Which he deserves to lose.

Whether he was combin'd with those of Norway;
Or did line the rebel with hidden help

And vantage; or that with both he labour'd
In his country's wrack, I know nota;
But treasons capital, confess'd, and prov'd,
Have overthrown him.

MACB.

Glamis, and thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behind.-Thanks for your pains.—
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me,
Promis'd no less to them?

BAN.

That, trusted home,

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,

Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 't is strange:

And oftentimes to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths;

Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.—

Cousins, a word, I pray you.

MACB.

Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.-
This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-If ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is

MACB. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,

Without my stir.

BAN.

New honours come upon him,

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould

But with the aid of use.

a We follow the metrical arrangement of the original;-not a perfect one, certainly, but better than the modern text.

MACB.

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. BAN. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. MACB. Give me your favour:

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

a To get rid of the two hemistichs these five lines are made four in all modern editions. The metrical arrangement of this speech is decidedly improved in the modern text; but the improvement is not, as in the cases where we have rejected changes, produced by the determination to effect an absurd uniformity. The same remark applies to Macbeth's answer to the king.

That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine! only I have left to say, More is thy due than more than all can pay. MACB. The service and the loyalty I owe,

In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part

Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing everything
Safe toward your love and honoura.

DUN.

Welcome hither:
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo,
That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.

BAN.

The harvest is your own.

DUN.

There if I grow,

My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter
The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers.-From hence to Inverness,
And bind us further to you.

MACB. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you:
I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So humbly take my leave.

DUN.

My worthy Cawdor!

MACB. [Aside.] The prince of Cumberland!—That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires:

a Sir William Blackstone interprets the word safe as saved, conceiving that the whole speech is an allusion to feudal homage: “The oath of allegiance, or liege homage to the king, was absolute, and without any exception; but simple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a saving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the sovereign. Sauf la foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy,' as it is in Littleton." According to this interpretation, then, Macbeth only professes a qualified homage to the king's throne and state, as if the king's love and honour were something higher than his power and dignity. We cannot understand this. Surely it is easier to receive the words in their plain acceptation—our duties are called upon to do everything which they can do safely, as regards the love and honour we bear you.

SCENE V.-Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter.

LADY M. "They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who allhailed me, 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, Hail, king that shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell."

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promis'd:-Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way: Thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou 'dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it:

And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysicala aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.-What is your tidings?

Is not thy master with him? who, wer 't so,
Would have inform'd for preparation.

ATTEN. 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
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. 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;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and ita! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief!

Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my
keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry, 66

'Hold, hold!"3.

-Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor!

[Exit Attendant.

O, never

MACB. To-morrow,—as he purposes.
LADY M.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters:-To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

a If fear, compassion, or any other compunctious visitings, stand between a cruel purpose and its realisation, they may be said to keep peace between them, as one who interferes between a violent man and the object of his wrath keeps peace. It is spelt hit in the original, and Tieck proposes to retain hit. The passage appears to us to be rendered more obscure by this reading, whilst this mode of spelling it was by no means unfrequent.