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Lords. Thanks to your Majesty.

Macb. Ourself will mingle with society,

And play the humble host:

Our hostess keeps her state,1 but in best time

We will require her welcome.

Lady. Pronounce it for me, Sir, to all our friends;

For my heart speaks they're welcome.

Enter first Murderer.

[They sit.

Macb. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
Both sides are even. Here I'll sit i' th' midst.

Be large in mirth ;-anon we'll drink a measure
The table round.-There's blood upon thy face.

[To the Murderer, aside, at the door.

Mur. 'Tis Banquo's then.

Macb. 'Tis better thee without, than he within.2
Is he dispatch'd?

Mur. My Lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
Macb. Thou art the best of cut-throats; yet he's good

That did the like for Fleance; if thou didst it,

Thou art the non-pareil.

Mur. Most royal Sir,

Fleance is 'scap'd.

Macb. Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect, Whole as the marble, founded as the rock;

As broad and gen'ral as the casing air:

But now I'm cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in

To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?—

Mur. Ay, my good Lord.

Safe in a ditch he bides,

With twenty trenched gashes on his head,

The least a death to nature.

Macb. Thanks for that.

There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled,
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,

No teeth for th' present. Get thee gone; to-morrow
We'll hear't ourselves again.

Lady. My royal Lord,

You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold,

That is not often vouchéd while 'tis making;

4

[Exit Murderer.

"Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home ;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;

Meeting were bare without it.

[The Ghost of Banquo rises, and sits in Macbeth's place.

1 Remains seated in her throne of state, or ceremony: So Ben Jonson

"Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep "-Cynthia's Revels. We retain the expression in the phrases "state apartments”—and “lying in state." 3 Banquo's son.

2 Better the blood on thy outside, than he within the hall.

4 "That which is not given cheerfully cannot be called a gift, it is something that must be paid for."-Johnson. 5 We would expect, and for 'lis.

The mere purpose of feeding were best accomplished at home.

Macb. Sweet remembrancer!

-Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!

Len. May't please your highness sit?

Macb. Here had we now our country's honour roof'd, Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present,

Whom may I rather challenge for unkindness,

Than pity for mischance !

Rosse. His absence, Sir,

Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your Highness

To grace us with your royal company?

Macb. The table's full.

Len. Here is a place reserv'd, Sir.

Macb. Where?

Len. Here, my good Lord.

What is't that moves your highness?

Macb. Which of you have done this?
Lords. What, my good Lord?

Macb. Thou can'st not say I did it.
Thy gory locks at me.

Never shake

Rosse. Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well.

T

[Starting.

Lady. Sit, worthy friends. My Lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat:
The fit is momentary, on a thought

He will again be well. If much you note him,
You shall offend him, and extend his passion.
Feed, and regard him not.-Are you a man?

[To Macbeth, aside.

Macb. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil.

Lady. O proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear;

This is the air-drawn dagger,1 which, you said,

[Aside.

Led you to Duncan. Oh, 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?

[Pointing at the Ghost.

Why, what care I? if thou can'st nod, speak too.

If charnel-houses and our graves must send

Those, that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.

Lady. What! quite unmann'd in folly?
Macb. If I stand here, I saw him.
Lady. Fy, for shame!

1 See Act ii. Sc. 2.

[The Ghost vanishes.

Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' th' olden time,
Ere human statute purg'd the general weal;

Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for th' 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,1
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is.

Lady. My worthy Lord,

Your noble friends do lack you.

Macb. I do forget.

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!

Then I'll sit down; give me some wine, fill full

I drink to th' general joy of the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.
Would he were here !- -to all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.2

Lords. Our duties, and the pledge.

[The Ghost rises again.

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 withal.

Lady. Think of this, good peers,
But as a thing of custom; 'tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Macb. What man dare, I dare.

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd 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 desart with thy sword;
If trembling I inhibit, then protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mock'ry, hence! Why-so-being gone,

I am a man again. Pray you sit still.

[The Ghost vanisheth.

[The Lords rise. Lady. You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admir'd' disorder.

Macb. Can such things be,

And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange,

Crown in this application has lost caste as a word since the days of Shakespeare. Instances of this occur repeatedly in the works of the older writers.

All good wishes to all.
Singular, surprising.

3 Refuse thy challenge.

5 Pass over us.

Ev'n to the disposition that I owe,1

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheek,

When mine is blanch'd with fear.

Rosse. What sights, my Lord?

Lady. 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.

Len. Good night, and better health

Attend his Majesty !

Lady. Good night to all.

[Exeunt Lords.

Macb. It will have blood.-They say, blood will have blood.

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;

Augurs, that understand relations, have,

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

*

ACT IV. SC. 6.

MACDUFF RECEIVES THE TIDINGS OF THE SLAUGHTER OF
HIS FAMILY.

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Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?

Rosse. No; they were well at peace when I did leave them.

Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes it?

Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings

Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour

Of many worthy fellows that were out,3
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's pow'r a-foot.
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, and make women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.*

Mal. Be't their comfort

We're coming thither. Gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men ;
An older and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. Would I could answer

This comfort with the like.

1 Possess. See note 2, p. 92.

But I have words,

2 Connections of one thing with another; another reading is "and understood relations." In insurrection against Macbeth's tyranny.

Note the beauty of Rosse's unwillingness to answer Macduff's question, while the

fulness of his mind with the terrible intelligence urges him to return to it.

That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them.

Macd. What concern they?

The gen'ral cause? or is it a fee grief;1
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind that's honest,

But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Hum! I guess at it.

Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd, your wife and babes
Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner,
Were on the quarry2 of these murder'd deer
To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful Heav'n

What, man ne'er pull your hat upon your brows:
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too!-

Rosse. Wife, children, servants,-all that could be found.
Macd. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too!
Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted.

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? What, all? Oh, hell-kite! all!
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,

At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

Macd. I shall do so,

But I must also feel it as a man.

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.

Did Heav'n look on,

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,--
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heav'n rest them now!
Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword; let grief
Convert to wrath. Blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle Heav'n!
Cut short all intermission; front to front

1 "A grief that hath a single owner."-Johnson.

The piled slaughter of a hunting-match.

3 Malcolm: Constance makes a similar reflection-"He talks to me that never had a son."---King John, Act III. Sc. 4.

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