Macb. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.
Lady M.
proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear;
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts
(Impostors to true fear) would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.

Macb. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.―
If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send
Those that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.

[Ghost disappears. What! quite unmanned in folly?

Macb. If I stand here, I saw him.

Lady M.

Fie, for shame!

Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden

time,

Ere human statute purged the general weal;
Ay, and since, too, murders have been performed
Too terrible for the ear. The times have been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now, they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. This is more strange

Than such a murder is.

Lady M.

My worthy lord,

I do forget.

Your noble friends do lack you.

Macb.

Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends;

I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

To those that know me. Come, love and health

to all;

1 This was a form of elliptic expression, commonly used even at this day, in the phrase "this is nothing to them," i. e. in comparison to them. 2 The folio reads gentle.

Then I'll sit down.

Give me some wine; fill full: I drink to the general joy of the whole table,

Ghost rises.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
'Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.1

Lords.

Our duties, and the pledge.

Macb. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth

hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
Lady M.
But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

Think of this, good peers,

Macb. What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword:
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
[Ghost disappears.
Unreal mockery, hence!-Why, so;-being gone,
I am a man again.-'Pray you, sit still.

Lady M. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.

Macb.

Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe,*

1 That is, "we desire to drink" all good wishes to all.

2 "Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, explains "speculation, the inward knowledge or beholding of a thing."

3 Dare me to the desert with thy sword; if then I do not meet thee there; if, trembling, I stay in my castle, or any habitation; if I then hide my head, or dwell in any place through fear,-protest me the baby of a girl." 4 i. e. possess.

When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanched with fear.

Rosse.

What sights, my lord?

Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse

and worse;

Question enrages him. At once, good night.—

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

Good night, and better health

A kind good night to all!

[Exeunt Lords and Attendants.

Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have

blood;

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have,

By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The secret'st man of blood.-What is the night?

Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

Macb. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his

person,

At our great bidding?

Lady M.

Did you send to him, sir?

Macb. I hear it by the way; but I will send : There's not a one of them, but in his house

I keep a servant feed. I will, to-morrow,

(And betimes I will,) to the weird sisters.

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way: I am in blood

1i. e. auguries, divinations; formerly spelled augures, as appears by Florio in voce augurio. By understood relations, probably, connected circumstances relating to the crime are meant. In all the modern editions we have it, erroneously, augurs. Magot-pie is the original name of the magpie: stories, such as Shakspeare alludes to, are to be found in Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and in Goulart's Admirable Histories.

2 i. e. what say'st thou to this circumstance? Thus, in Macbeth's address to his wife, on the first appearance of Banquo's ghost:—

"Behold! look! lo! how say you?

Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned.

Lady M. You lack the season' of all natures, sleep.
Macb. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-

abuse

Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use.

We are yet but young in deed.2

SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder.

[Exeunt.

Enter HECATE, meeting the three Witches.

1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate? you
angerly.

Hec. Have I not reason, beldames, as you are,
Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth,

In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?

And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful, and wrathful; who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now. Get you gone,
And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i' the morning; thither he

Will come to know his destiny.

look

1 "You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require."

2 The editions previous to Theobald's read

"We're but young indeed."

The initiate fear is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by hard use or frequent repetition of it.

Your vessels, and your spells, provide,
Your charms and every thing beside;
I am for the air; this night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.

Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vaporous drop profound;1
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As, by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security

Is mortal's chiefest enemy.

Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c.2 Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

back again.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Fores.
Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LENOX and another Lord.

Len. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,

Which can interpret further: only, I say,

Things have been strangely borne. The gracious

Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead.— And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late; Whom you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed,

1 The vaporous drop profound seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment.

2 This song is to be found entire, in The Witch, by Middleton.