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 sword. Heaven ;1 I take't, 'tis later, sir. There's husbandry in Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, 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 Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch. Who's there? Macb. A friend. Give me my sword. Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's a-bed : He hath been in unusual pleasure, and Sent forth great largess to your officers :3 This diamond he greets your wife withal, By th' name of most kind hostess; and shut up 4 Macb. Being unprepared, Our will became the servant to defect;5 Which else should free have wrought. Ban. All's well. I dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters: Macb. I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, suggestions, and seeks refuge in prayer from the invasion of guilty thoughts even in his sleep. Herein his character stands in marked contrast with that of Macbeth, whose mind is inviting wicked thoughts, and catching eagerly at temptation, and revolving how he may work the guilty suggestions through into act. 8 Officers are those having in charge the various branches of household work, such as cook, butler, &c.; as the several rooms used for those branches were called offices. 4 Shut up probably means composed himself to rest. The phrase may be a little quaint; but I think it well expresses the act of closing one's mind to the cares and interests of the world. 5 A man may be said to be the servant of that which he cannot help: and Macbeth means that his will would have made ampler preparation, but that it was fettered by want of time. Ban. At your kind'st leisure. Mach. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, It shall make honour for you. Ban. So I lose none In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear, I shall be counsell'd. Macb. Ban. Thanks, sir: the like to you! Good repose the while! [Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE. [Exit Servant. Mach. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, As this which now I draw: Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 6 Meaning, apparently, "If you will stick to my side, to what has my consent; if you will tie yourself to my fortunes and counsel." 7 Senses is here used with a double reference, to the bodily organs of sense and the inward faculties of the mind. Either his eyes are deceived by his imaginative forces in being made to see that which is not, or else his other senses are at fault in not being able to find the reality which his eyes behold. - Dudgeon, next line, is the handle or haft of the dagger: gouts is drops; from the French gouttes. And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one half world Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,1 And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.12. Whiles I threat he lives: [A bell rings. 8 That is, makes offerings or sacrifices to Hecate, who was the Queen of Hades, the patroness of all infernal arts, and of course the mistress of all who practised them; here called pale, because, under the name of Diana, she was identified with the Moon. The name is, properly, three syllables; but Shakespeare and other dramatic poets use it as a dissyllable. 9 Watch is here used, apparently, for signal. The figure is of the wolf acting as the sentinel of Murder, and his howl being the signal to give warning of approaching danger. 10 Strides did not always carry the idea of violence or noise, but was used in a sense coherent enough with stealthy pace. So in The Faerie Queene, iv. 8, 37: "They passing forth kept on their readie way, with easie step so soft as foot could stryde." 11 That is, "tell tales of where I have been," or " of my having been here." It seems to him as if the very stones might become apprehensive, divulge his dreadful secret, and witness against him. 12 Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that added such horror to the night, as well suited with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, observes, that "all general privations are great because they are terrible." I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Enter Lady MACBETH. [Exit. Lady M. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.13 Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, He is about it: The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores: I've drugged their pos sets, That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die. Macb. [Within.] Who's there? what, ho! Lady M. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, " 13 Lady Macbeth has fired her courage by drinking some wine; but, while she is kindled by drink, the grooms are stupefied, their possets having been drugged. 14 The supposed ominousness of the owl's note is often alluded to by Shakespeare. The office of bellman, which the owl is here made to perform, is well explained in Webster's Duchess of Malfi: "I am the common bellman, that usually is sent to condemn'd persons the night before they suffer." Lady Macbeth of course regards Duncan as the condemned person to whom the "fatal bellman" gives "the stern'st good-night." 15 "The attempt without the deed destroys or ruins us." The Poet often uses confound with this meaning. 16 This little touch of nature is one of Shakespeare's most pregnant hints of character, and is enough of itself, I think, to upset the more common |