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And overcome16 us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owel,

When now I think, you can behold such sights18,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanch'd with fear.

Rosse. wor

What sights, my lord?

Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; won 1. fs90z

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Question enrages him: at once, good night:-
Stand not upon the order of your going, s
But go at once.

Len.

Good night, and better health

Attend his majesty!

Lady Modem A kind good night to all! M. [Exeunt Lords and Attendants.

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Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood; role or Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; new dat

Augures 19, 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.

16 Overcome us, pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer's cloud passes, unregarded.

17 i. e. possess.

18 You strike me with amazement, make me scarce know myself, now when I think that you can behold such sights unmoved, &c.

19 i. e. auguries, divinations; formerly spelt augures, as appears by Florio in voce augurio, By understood relations, probably, connected circumstances relating to the crime are meant. I am inclined to think that the passage should be pointed thus:"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."

In all. the modern editions we have it erroneously augurs. Magotpie 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.'

Macb. How say'st thou20, 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 fee'd. 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 bretë Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more, wil 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 scann’d21. Lady M. You lack the season22 of all natures, sleep.

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Mac. Come, we'll to sleep: My strange and self

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Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use:-
We are yet but young Sin deed23.

[Exeunt.

20 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?'

So again in Othello, when the Duke is informed that the Turkish fleet was making for Rhodes, which he supposed to have been bound for Cyprus, he says:—

'How say you by this change?'

Again in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Speed says, 'But, Launce, how v say'st thou, that my master is become a notable

lover?'

21 i, e. examined nicely.

22 You lack the season of all nature's sleep. Johnson explains this You want sleep, which seasons or gives the relish to all natures. Indiget somni vitae condimenti. So in All's Well that Ends Well: "Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. It has, however, been suggested that the meaning is, 'You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require.' I incline to the last interpretation.

23 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 ita

SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder.

Enter HECATE1, meeting the three Witches.

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

Hec. Have I not reason, beldams, as you are,
Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare
To trade and traffick with Macbeth,
In riddles, and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never call'd 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, I
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.s

1 Shakspeare has been unjustly censured for introducing Hecate among the vulgar witches, and consequently for confounding ancient with modern superstitions. But the poet has elsewhere shown himself well acquainted with the classical connexion which this deity had with witchcraft. Reginald Scot, in his Discovery, mentions it as the common opinion of all writers, that witches were supposed to have nightly 'meetings with Herodias and the Pagan gods, and that 'in the night time they ride abroad with Diana, the goddess of the Pagans, &c. Their dame or chief leader seems always to have been an old Pagan, as 'the Ladie Sibylla, Minerva, or Diana.' In Middleton's Witch, Hecate is the name of one of his witches, and she has a son a low buffoon. In Jonson's Sad Sheperd, Act ii. Sc. 3, Maudlin the witch calls Hecate the mistress of witches, 'Our dame Hecate.' Shakspeare no doubt knew that Diana was the name by which the goddess was invoked in modern times, but has preferred her former appellation. Our great poet is not alone in the illegitimate pronunciation of Hecate as a dissyllable. Marlowe, who was a scholar, has also thus used it in his DP. Faustus:

'Plato's blew fire and Hecat's tree

With magic spells encompass thee.*

Jonson also, in the passage above cited, and even Milton, in his Comus, have taken the same liberty:

'Stay thy cloudy ebon chair

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat, and befriend e,' &c.

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?;
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distill'd by magic slights3,
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.

i

Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c. Hark, I am call'd; my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

[Exit.

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again. 5 bid bend

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Forès. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LENOX and another Lord.

Len. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,

2 Steevens remarks that Shakspeare's mythological knowledge on this occasion appears to have deserted him; for as Hecate is only one of three names belonging to the same goddess, she could not properly be employed in one character to catch a drop that fell from her in another. In a Midsummer Night's Dream, however, the poet was sufficiently aware of her threefold capacity:--fairies. that do run

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By the triple Hecat's team.'

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. Lucan introduces Erichtho using it, lib. vi. 669:

a

Et virus large lunare ministrat." 3 Slights are arts, subtle practices.

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

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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 walk'd too late;
Whom, you may say, if it please you, Fleance kill'd,
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm, and for Donalbain,
To kill their gracious father? damned fact! JA
How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive,
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well: and I do think,
That, had he Duncan's sons under his key
(As, an't please heaven, he shall not), they should

find

What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
But, peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he

fail'd

His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
Macduff lives in disgrace: Sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?

Lord.
The son of Duncan,
From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court; and is receiv'd
Of the most pious Edward with such gr
grace,
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect: Thither Macduff
Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid
To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward:
That, by the help of these (with Him above
To ratify the work)
we may again

1 Who cannot want the thought, &e. The sense requires who can want the thought; but it is, probably, a lapse of the poet's pen.

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