Dun. Enter LADY MACBETH. See, see! our honour'd hostess ! The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you, How you shall bid God yield3 us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble. Lady M. All our service, In every point twice done, and then done double, Were poor and single business, to contend Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith Your majesty loads our house: For those of old, And the late dignities heap'd up to them, We rest your hermits*. Dun. Where's the thane of Cawdor We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose To be his purveyor: but he rides well: And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him To his home before us: Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest to-night. Lady M. Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt5, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own. Dun. punctuation. Mr. Hunter might well remark "how carelessly the original editors performed their duties, at least in the first act of this tragedy." 3 How you shall bid God yield us, i. e. how you shall pray God reward us. "We use it," says Palsgrave, "by manner of thanking a person." Mr. Hunter thus explains the passage:- -"The affection which urges us to desire the society of our friends is sometimes the occasion of trouble to them, but we still feel grateful for the affection which is manifested. So you are to regard this visit; and with this view of it you will be disposed to thank us for the trouble we occasion you." 4 i. e. we as hermits, or beadsmen, shall ever pray for you. In compt, i. e. subject to accompt. Conduct me to mine host; we love him highly, [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The same. A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and Torches. Enter, and pass over the Stage, a Sewer1, and divers Servants with Dishes and Service. Then enter MACBETH. Mach. 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 shoal of Time; We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases, We still have judgment here; that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor: This even handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice 1 A sewer, an officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. Asseour, French; from asseoir, to place. 2 The meaning of this passage appears to be ::-"'Twere well it were done quickly, if, when 'tis done, it were done (or at an end); and that no sinister consequences would ensue. If the assassination, at the same time that it puts an end to Duncan's life, could make success certain, and that I might enjoy the crown unmolested;-if the blow ended the matter here, i. e. in the present world, we'd jump the life to come, i. e. hazard or run the risk of what may happen in a future state." To trammel up was to confine or tie up. The legs of horses were trammeled to teach them to amble. Surcease is cessation. To surcease or to cease from doing something supersedeo, Lat.; cesser, Fr."-Baret. In the previous line the old copy has schoole for shoal. 66 To commend was anciently used in the sense of the Latin commendo, to commit, to address, to direct, to recommend. Thus in All's Well that Ends Well: "Commend the paper to his gracious hand." And in King Henry VIII.-"The king's majesty commends his To our own lips. First, as I am his He's here in double trust : 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 cherubin, hors'd 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-How now! what news? Enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M. He has almost supp'd: Why have you left the chamber? good opinion to you." In a subsequent scene of this play we have :"I wish your horses swift and sure of foot, And so I do commend you to their backs." "The pricke of conscience," says Holinshed, "caused him ever to feare, lest he should be served of the same cup as he had ministered to his predecessor." - 5 The sightless couriers of the air are what the poet elsewhere calls the viewless winds. Thus in Warner's Albion's England :"The scouring winds that sightless in the sounding air do fly.” b. ii. c. xi. 6 So in the Tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, 1607: 66 Why think you, lords, that 'tis ambition's spur Malone has observed that "there are two distinct metaphors in this passage. I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent; I have nothing to stimulate me to the execution of my purpose but ambition, which is apt to overreach itself; this he expresses by the second image, of a person meaning to vault into his saddle, who, by taking too great a leap, will fall on the other side." Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. Know you not, he has? Mach. We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Lady M. Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? Such I account thy love. From this time, Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Macb. Pr'ythee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man ; Lady M. That made What beast 9 was't then, you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man ; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place, Did then adhere 10, and yet you would make both : 7 The adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566: "The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete." 8 Who dares do more, is none. The old copy, instead of "do more," reads " no more:" the emendation is Rowe's. A similar passage occurs in Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 4: "Be that you are, That is a woman: if you're more, you're none." 9 It has here been suggested to read "What boast was't then;" but the opposition between man and beast was evidently intended; and to break the project of the murder could hardly be called a boast. 10 Adhere, in the same sense as cohere. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Have done to this. Macb. Lady M. If we should fail! We fail. 11 But screw your courage to the sticking-place 11, 11 But screw your courage to the sticking-place. Shakespeare seems to have taken his metaphor from the screwing up the chords of stringed instruments to their proper degree of tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place; i. e. in the place from which it is not to recede, or go back. 12 The circumstance relative to Macbeth's slaughter of Duncan's chamberlains is copied from Holinshed's account of King Duffe's murder by Donwald. 13 Wassel is thus explained by Bullokar in his Expositor, 1616: "Wassaile, a term usual heretofore for quaffing and carowsing; but more especially signifying a merry cup (ritually composed, deckt and fill'd with country liquor) passing about amongst neighbours, meeting and entertaining one another on the vigil or eve of the new year, and commonly called the wassail-bol." See Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4. To convince is to overcome. See p. 94, Act iv. Sc. 3, of this play. 14 A limbeck, or alembic, is a vessel through which distilled liquors pass, in the state of fumes or vapour, into the recipient. So shall the receipt, i. e. receptacle, of reason be like this empty vessel. |