Ban.

Look, how our partner's rapt.

Macb. If chance will have me king, why, chance may

crown me,

Without my stir.

Ban.

Now honours come upon him

Like our strange garments; cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use.

Macb.

Come what come may;

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Macb. Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are register'd where every day I turn

The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.-
Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time,
The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

Ban.

Very gladly.

Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends.

SCENE IV.

Fores. A Room in the Palace.

[Exeunt.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not

These is commission yet return'd?

My liege,

Mal.
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth

overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence.-JOHNSON.

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.] i. e. Time and occasion will carry the thing through, and bring it to some determined point and end, let its nature be what it will.-Mrs. MONTague.

t

favour:] i. e. Pardon.

wrought-i. e. Worked, agitated.

A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.

There's no art,

To find the mind's construction in the face:

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.

The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,

That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less deserv'd;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children, and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour.

Dun. Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour To make thee full of growing."-Noble Banquo, That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me infold thee,

And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.

Dun.

There if I grow,

My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,

The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness, X

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;

So, humbly take my leave.

[Aside.

Dun.
My worthy Cawdor!
Macb. The prince of Cumberland That is a step,
On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,
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 valiant;

And in his commendations I am fed;

It is a banquet to me. Let us 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, learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them... further, they made themselves—air, into which they vanish'd. Whiles I stood wrapt in the wonder of it, came missives from,

hence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the walls of the castle of Macbeth, at Inverness, are yet standing.-STEEVENS.

The prince of Cumberland!-] The crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. When a successor was declared in the lifetime of a king (as was often the case,) the title of Prince of Cumberland was immediately bestowed on him as the mark of his designation. Cumberland was at that time held by Scotland of the crown of England, as a fief.-STEEVENs.

z Lady Macbeth,] Macbeth's wife, says Holinshed, “was very ambitious, burning with unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queene." Edit 1577.p. 244. missives-] i. e. Messengers.

a

the king, who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, Hail, king that shalt be! This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promis'd :-Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way: Thou would'st be great;
Art not without ambition; but without

The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly,
That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false,

And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'd'st have, great Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it:

And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,"
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal.-What is your tidings?

Enter an Attendant.

Atten. The king comes here to-night.

Lady. M.

Thou'rt mad to say it:

Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so,

Would have inform'd for preparation.

Atten. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming:

One of my fellows had the speed of him;

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

Than would make up his message.

Lady M.

Give him tending,

He brings great news.

The raven himself is hoarse,

[Exit Attendant.

golden round,] i. e. The diadem.

C

metaphysical aid-] i. e. Preternatural agency. In the English dic

tionary by H. C. 1655, metaphysicks are thus explained;" supernatural arts."

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse ;d
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And palle thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knifef see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blankets of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!"—Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor!

Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men

May read strange matters;-To beguile the time,

remorse ;] i. e. Pity.

e

pall-] i. e. Wrap, invest. That my keen knife-] The word knife, which at present has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to express a sword or dagger.—STEEVENS. g blanket-] In the Rambler, No. 168, Shakspeare is censured, and justly according to our modern notions, for the use of this word. But Cibber very properly reminds us that, in Shakspeare's time, it was a good and local image in the theatre, a blanket being then used for a curtain.-Life of Davenant, quoted by Nares in his Glossary.

h Hold! hold!] By the old military laws, capital punishment was inflicted upon any one, who struck his adversary, after a third had cried Hold! with an intent to part them.

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men

May read, &c.] That is, thy looks are such as will awaken men's curiosity, excite their attention, and make room for suspicion.-HEATH.