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

the sense of frame or structure; but the school-term was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning is-We cannot construe or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. MALONE.

9- full of growing.] Is, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth.

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,'
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.

Dun.

My worthy Cawdor!

Macb. The prince of Cumberland!2-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.

Aside.

[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,

[Flourish. Exeunt.

Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:

It is a peerless kinsman.

1

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.

2 The prince of Cumberland!] The crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. When a successor was declared in the life-time 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.

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 vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from 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 na-
ture;

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;

missives from the king,] i. e. messengers.

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 inforın'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,

5

[Exit Attendant.

Which fate and metaphysical aid —] The crown to which fate destines thee, and which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem.

Metaphysical, which Dr. Warburton has justly observed, means something supernatural, seems, in our author's time, to have had no other meaning. In the English Dictionary, by H. C. 1655, Metaphysicks are thus explained: "Supernatural arts."

5

The raven himself is hoarse,] The following is, in my opinion, the sense of this passage:

Give him tending; the news he brings are worth the speed that made him lose his breath. [Exit Attendant.] 'Tis certain now— the raven himself is spent, is hoarse by croaking this very message, the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.

Lady Macbeth (for she was not yet unsexed) was likelier to be deterred from her design than encouraged in it by the supposed thought that the message and the prophecy (though equally secrets

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;"
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 pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knife' see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!Great Glamis! worthy
Cawdor!1

to the messenger and the raven) had deprived the one of speech, and added harshness to the other's note. Unless we absurdly suppose the messenger acquainted with the hidden import of his message, speed alone had intercepted his breath, as repetition the raven's voice; though the lady considered both as organs of that destiny which hurried Duncan into her meshes. FUSELI.

-mortal thoughts,] This expression signifies not the thoughts of mortals, but murderous, deadly, or destructive designs. remorse;] Remorse, in ancient language, signifies pity. 8 And pall thee-] i. e. wrap thyself in a pall.

7

To pall, however, in the present instance, (as Mr. Douce observes to me,) may simply mean-to wrap, to invest. STEEVENS. 9 That my keen knife-] The word knife, which at present has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to express a sword or dagger.

1 Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!] Shakspeare has supported the character of Lady Macbeth by repeated efforts, and never omits any opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monster of his own creation. The softer passions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his arrival from an expedition of danger, with such a salutation as would have become one of his friends or vassals; a salutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level