Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, To cry, 66 Hold, hold!" -Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor! Enter MACBETH. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! The future in the instant. Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. He that's coming If fear, compassion, or any other compunctious visitings, stand between a cruel purpose and its realization, they may be said to keep peace between them, as one who interferes between a violent man and the object of his wrath keeps peace. VOL. IX. с Lady M. To alter favour ever is to fear: Only look up clear; [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attendants. Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. Ban. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle : Dun. Enter LADY MACBETH. See, see! our honour'd hostess ! The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Lady M. a We have restored the old familiar expression God-eyld, as suiting better with the playfulness of Duncan's speech than the God yield us of the modern text. There is great refinement in the sentiment of the passage, but the meaning is tolerably clear. The love which follows us is sometimes troublesome; so we give you trouble, but look you only at the love we bear to you, and so bless us and thank us. Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith We rest your hermits.a Dun. Where's the thane of Cawdor? And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him Lady M. Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own. Dun. Give me your hand : 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 Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH. Macb. If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well It were done quickly: If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, a Hermits-beadsmen-bound to pray for a benefactor. b Shoal-in the original, schoole. Theobald corrected the word to shoal, "by which," says Steevens, our author means the shallow ford of life." We shall not disturb the received reading, which is unquestionably the safest. We still have judgment here; that we but teach a It has been proposed to read, instead of itself, its sell, its saddle. However clever may be the notion, we can scarcely admit the necessity for the change of the original. A person (and vaulting ambition is personified) might be said to overleap himself, as well as overbalance himself, or overcharge himself, or overlabour himself, or overmeasure himself, or overreach himself. The word over in all these cases is used in the sense of too much. b After other Hanmer introduced side. The commentators say that the addition is unnecessary, inasmuch as the plural noun, sides, occurs just before. But surely this notion is to produce a jumble of the metaphor. Macbeth compares his intent to a courser: I have no spur to urge him on. Unprepared I am about to vault into my seat, but I overleap myself and fall. It appears to us that the sentence is broken by the entrance of the messenger; that it is not complete in itself; and would not have been completed with side. Enter LADY MACBETH. Lady M. He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber? Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. Know you not he has? Macb. 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. Prithee, peace: Macb. Lady M. a We find the adage in Heywood's Proverbs, 1566 :-"The cat would eat fish and would not wet her feet." |