Be large in mirth; anon, we'll drink a measure
The table round.-There's blood upon thy face.
Mur. 'Tis Banquo's then.

Mach. 'Tis better thee without, than he within.9

Is he defpatch'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 'fcap'd.

Moft royal fir,

Mach. Then comes my fit again: I had elfe been perfect; Whole as the marble, founded as the rock ;

As broad, and general, as the cafing air:

But now,
I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
To faucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's fafe?
Mur. Ay, my good lord: fafe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenched gashes 2 on his head;

'The leaft a death to nature.

Macb.

Thanks for that :

There the grown ferpent lies; the worm,3 that's fled,
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,

No teeth for the prefent.-Get thee gone; to-morrow
We'll hear, ourselves again.

Lady M.
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer: the feast is fold,4

[Exit Murderer.

9 The fenfe requires that this paffage fhould be read thus:

'Tis better thee without, than him within.

That

That is, I am better pleafed that the blood of Banquo fhould be on thy face than in bis body.

The author might mean, It is better that Banquo's blood were on thy face, than he in this room. Expreffior.s thus imperfect are common in his works. JOHNSON.

I have no doubt that this laft was the author's meaning. MALONE. 2 Trancher, to cut. Fr. STEEVENS.

3 This term in our author's time was applied to all of the ferpent kind. MALONE.

4 Mr. Pope reads: -the feaft is cold,—and not without plausibility.

STEEVENS.

That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a making,
'Tis given with welcome: To feed, were best at home;
From thence, the fauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.

Mach.

Sweet remembrancer!—

Now, good digeftion wait on appetite,

And health on both!

Len.

May it please your highness fit?

[The ghost of BANQUO rifes, and fits in MACBETH's place. Macb. Here had we now our country's honour roof'd, Were the grac'd perfon of our Banquo prefent;

Who may I rather challenge for unkindness,

Than pity for mifchance!

Roffe.

His abfence, fir,

Lays blame upon his promife. Please it your highnefs
To grace us with your royal company?

Macb. The table's full.

A a 3

Macb.

The meaning is,-That which is not given cheerfully, cannot be called a gift, it is fomething that must be paid for. JOHNSON.

It is ftill common to fay, that we pay dear for an entertainment, if the circumstances attending the participation of it prove irksome to us.

HENLEY.

5 This circumftance of Banquo's ghoft feems to be alluded to in The Puritan, first printed in 1607, and ridiculously afcribed to Shakfspeare : "We'll ha' the ghost i' th' white sheet fit at upper end o' th' table.”

FARMER.

6 This is one of Shakspeare's touches of nature. Macbeth by the fe words discovers a confcioufnefs of guilt; and this circumftance could not fail to be recollected by a nice obferver on the affaffination of Banquo being publickly known. Not being yet rendered fufficiently callous by "hard ufe," Macbeth betrays himself (as Mr. Wheatly has obferved,)" by an over-acted regard for Banquo, of whofe abfence from the feast he affects to complain, that he may not be fufpected of knowing the caufe, though at the fame time he very unguardedly drops an allufion to that caufe."

MALONE.

These words do not feem to convey any consciousness of guilt on the part of Macbeth, or allufion to Banquo's murder, as Mr. Wheatley fuppofes. Macbeth only means to fay-"I have more caufe to accufe him of unkindnefs for his abfence, than to pity him for any accident or mifchance that may have occafioned it." DOUCE.

Macb. Which of you have done this?

Lords.

What, my good lord?

Mach. Thou canst not say I did it: never shake

Thy gory locks at me.

Roffe. Gentlemen, rife; his highness is not well.

Lady M. Sit, worthy friends my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth: 'pray you, keep feat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought?

He will again be well: If much you note him,
You fhall offend him, and extend his paffion;3
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 ftuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you faid,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts,
(Impoftors to true fear,) would well become2
A woman's ftory, at a winter's fire,

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

Macb. Pr'ythee, fee there! behold! look! lo! how fay
you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, fpeak too.

If charnel-houses, and our graves, must fend
Thofe that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.

Lady M.

