Macb. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil. + Lady M. O proper stuff! This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! You look but on a stool. Macb. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.- Lady M. [Ghost disappears. What! quite unmanned in folly? Fie, for shame! Macb. If I stand here, I saw him. Lady M. Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, Ere human statute purged the general weal; That, when the brains were out, the man would die, Lady M. My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. Macb. I do forget. Do not muse 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; 1 This was a form of elliptic expression, commonly used even at this day, in the phrase "this is nothing to them," i. e. in comparison to them. 2 The folio reads gentle. 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 ; 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 speculation in those eyes Lady M. Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other; Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, Lady M. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder. Macb. Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe,* 1 That is, "we desire to drink" all good wishes to all. 2 "Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, explains "speculation, the inward knowledge or beholding of a thing." 3Dare 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." 4 i. e. possess. When now I think you can behold such sights, Rosse. What sights, my lord? Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; Question enrages him. At once, good night.— Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. Len. Good night, and better health Attend his majesty! Lady M. Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood; Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have, 1 By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The secret'st man of blood.-What is the night? Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. Macb. How say'st thou,' that Macduff denies his person, At our great bidding? Lady M. Did you send to him, sir? Macb. I hear it by the way; but I will send : There's not a one of them, but in his house I keep a servant feed. I will, to-morrow, (And betimes I will,) to the weird sisters. More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way: I am in blood 1 i. e. auguries, divinations; formerly spelled augures, as appears by Florio in voce augurio. By understood relations, probably, connected circumstances relating to the crime are meant. In all the modern editions we have it, erroneously, augurs. Magot-pie is the original name of the magpie: stories, such as Shakspeare alludes to, are to be found in Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and in Goulart's Admirable Histories. 2 i. e. what say'st thou to this circumstance? Thus, in Macbeth's address to his wife, on the first appearance of Banquo's ghost:— "Behold! look! lo! how say you? Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; abuse Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use.- [Exeunt. SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder. Enter HECATE, meeting the three Witches. 1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate? you look angerly. Hec. Have I not reason, beldames, as you are, To trade and traffic with Macbeth, dare And, which is worse, all you have done Spiteful, and wrathful; who, as others do, But make amends now. Get you gone, Meet me i' the morning; thither he Will come to know his destiny. 1 "You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require." 2 The editions previous to Theobald's read "We're but young indeed." The initiate fear is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by hard use or frequent repetition of it. Your vessels, and your spells, provide, Great business must be wrought ere noon: There hangs a vaporous drop profound;' Is mortal's chiefest enemy. Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c. Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. back again. 1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be [Exit. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Enter LENOX and another Lord. Len. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, Which can interpret further: only, I say, Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead.— And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late; Whom you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed, 1 The vaporous drop profound seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment. 2 This song is to be found entire, in The Witch, by Middleton. |