Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, and a Servant with a torch before them.

BAN. How goes the night, boy?

FLE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.

BAN. And she goes down at twelve.

FLE.

I take 't, 't is later, sir.

BAN. Hold, take my sword.-There 's husbandry in heaven,
Their candles are all out.-Take thee that too.

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: Merciful powers!
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!-Give me my sword;

Who's there? MACB. A friend.

Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch.

a Husbandry-frugality.

Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
We would spend it in some words upon that business",

If

you would grant

the time.

BAN.

At your kind'st leisure. MACB. If you shall cleave to my consent,-when 't is,

It shall make honour for you.

BAN.

So I lose none,
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear,

I shall be counsell'd.

BAN. Thanks, sir; the like to you!

MACB. Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going

And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;

[Exit BANQUO.

[Exit Servant.

a Offices. This is the original word. Malone would read officers; but it is of little consequence whether the largess was sent to the servants or the servants' hall.

We is omitted in modern editions.

• Consent-union. Macbeth covertly says, If you will unite yourself to my fortunes. Malone proposes to read content. Tieck says that Macbeth here purposely uses an obscure form of words.

And on thy blade, and dudgeona, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep: witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murther,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides towards his design
Moves like a ghost.-Thou sured and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I

go, and it is done; the bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

LADY M. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold:
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire:-Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman

Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:

The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms

[A bell rings.

Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,

Whether they live, or die.

MACB. [Within.] Who's there?-what, hoa!

LADY M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,

And 't is not done :-the attempt, and not the deed,

a Dudgeon-the handle of the dagger.

[Exit.

After sleep we find now in all modern editions. D'Avenant, in his alteration of the play, added the word, which subsequent editors have adopted. We have no doubt that Shakspere introduced the long pause to add to the solemnity of the description.

• Strides. The word of the old copies is sides; Pope changed it to strides. A doubt then arises whether this word is compatible with "stealthy pace." Johnson says that a ravishing stride is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult. This is denied; and we have examples given of a "leisurable stride" and "an easy stride." Tieck contends that sides has been received as the seat of the passions, and is so here poetically used.

a Sure. The original has sowre.

The original has "which they may walk." Tieck defends the original reading, as ungrammatical, singular, and perfectly dream-like. Is not this to refine somewhat overmuch?

Confounds us :-Hark!-I laid their daggers ready,
He could not miss them. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept I had done 't-My husband!

Enter MACBETH.

MACB. I have done the deed:-Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.

And one cried, "Murther!" that they did wake each other;
I stood and heard them: but they did say their prayers,
And address'd them again to sleep".

LADY M. There are two lodg'd together.

MACB. One cried, "God bless us!" and "Amen," the other;
As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands.

Listening their fear, I could not say, amen,

When they did say, God bless us.

LADY M.

Consider it not so deeply

MACB. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen?

I had most need of blessing, and amen

Stuck in my throat.

LADY M.

These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACB. Methought, I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murther sleep, the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

LADY M.

What do you mean?

MACB. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house:

a Here we follow the original regulation of the lines.

Sleave-unwrought silk-the sflilezza of the Italians. In 'Troilus and Cressida' we have

"Thou idle immaterial skein of sleave silk."

"Glamis hath murther'd sleep: and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!"
LADY M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things:-Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: Go, carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

How is 't with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,

Making the green-one reda.

Re-enter LADY MACBETH.

LADY M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame

To wear a heart so white. [Knock.] I hear a knocking

At the south entry:-retire we to our chamber:

A little water clears us of this deed:

How easy is it then! Your constancy

Hath left you unattended.-[Knocking.] Hark! more knocking:

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,

a The idea of this passage, and in some degree, the expression, is to be found in a line of Heywood ('Robert Earl of Huntingdon '):

"The multitudes of seas dyed red with blood."

This gives us, we think, the meaning of multitudinous. Upon the mode of reading the following line the commentators are at variance. In the original it stands

"Making the green one, red."

This Malone adopts. The ordinary reading,

"Making the green-one red,"

was suggested by Murphy in the 'Gray's Inn Journal,' and adopted by Steevens. There can be little doubt, we apprehend, of the propriety of the alteration. We have a similar expression in Milton's Comus,'

"And makes one blot of all the air."