As happy prologues to the swelling act 18 Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.- Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, But what is not 22. Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt. Macb. If chance will have me king, why, chance Without my stir. Ban. may crown me, New honours come upon him Like our strange garments; cleave not to their mould, 18 As happy prologues to the swelling act. So in the prologue to King Henry V.- "Princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene." 19 Suggestion, i. e. temptation. 20 i. e. the presence of objects of fear. So in The Tragedie of Croesus, by Lord Sterline, 1604:- Than doth the substance whence it hath the being, Seems greater than itself, whilst fears are lying." 21 By his single state of man, Macbeth means his simple condition of human nature. Single soul, for a simple or weak guileless person, was the phraseology of the poet's time. Simplicity and singleness were synonymous. 22 But what is not. Shakespeare has something like this sentiment in King Richard II.— "Is nought but shadows Of what is not." Macb. Come what come may; Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Mach. Give me your favour : My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten. Where every day I turn the leaf to read them— Think upon what hath chanc'd: and, at more time, Our free hearts each to other. Ban. Very gladly. Macb. Till then, enough.—Come, friends. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are nota Those in commission yet return'd? Mal. My liege, 23 The interim having weigh'd it. The interim is probably here sel adverbially-"You having weighed it in the interim." • This is the reading of the second folio. The first has, " Or not." 1 Studied in his death is well instructed in the art of dying. Montaigne, with whom Shakespeare was familiar, says, "in my time, three of the most execrable persons that I ever knew, in all abominations of life, and the most infamous, have been seen to die very orderly and quietly, and in every circumstance composed even unto perfection." To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd2, Dun. There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face3: An absolute trust. Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. O worthiest cousin! The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before, To overtake thee: would, thou hadst less deserv'd; Are to your throne and state, children, and servants; "The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stow, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian." Steevens thinks that an allusion was intended "to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, of his dearest friend." 2 Ow'd, i. e. owned, possessed. We cannot construe the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. In Shakespeare's ninety-third Sonnet we have a contrary assertion : "In many's looks the false heart's history Is writ." It has been proposed to read, " Might have been more.” Safe toward your love and honour. Sir William Blackstone would read:-"Safe toward you love and honour; " which he explains thus:-"Our duties are your children, and servants or Dun. Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour Ban. The harvest is your own. Dun. My plenteous joys, Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter, The prince of Cumberland': which honour must vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing everything with a saving of their love and honour toward you." He says that it has reference to the old feudal simple homage, which when done to a subject was always accompanied with a saving clause-" saulf le foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy;" which he thinks suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. 6 In drops of sorrow. Lachrymas non sponte cadentes Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto; It is Lucan, lib. ix. The same sentiment again occurs in The Winter's Tale. likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing. 7 Holinshed says, "Duncan having two sons, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his successor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease, Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered (where, by the old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of blood unto him should be admitted), he began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might in time to come pretend, unto the crowne." Cumberland was anciently held as a fief of the English crown. Not, unaccompanied, invest him only, But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine And bind us further to you. Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you: I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach; Dun. My worthy Cawdor! Macb. The prince of Cumberland!—That is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, [Aside. For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires : The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. [Exit. Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant8; And in his commendations I am fed ; It is a banquet to me. Let's after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome : It is a peerless kinsman. [Flourish. Exeunt. SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a Letter. Lady M. They met me in the day of success; and I have learn'd by the perfect'st report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burnt in desire to question them further, they made themselves -air, into which they vanish'd. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives1 from the king, True, worthy Banquo, &c. We must imagine that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding lines, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium supposed to have been bestowed on him by Banquo, the reply of Duncan refers. 1 Missives, i. e. messengers. |