. We shall have other state matters to discuss along with it.

43 The sweeter welcome. So Paradise Lost, ix. 230-
"To short absence I could yield,

For solitude sometimes is best society
And short retirement urges quick return."

Till supper-time alone: while then, God be with you. [Exeunt LADY MACBETH, Lords, Ladies, &c. Sirrah, a word with you: Attend those men our pleasure? ATTEND. They are, my lord, without the palace gate. MACB. Bring them before us.-[Exit Atten.] To be thus, is nothing;

But to be safely thus :-Our fears in Banquo

Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature

50

Reigns that which would be fear'd: 't is much he dares ;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,

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 rebuk'd; as, it is said,

Mark Antony's was by Cæsar. He chid the sisters,
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,

Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.

If it be so,

48 But to be safely thus (is everything).

60

57 Mark Antony's was by Cæsar. Compendiary comparison for by that of Cæsar.' So we have in As You Like ItThy sting is not so sharp

66

As friend remembered not."

For the idea, see Ant. and Cleop. Act ii. Sc. 3

"Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,

Where Cæsar's is not; but, near him, thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being o'erpowered."

A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July 1869) points out that by the words 'genius,' 'demon,' 'spirit,' in this passage and the one in Ant. and Cleopatra is meant, not a presiding spirit, but the higher nature of man, the rational guiding soul or spirit; which in Macbeth is one of guilty ambition; and that by the mortal instruments are signified the vital and animal spirits which are the medium of sensation and motion, and the physical organs of memory, imagination, and discourse. Thus the words, 'Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel,' means that he was Cæsar's very soul and, conversely, the ghost of the dead Cæsar is the evil spirit of Brutus.

For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind;

For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd :
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace,
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man,

To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come, fate, into the list,

And champion me to the utterance !-Who's there?—
Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers.

Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.

70

[Exit Attendant.

Well then, now

Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
FIRST MUR. It was, so please your highness.
MACB.
Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know,
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune; which, you thought, had been
Our innocent self: this I made good to you

In our last conference; pass'd in probation with you, 80
How you were borne in hand; how cross'd; the instru-

ments;

Who wrought with them; and all things else, that might, To half a soul, and to a notion craz’d,

Say, Thus did Banquo.

FIRST MUR.

You made it known to us.
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,
Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave,
And beggar'd yours for ever?

90

65 Filed my mind. Defiled it. So the words 'friend, 'longs, 'cide, 'sdain, stand for befriend, belongs, decide, disdain; the last as in the Italian words sdegnare, sprezzare, &c.

67 In the vessel of my peace.

to dwell.

În my soul where peace ought

72 To the utterance. To a combat à l'outrance. See the passage in Cymbeline, quoted at page 48.

81 Borne in hand. 'made tools of.'

83 To a notion crazed.

Like palpare' in Latin, 'cheated,'

Even to the most feeble apprehension.

FIRST 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 cleped
All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill

That writes them all alike: and so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not in the worst rank of manhood, say it ;
And I will put that business in your bosoms
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.

SECOND MUR.

I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what

I do, to spite the world.

FIRST MUR.

And I another,

So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,

To mend it, or be rid on 't.

MACB. So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,

That every minute of his being thrusts

Against my near'st of life: And though I could

94 Shoughs. Shocks, poodles.

100

110

ib. Cleped. Nam'd; from the Anglo-Saxon 'clypian;' probably also the same as the Greek κλέω or κέλω (with the digamma).

95 The valued file. The tariff of their names and values. 100 From the bill. Apart from, by way of distinction from the generic character which is the same in all. So Coriolanus, iii. 1, 90: """Twas from the canon.' ""

104 In your bosoms. I will entrust to you such an enterprise. 112 Tugged with fortune. So buffeted by fortune. 116 In such bloody distance.

In such deadly opposition.