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 10.

[Ghost disappears.

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

Lady M.
Fye, for shame!
Macb. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden
time,

Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;

Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
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,

Your noble friends do lack you.
Macb.
I do forget:-
Do not muse 11 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 the general joy of the whole table,

Ghost rises.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;

10 The same thought occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. viii.:

Be not entombed in the raven or the kight.'

11 Shakspeare uses to muse for to wonder, to be in amaze. So

in King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. :

' I muse, you make so slight a question.'

and in All's Well that Ends Well :

• And rather muse than ask why I entreat you.'

'Would, he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,

And all to all 12.
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 13 in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

Lady M.

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 14,
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 15 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 displac'd the mirth, broke the

good meeting,

With most admir'd disorder.

Macb.

Can such things be,

And overcome 16 us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe 17,

When now I think, you can behold such sights 18, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine are blanch'd 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,

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

have blood;

Stones have been known to move, and trees to

speak;

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.

Macb. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies

his person,

At our great bidding?
Lady M.
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
Stept 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 scann'd 21.

Did you send to him, sir?

bably, 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.'

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:

Lady M. You lack the season 22 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 23.

SCENE V. The Heath.

[Exeunt.

Thunder.

Enter HECATE1, meeting the three Witches.

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

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 vitæ 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 it.

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 VOL. IV.

BB