fatal opportunity. His hesitation only arises from regard for consequences, not from reverence for higher law. Before Duncan retires to rest, Macbeth shrinks from the contemplated crime; and his thoughts are revealed to us in the following passage:

shoal of time,

But, in these cases
that we but teach

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and
We'ld jump the life to come.
We still have judgment here;
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the 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 cherubim, 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
And falls on the other.

The thought of Duncan's goodness does not rouse his pity, but only makes him think how the victim's virtues will make his crime appear the blacker. He is only afraid lest his

crime be discovered.

He thinks how terrible it will be to stand before the world a blood-stained criminal. He does not so much shrink from murder as from conviction as a murderer. He is not afraid of sin, but only of the punishment. He deliberately says that he would risk what the next world might bring, 'would jump the life to come,' if only he could be sure that in this world no judgment would overtake him.

While he is calculating consequences, his wife enters, and he tells her that he cannot bring himself to do the deed; at which she pours indignant scorn upon him as a coward for not daring to use the means to gain the object of his desires. To her impulsive nature the act and desire are one, and she cannot understand the weakness which checks the wish from instantly issuing in the deed :

Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour,

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have 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?

Then, with instant penetration, seeing what it is that will not allow her husband to screw his courage to the sticking point,' she explains how Duncan can be murdered while his chamberlains are sunk in drunken sleep, and when the crime is discovered in the morning the guards will at once be accused, as they are arrested with blood-stains on their hands and daggers, while Macbeth and his wife will never be suspected, as they make their griefs and clamour roar upon his death.' That decides Macbeth; if there is no danger of discovery he is ready for the greatest crime; and the first act closes with his resolution :

:

I am 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.

This is a striking instance of how worldly prudence and fear of punishment are too weak to protect the soul, when the enemy comes in like a flood. Nothing but unconditional reverence for divine law can save a man from temptations of ambition, lust and gain. When the gold is bright, the need strong, and the chance of conviction small, do you think a man can save himself by quoting some prudential maxim about honesty being the best policy? As well could you have restrained Macbeth by reminding him of the old tradition that Murder will out' and 'Blood will have blood.' And so before his wife's urgent words, prudence, forethought of consequences, pity and loyalty are swept away.

The deed is done; two souls are lost; wife and husband feel themselves alone, shut out from human sympathy, with that dreadful secret burning in their brains, and that blood seeming for ever to stain their hands.

4. THE HARVEST OF SIN.

AFTER the morning of the crime we do not see Lady Macbeth until the day of the coronation banquet. And how great is the change! Since the night of Duncan's murder this man and woman have lived together in hell. Surrounded by suspicion they have eaten their meat in fear; sleep has deserted them, or if it has come it has only brought the affliction of terrible dreams which shake them nightly. Lady Macbeth comes in on the morning before the feast, and at first she is alone. She is queen; her husband wears the crown which she has violated her

womanhood to secure. She thought it was worth it all. Now listen to the agony of her thoughts, and learn that, after all, this is not a furious virago or raging Amazon, but a real woman. She is talking to herself:

Naught's had, all's spent,

Where our desire is got without content:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

This wretched woman has strung up her nature to do a dreadful deed, and now the strain makes her ache in every fibre of her being. Her husband seems sometimes to be going mad; he wanders in solitude with wild looks; in company he is always starting and muttering; and she is in constant anxiety lest he should let out the dreadful secret. At night-time she can do nothing but watch over him in terror; he hears voices and sees visions, and sighs and shudders as though he would rend his bulk. It is all she can do to try to comfort him, to try to chase away monstrous thoughts and fearful imaginings. She feels the task is becoming too much for her. She besought the powers of darkness to unsex her; but now she finds that, after all, she is a woman—a woman too frail to bear such a burden and endure such a task. She rose into the strength of crime, and now she falls into an abyss of weakness and remorse. She has crowned her husband, but the brain beneath the crown is like the witches' cauldron, seething and bubbling with horrors without a name. The man she loved and worshipped, for whom she desecrated her womanhood and stained her soul, is a miserable ruin, haunted by ghosts, tormented by spectres, tired of life, envying the victim he sent to the grave:

Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further.

In the scene of the coronation feast (Act III., sc. 4), Lady Macbeth tries, with broken heart, to keep her husband quiet when he stands shuddering at the ghost of Banquo, in danger of letting out his crimes before the assembled court. Poor, wretched woman, how calm she tries to be; how she expostulates with the haunted man; how she tries to explain matters to the astonished guests! At last she entreats the company to withdraw, and, alone with her miserable husband, sinks into an utter relapse of weakness, silence and despair. So full of resource before her guests, now she has only strength to gasp out those brief answers to Macbeth's wild and bloody talk. As we read this scene, we must imagine how Macbeth rages like an angry wild beast, and intoxicates his mind with thoughts of revenge and blood, while his exhausted wife sinks into a chair, and feebly replies to the strange utterances she can only partially understand.

Mach. It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;

Augurs and understood relations have

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