To plague th' inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,8
And falls on th' other side.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

How now! what news?

Lady M. He has almost supp'd: why have you left the

chamber?

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?

6 Faculties in an official sense; honours, dignities, prerogatives, whatever pertains to his regal seat.

"

7" Sightless couriers of the air means the same as what the Poet elsewhere calls "the viewless winds."-The metaphor of tears drowning the wind is taken from what we sometimes see in a thunder-shower; which is ushered in by a high wind; but when the rain gets to falling hard, the wind presently subsides, as if strangled by the water.

8 Self here stands for aim or purpose; as we often say such a one overshot himself, that is, overshot his mark or aim.

Lady M.

Know you not he has ?

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business :
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Lady M.

Was the hope drunk

Wherein you 'dress'd yourself? 10 hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely?
Such I account thy love.

To be the same in thine

From this time

Art thou afeard own act and valour

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou lack that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage? 11

Macb.

Pr'ythee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

9 Would for should. The two were often used indiscriminately. 10 Every student of Shakespeare knows that he often uses to address for to make ready or to prepare. And he repeatedly has the shortened form 'dress in the same sense. So in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3: "As he being

'dress'd to some oration." From oversight of this, some strange comments have been made upon the present passage, as if it meant that Macbeth had put on hope as a dress. The meaning I take to be something thus: "Was it a drunken man's hope, in the strength of which you made yourself ready for the killing of Duncan ? and does that hope now wake from its drunken sleep, to shudder and turn pale at the preparation which it made so freely?" In accordance with this explanation, the Lady's next speech shows that at some former time Macbeth had been, or had fancied himself, ready to make an opportunity for the murder.

11 The adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566: "The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete."

What beast 12 was't, then,

Lady M.
That made you break this enterprise. to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man ;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere,13 and yet you would make both :
They've made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I've given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me :
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.14

Macb.
Lady M.

If we should fail,

But, screw your courage to the sticking-place,16

We fail.15

12 The word beast is exceedingly well chosen here: it conveys a stinging allusion to what Macbeth has just said: "If you dare do all that may become a man, then what beast was it that put this enterprise into your head?" See Critical Notes.

13 Adhere in the sense of cohere; that is, agree or consist with the purpose. This passage seems to infer that the murdering of Duncan had been a theme of conversation between Macbeth and his wife long before the weird salutation. He was then for making a time and place for the deed; yet, now that they have made themselves to his hand, he is unmanned by them.

14 In reference to this most appalling speech, see the Introduction, page 36. 15 The sense of this much-disputed passage I take to be simply this: "If we should fail, why, then, to be sure, we fail, and it is all over with us." So long as there is any hope or prospect of success, Lady Macbeth is for going ahead; and she has a mind to risk all and lose all, rather than let slip any chance of being queen. And why should she not be as ready to jump the present life in such a cause as her husband is to "jump the life to come"? See Critical Notes.

16 A metaphor from screwing up the cords of stringed instruments to the proper tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place.

And we'll not fail.

Whereto the rather

When Duncan is asleep,·

shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince,17
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: 18 when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th' unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy 19 officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell ?20

Macb.

Bring forth men-children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be received,

When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers,
That they have done't?

17 To convince is to overcome or subdue. - Wassail is an old word for quaffing, carousing, or drinking to one's health; meaning literally, be of health.

18 The language and imagery of this strange passage are borrowed from the distillery, as it was in Shakespeare's time. Limbeck is alembic, the cap of a still, into which the fumes rise before passing into the condenser. Receipt is receptacle, or receiver. The old anatomists divided the brain into three ventricles, in the hindmost of which, the cerebellum, the memory was posted like a keeper or sentinel to warn the reason against attack. When by intoxication the memory is converted to a fume, the sphere of reason will be so filled therewith as to be like the receiver of a still; and in this state of the man all sense or intelligence of what has happened will be suffocated. Such appears to be the meaning of the passage; which is far from being a felicitous one. The Poet elsewhere uses fume thus; as in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 1: "Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, keep his brain fuming."

19 Spongy because they soak up so much liquor.

20 Quell is murder; from the Saxon quellan, to kill.

Lady M.

Who dares receive it other,21

As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar

Upon his death?

Macb.

I'm settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show :

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Inverness.

Court of MACBETH's Castle.

Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE bearing a torch before him.

Ban. How goes the night, boy?

Flea. The Moon is down; I have not heard the clock. Ban. And she goes down at twelve.

Flea.

Ban. Hold, take my
Heaven;1

sword.

I take't, 'tis later, sir. There's husbandry in

Take thee that too.
lead upon me,

Their candles are all out.
A heavy summons lies like
And yet I would not sleep.
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature

Gives way to in repose !2

- Merciful powers,

21 That is, "Who will dare to understand it otherwise?"-As is here equivalent to since or seeing that.

1 The heavens are economizing their light. Frugality or economy is one

of the old senses of husbandry. Heaven is here a collective noun.

2 It appears afterwards that Banquo has been dreaming of the Weird Sisters. He understands full well how their greeting may act as an incentive to crime, and shrinks with pious horror from the poison of such evil