Lords.
Macb. Ourself will mingle with society, for
And play the humble host.

10 Thanks to your majesty.

Our hostess keeps her state2; but, in best time, We will require her welcome.

Lady M. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;

For my heart speaks, they are welcome.

Enter first Murderer, to the door.

Macb. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks:

Both sides are even: Here I'll sit i'the midst: Be large in mirth; anon, we'll drink a measure The table round. There's blood upon thy face. Mur. "Tis Banquo's then.to

Macb. "Tis better thee without, than he within3. Is he despatch'd?

Mur. My lord, his throat is cut: that I did for

him.

Macb. Thou art the best o'the cut-throats: Yet he's good,

That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it, Thou art the nonpareil.

Mur.

Fleance is 'scap'd.

Most royal sir,

Macb. Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect;

Whole as the marble, founded as the rock;t?
As broad, and general, as the casing air:

But now, I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confind', bound in
Το
saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
Mur. Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,

2Keeps her state, continues in her chair of state. was a royal chair with a canopy over it.

3 Tis better thee without than he within,' that is, I am better pleased that the blood of Banquo should be on thy face than in his body. He is put for him.

With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.

Macb.

Thanks for that:

There the grown serpent lies; the worm, that's fled,
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present.- -Get thee gone: to-morrow
We'll hear ourselves again. [Exit Murderer.

Lady M.Etyek

8

My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold,
That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a making,
"Tis given with welcome: To feed were best at home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.

Macb.

Sweet remembrancer!

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!

Len.

May it please your highness sit? [The Ghost of BANQUO rises, and sits in MACBETH'S place.

Macb. Here had we now our country's honour Just roof'd,

Were the grac'd person, of our Banquo present; Who may I rather challenge for unkindness, Than pity for mischance5!

Rosse.

Could His absence, sir,

Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your high

ness.

To grace us with your royal company?

Macb. The table's full.

Len.

Here's a place reserv'd, sir..

4 With twenty trenched gashes on his head. From the Freuch trancher, to cut. So in Arden of Feversham :

Is deeply trenched on my blushing brow.

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :-
Andlar das geslike a figure

Trenched in ice.'

5 Macbeth betrays himself by an overacted regard for Banquo, of whose absence from the feast he affects to complain, that he may not be suspected of knowing the cause, though at the same time he very unguardedly drops an allusion, to that cause. May I seems to imply here a wish, not an assertion.

Macb.

Where?

Len. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves

your highness?

Macb. Which of you have done this?

Lords. What, my good lord? Macb. Thou canst not say, I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me.

Rosse. Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well. Lady M. Sit, worthy friends:-my lord is often thus,

And hath been from his youth: 'pray you, keep seat; The fit is momentary; upon a thought

He will again be well: If much you note him,
You shall offend him, and extend his passion';
Feed, and regard him not.-Are you a man?
Macb. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.

Lady M.
O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts
(Impostors to true fear), would well become.
A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.

So in King 6 i. e. as speedily as thought can be exerted. Henry IV. Part I.: and with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

1 i. e. prolong his suffering, make his fit longer.
8 Flaws are sudden gusts.
'Impostors to true fear.'

Warburton's learning serves him not here; his explanation is erroneous. Malone idly suggests that to may be used for of. Mason has hit the meaning, though his way of accounting for it is wrong. It seems strange that none of the commentators should be aware that this was a form of elliptic expression, commonly used even at this day in the phrase, We have "this is nothing to them, i. e. in comparison to them. it again in Romeo and Juliet:-'My will to her consent is but a part, i. e. is but a part in comparison to her consent. Antony Huish, in his Priscianus Ephebus, 1668, says: The English do eclipse many words which the Latines would to be expressed, eg. There is no enemy-to him we foster in our bosom, i. e. like to or compared to. Thus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, p. 120:-There is no woe to his correction.'

Macb. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?—— «

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.-
If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send
Those that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites10.

[Ghost disappears. What! quite unmann'd in folly?

Lady M.
Macb. If I stand here, I saw him.

Lady M.

Fye, for shame! Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i'the olden time,

Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now, they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: This is more strange
Than such a murder is.

Lady M.

My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. Macb. I do forget:Do not musell at me, my most worthy friends; I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all; Then I'll sit down:- -Give me some wine, fill full: I drink to the general joy of the whole table,

Ghost rises.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; 'Would, he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all12.

10 The same thought occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. C. viii. :

'Be not entombed in the raven or the kight.

11 Shakspeare uses to muse for to wonder, to be in amaze So in King Henry IV. Part ii. Act iv.:

I muse, you make so slight a question.'

and in All's Well that Ends Well

'And rather muse than ask why I entreat you. 12 That is 'we desire to drink all good wishes to all.

Lords.

Our duties, and the pledge.

Macb. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth

hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation13 in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
Lady M.
But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;
Only, it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Macb. What man dare, I dare:

Think of this, good peers,

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger14,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves.
Shall never tremble: Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword:
If trembling I inhabit15 then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
[Ghost disappears.
Unreal mockery, hence!-Why, so;-being gone,
I am a man again.-'Pray you, sit still.

Lady M. You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With&

Macb.

most admir'd disorder.

Can such things be,

13 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." Bullokar in his Expositor, 1616, explains Speculation, the inward knowledge, or beholding of a thing." Thus in the 115th Psalm:-'eyes have they, but see not.'

14 Hyrcan for Hyrcanian was the mode of expression at that

time.

15 Pope changed inhabit, the reading of the old copy, to inhibit, and Steevens altered then to thee, so that in the late editions this line runs:

'If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me
The baby of a girl.

To inhibit is to forbid, a meaning which will not suit with the context of the passage. The original text is sufficiently plain, and much in Shakspeare's manner. 'Dare me to the desert with thy sword; if then I do not meet thee there; if trembling I stay in my castle, or any habitation; if I then hide my head, or dwell in any place through fear, protest me the baby of a girl. If it had not been for the meddling of Pope and others, this passage would have hardly required a note.