Are less than horrible imaginings: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, But what is not.31 Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt. Macb. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir. Ban. New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use. Macb. [Aside.] Come what come may, Time and the hour 32 runs through the roughest day. 30" My thought, though it is only of a murder in imagination or fantasy, so disturbs my feeble manhood of reason." The Poet repeatedly uses single thus for weak or feeble. 31 That is, facts are lost sight of; he sees nothing but what is unreal, nothing but the spectres of his own fancy. So, likewise, in the preceding clause: the mind is crippled, disabled for its proper function or office by the apprehensions and surmises that throng upon him. Macbeth's conscience here acts through his imagination, sets it all on fire; and he is terror-stricken, and lost to the things before him, as the elements of evil within him gather and fashion themselves into the wicked purpose. Of this wonderful development of character Coleridge justly says: "So surely is the guilt in its germ anterior to the supposed cause and immediate temptation." And again: "Every word of his soliloquy shows the early birth-date of his guilt. He wishes the end, but is irresolute as to the means; conscience distinctly warns him, and he lulls it imperfectly." - 32 Time and the hour" is an old reduplicate phrase occurring repeatedly in the writers of Shakespeare's time. The Italians have one just like it, il tempo e l'ore. The sense of the passage is well explained by Heath : 'The advantage of time and of seizing the favourable hour, whenever it shall present itself, will enable me to make my way through all obstruction and opposition. Every one knows the Spanish proverb,-Time and I against any two.'" 33"Stay upon your leisure" is stay for or await your leisure. Mach. Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten.34 Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn The leaf to read them.3 35 Let us toward the King. [Aside to BAN.] Think upon what hath chanced; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts 36 each to other. Ban. [Aside to MACB.] Very gladly. Macb. [Aside to BAN.] Till then, enough. Come, friends. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. - Forres. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd? My liege, Mal. As one that had been studied in his death 1 34 "Was exercised or absorbed in trying to recall forgotten things." A pretext put forth to hide the true cause of his trance of guilty thought. 25 He means that he has noted them down on the tablets of his memory. See vol. xiv. page 180, notes 20 and 21. 35" Speak our free hearts" is speak our hearts freely. 1 That is, well instructed in the art of dying. 2 Meaning a trifle not worth caring for. As for as if. Often so. 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. Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, Ross, and ANGUS. O worthiest cousin! The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me: thou'rt so far before, That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee.3 Would thou hadst less deserved, Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe, Are to your throne and state children and servants ;5 Dun. Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo, That hast no less deserved, nor must be known 3 The meaning is, " too slow to overtake thee." 4 "That my return of thanks and payment might have been proportionable to thy deserts, or in due proportion with them." 5 Duties is here put, apparently, for the faculties and labours of duty; the meaning being, "All our works and forces of duty are children and servants to your throne and state." Hypocrisy and hyperbole are apt to go together; and so here Macbeth overacts the part of loyalty, and tries how high he can strain up his expression of it. "With a firm and sure purpose I am not quite clear whether this means to have you loved and honoured," or, "So as to merit and secure love and honour from you." Perhaps both; as the Poet is fond of condensing two or more meanings into one expression. 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, Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine On all deservers. — From hence to Inverness, And bind us further to you. Macb. The rest is labour, which 9 is not used for you. I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach: So humbly take my leave. Dun. My worthy Cawdor! *Macb. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step, *On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, 7 The gentle and amiable sovereign means that his joys swell up so high as to overflow in tears. The Poet has several like expressions. So in Holinshed: "Duncan, having two sons, 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, 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 then held in fief of the English crown. * Which refers to rest, not to labour. "Even the repose, which is not taken for your sake, is a labour to me." *For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; 10 Dun. True, worthy Banquo: 12 he is full so valiant ; 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. [Exit. [Flourish. Exeunt. SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in MACBETH'S Castle. Enter Lady MACBETH, reading a letter. Lady M. [Reads.] They met me in the day of success; and I have learn'd by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burn'd 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 missives from the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these Weird Sisters saluted me, and referr'd 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 mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. 10 We are not to understand from this that the present scene takes place in the night. Macbeth is contemplating night as the time when the murder is to be done, and his appeal to the stars has reference to that. 11 "Let the eye wink" is the meaning. Wink at is encourage or prompt. 12 During Macbeth's last speech Duncan and Banquo were conversing apart, he being the subject of their talk. The beginning of Duncan's speech refers to something Banquo has said in praise of Macbeth. 1 Missives for messengers. So in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2: "And with taunts did gibe my missive out of audience." |