Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch. Who's there? Macb. A friend. Ban. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed: He hath been in unusual pleasure, and This diamond he greets your wife withal, Macb. Being unprepar'd, Our will became the servant to defect; 9 All's well. I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: Macb. I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, Ban. At your kind'st leisure. Macb. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,' " Sent forth great largess to your offices:] Offices are the rooms appropriated to servants and culinary purposes. Duncan was pleased with his entertainment, and dispensed his bounty to those who had prepared it. All the modern editors have transferred this largess to the officers of Macbeth, who would more properly have been rewarded in the field, or at their return to court. STEEVENS. 8 shut up-] To shut up, is to conclude. 9 Being unprepar'd, &c.] This is obscurely expressed. The meaning seems to be:-Being unprepared, our entertainment was necessarily defective, and we only had it in our power to show the King our willingness to serve him. Had we received sufficient notice of his coming, our zeal should have been more clearly manifested by our acts. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,] Consent for will. So that the sense of the line is, If you shall go into my cc2 It shall make honour for you. So I lose r In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear, I shall be counsel'd. Macb. Good repose, the wh Ban. Thanks, sir; The like to you! [Exit E Macb. Go, bid thy mistress, when my ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. [Exit Is this a dagger, which I see before me, thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other sense Thus to mine eyes. -Now o'er the one half wor measures when I have determined of them, or when the comes that I want your assistance. WARBURTON. Mr. Malone thinks we should read content, and strengt his opinion by various quotations. And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,] Tho dudgeon sometimes signifies a dagger, it more properly means haft, or handle of a dagger, and is used for that particular sor handle which has some ornament carved on the top of it. 'the other senses, e thee still; gouts of blood, re's no such thing: informs Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. 5 [A bell rings. Nature seems dead,] That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden, in his Conquest of Mexico: "All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, "And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat. " Even lust and envy sleep!" e one half world 1, or when the time RTON. at, and strengthens f blood,] Though properly means the particular sort of op of it. These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare may be more accurately observed. Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakspeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, of a murderer. JOHNSON. * And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.] i. e. lest the noise from the stones I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. L It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman their possets, That death and nature do contend about them, Macb. [Within.] Who's there? what, ho take away from this midnight season that present horror v suits so well with what is going to be acted in it. What wa horror he means? Silence, than which nothing can be more h to the perpetrator of an atrocious design. This shows a g knowledge of human nature. WARBURTON. 5 - Whiles I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.] Here is dently a false concord; but it must not be corrected, for it is cessary to the rhyme. Nor is this the only place in which Sl speare has sacrificed grammar to rhyme. Enter MAСВЕТН. Macb. I have done the deed :-Didst thou not hear a noise? Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the crick [Looking on his hands. Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. cried, murder! That they did wake each other; I stood and heard But they did say their prayers, and address'd them 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. hat present horror which ed in it. What was the hing can be more horrid 1. This shows a great ΟΝ. gives.] Here is eriorrected, for it is ne lace in which Shak My father as he slept, I had done't.] This is very artful. For, as the poet has drawn the lady and her husband, it would be thought the act should have been done by her. It is likewise highly just; for though ambition had subdued in her all the sentiments of nature towards present objects, yet the likeness of one past, which she had been accustomed to regard with reverence, made her unnatural passions, for a moment, give way to the sentiments of instinct and humanity. WARBURTON. 7 As they had seen me,] i. e, as if. |