And no more sights he has; but he is still haunted by fears. And when "the English power is near, led on by Malcolm, his uncle Siward, and the good Macduff," burning for revenge, Macbeth's spirit falters. He rushes into violent rages and then subsides into vague fears, and then endeavors to strengthen his heart by recalling the mysterious promises of the weird sisters that he shall not fall by the hand of any man of woman born, or before Birnam wood come to Dunsinane; but, do all he can, "he cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule," though he declares,

"The mind I sway by and the heart I bear

Shall never sag with doubt, nor shake with fear."

Still he does fear; and in one of his dispirited moods, after blazing out at the messenger who tells him of the approach of Birnam wood,

"The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look ?"

he says, finding that there are ten thousand men coming to attack him, and his followers are not stanch,

"This push

Will chair me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny."

But in a moment he is himself again, and cries:

"I'll fight till from my bones the flesh be hack'd.
Give me my armor."

In this mood the illness and death of the queen is nothing to him; he fights bravely to the end; though, superstitious to the last, his "better part of man" is cowed by the knowledge that Macduff "was from his mother's womb untimely ripped," and so not of woman born.

And so, by the sword of Macduff, perishes the worst villain, save Iago, that Shakespeare ever drew.

We have called the witches the projections of Macbeth's evil thoughts, and suggested that they were only objective representations of his inward being. To this it may be objected that they were seen also by Banquo. But this may well be; for Banquo also seems to have had evil intentions, which are vaguely hinted at in the play. He constantly harps on the idea that his children are to be kings. Approaching the castle of Inverness at night, before the murder of the king, he says,—

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers!
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose! - Give me my sword."

Meeting then Macbeth, he gives him the diamond sent by the king to Lady Macbeth; and after speaking of Duncan's "measureless content," he says,

"I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have show'd some truth."

At which Macbeth proposes an interview, to

"Spend it in some words upon that business."

To which he readily consents.

The "cursed thoughts," then, are connected with his dreams about the weird sisters.

At his next appearance the same thoughts agitate him in Macbeth's palace at Fores. His first words are in soliloquy

"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."

When it is recollected that, after the scene on the heath with the soldiers, these are nearly all the words we have from Banquo, it seems to be pretty clearly indicated that his thoughts at least were not perfectly honest and what they should have been.

The weird sisters are but outward personifications of the evil thoughts conceived and fermenting in the brains of Banquo and Macbeth; both high in station, both generals in the king's army, both friends, and both nourishing evil wishes. They are visible only to these two friends; and though they are represented as having an outer existence independent of them, they are, metaphysically speaking, but embodiments of the hidden

thoughts and desires of Banquo and Macbeth; as such they are a new and terrible creation, differing from the vulgar flesh-and-blood witches of Middleton. They look not like the inhabitants of the earth; they vanish into thin air; wild, vague, mysterious, they come and go, like devilish thoughts that tempt us, and take shape before us, as if they had come from the other world. The devils that haunt us and tempt us come out of ourselves, like the weird sisters of Macbeth.

INDEX.