7 i. e. as fpeedily as thought can be exerted. STEEVENS.
3 Prolong his fuffering; make his fit longer. JOHNSON.
This fpeech is rather too long for the circumstances in which it is

fpoken. It had begun better at, Shame itself! JOHNSON.

Surely it required more than a few words, to argue Macbeth out of the horror that poffeffed him. M. MASON.

2 i. e. thefe flaws and ftarts, as they are indications of your needlefs fears, are the imitators or impoftors only of those which arife from a fear well grounded. WARBURTON.

Flaws are fudden gufts. JOHNSON.

Impostors to true fear, mean impoftors when compared with true fear. Such is the force of the preposition to in this place. M. MASON.

Lady M.

What! quite unmann'd in folly ?3. Mach. If I ftand here, I faw him.

Lady M.

Fie, for fhame!

Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i'the olden time,
Ere human ftatute purg'd the gentle weal;5

Ay, and fince 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 ftools: This is more strange
Than fuch a murder is.

Lady M.

My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lack you.
Macb.
I do forget:
Do not mufe at me, my moft worthy friends;
I have a ftrange infirmity, which is nothing,
'To thofe that know me.
Then I'll fit down:

:

Come, love and health to all;
Give me fome wine, fill full:-

I drink to the general joy of the whole table,

Ghoft rifes.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,7
And all to all.8

3 Would not this question be forcible enough without the two laft words, which overflow the metre, and confequently may be fufpected as interpolations? STEEVENS.

4 Mr. M. Mafon propofes to read "the golden time," meaning the Golden age but the ancient reading may be juftified by Holinfhed, who, fpeaking of the witches, fays, they refembled creatures of the elder world." STEEVENS.

5 The gentle weal, is, the peaceable community, the ftate made quiet and fafe by human ftatutes.

"Mollia fecuræ peragebant otia gentes." JOHNSON.

In my opinion it means that ftate of innocence which did not require the aid of human laws to render it quiet and fecure." M. MASON.

To mufe anciently fignified to wonder, to be in amaze. STEEVENS. 7 We thirst, I fuppofe, means we defire to drink. M. MASON. 8 i. e. all good wishes to all; fuch as he had named above, love, health, and joy. WARBURTON.

I once

Lords.

Our duties and the pledge.

Mach. Avaunt! and quit my fight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowlefs, thy blood is cold;

Thou haft no fpeculation in thofe eyes

Which thou doft glare with!
Lady. M.

Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of cuftom: 'tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Mach. What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Ruffian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,"
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the defert with thy fword;
If trembling I inhibit thee, proteft me

2

The

I once thought it should be bail to all, but I now think that the prefent reading is right. JOHNSON.

Timon ufes nearly the fame expreffion to his guests, A& 1. “All to you." STEEVENS.

8

So, in the 115th Pfalm: "

eyes have they, but fee not. STEEVENS.

...

9 Theobald choofes to read, in oppofition to the old copy-Hyrcanian tyger; but the alteration was unneceffary, as Dr. Philemon Holland, in his tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. p. 122, mentions the Hyrcane sea.

TOLLET.

Alteration certainly might be fpared: in Riche's fecond part of Simonides 4to. 1584, fign. c. 1. we have Contrariewife these fouldiers, like to Hircan tygers, revenge themselves on their own bowelles; some parricides, fome fratricides, all homicides." REED.

Sir William D'Avenant unneceffarily altered this to Hircanian tyger, which was followed by Theobald and others. MALONE.

2 Inhabit is the original reading, which Mr. Pope changed to inbibit, which inbibit Dr. Warburton interprets refufe. The old reading may ftand, at least as well as the emendation. JOHNSON.

Inbibit seems more likely to have been the poet's own word, as he uses it frequently in the fenfe required in this paflage. To inhibit is to forbid. STEEVENS.

I have not the leaft doubt that "inbibit thee,”—is the true reading. In All's Well that End's Well, we find in the fecond and all fubfequent folios. ." which is the most inhabited fin of the canon."-inftead of inbibited.

By the other flight but happy emendation, the reading thee instead of then, which was propofed by Mr. Steevens, and to which I have paid the

refpe&