And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp 12 him
Fair and noble hostess,

To his home before us.

We are your guest to-night.

Lady M.

Your servants ever

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, 13
To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure,

Still to return your own.

Dun.

Give me your hand;

Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.14

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.— The Same. A Lobby in MACBETH's Castle. Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over, a Sewer,1 and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter МАСВЕТН.

Macb. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly : 2 if th' assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success;3 that but this blow

12 Holp is the old preterite of help. So in The Psalter, generally. 13" Theirs, and what is theirs," means their kindred and dependants, and whatever belongs to them as property. — In compt is ready to answer, subject to account or reckoning. So in Othello, v. 2: When we shall meet at compt, this look of thine will hurl my soul from Heaven, and fiends will snatch at it"; at compt for the day of reckoning, or the Judgment-Day.

14" By your leave " is probably meant as a respectful prologue to a kiss. 1 An officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. From the French essayeur, used of one who tasted each dish to show that there was no poison in the food.

2 "If all were done when the murder is done, or if the mere doing of the deed were sure to finish the matter, then the quicker, the better."

3 That is, if the assassination could foreclose or shut off all sequent issues, and end with itself. His for its, referring to assassination. — To trammel up is to entangle as in a net. So Spenser has the noun in The

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that 5 we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends th' ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust :
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. - I have no spur

Faerie Queene, iii. 9, 20: "Her golden locks, that were in tramells gay upbounden."- Surcease is, properly, a legal term, meaning the arrest or stay of a suit. So in Bacon's essay Of Church Controversies: "It is more than time that there were an end and surcease made of this immodest and deformed manner of writing," &c. - Here, as often, success probably has the sense of sequel, succession, or succeeding events. So that to catch success is to arrest and stop off all further outcome, or all entail of danger.

4 To jump is to risk, to hazard. Repeatedly so.

5 That, in old English, often has the force of since, or inasmuch as. Faculties in an official sense; honours, dignities, prerogatives, whatever pertains to his regal seat.

7" Sightless couriers of the air" means the same as what the Poet elsewhere calls "the viewless winds."-The metaphor of tears drowning the wind is taken from what we sometimes see in a thunder-shower; which is ushered in by a high wind; but, when the rain gets to falling hard, the wind subsides, as if strangled by the water. See vol. xvi. page 290, note 7.

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,8
And falls on th' other side. —

Enter Lady MACBETH.

How now! what news?

Lady M. He has almost supp'd: why have you left the

chamber?

Macb. Hath he ask'd for me?

Lady M.

Know you not he has?

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Lady M.

Was the hope drunk

Wherein you 'dress'd yourself? 10 hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely?

Such I account thy love.

To be the same in thine

From this time

Art thou afeard

own act and valour

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou lack that

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

8 Self here stands for aim or purpose; as we often say, such a one overshot himself, that is, overshot his mark or aim.

9 Would for should. The two were often used indiscriminately.

10 Every student of Shakespeare knows that he often uses to address for to make ready or to prepare. And he repeatedly has the shortened form dress in the same sense. See vol. xvi. page 221, note 29. From oversight of this, some strange comments have been made upon the present passage, as if it meant that Macbeth had put on hope as a dress. The meaning I take to be something thus "Was it a drunken man's hope, in the strength of which you made yourself ready for the killing of Duncan? and does that hope now wake from its drunken sleep, to shudder and turn pale at the preparation which it made so freely?" In accordance with this explanation, the Lady's next speech shows that at some former time Macbeth had been, or had fancied himself, ready to make an opportunity for the murder.

And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage?11

Macb.

Pr'ythee, peace:

I dare do all that may become a man ;

Who dares do more is none.

Lady M.

What beast 12 was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man ;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere,13 and yet you would make both :
They've made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I've given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.14

11 The adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566: “The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete."

12 The word beast is exceedingly well chosen here: it conveys a stinging allusion to what Macbeth has just said: "If you dare do all that may become a man, then what beast was it that put this enterprise into your head?" See Critical Notes.

13 Adhere in the sense of cohere; that is, consist with the purpose. -- This passage infers that the murdering of Duncan had been a theme of conversation between Macbeth and his wife long before the weird salutation. He was then for making a time and place for the deed; yet, now that they have made themselves to his hand, he is unmanned by them.

14 Lady Macbeth begins with acting a part which is really foreign to her; but which, notwithstanding, such is her energy of will, she braves out to issues so overwhelming, that her husband and many others believe it to be her own. It is said that Mrs. Siddons used to utter the closing words of this speech in a scream, as though scared from her propriety by the audacity of her own tongue. And I can well conceive how a spasmodic action of fear might lend to such a woman as Lady Macbeth an appearance of su

Macb. Lady M.

If we should fail,

-

We fail.15

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,16
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep, -
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince,17
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: 18 when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon

perhuman or inhuman boldness. At all events, it seems clear enough that in this case her fierce vehemence of purpose rasps her woman's feelings to the quick; and the pang thence resulting might well utter itself in a scream.

15 The sense of this much-disputed passage I take to be simply this: "If we should fail, why, then, to be sure, we fail, and it is all over with us." So long as there is any hope or prospect of success, Lady Macbeth is for going ahead; and she has a mind to risk all and lose all, rather than let slip any chance of being queen. And why should she not be as ready to jump the present life in such a cause as her husband is to "jump the life to come"? See Critical Notes.

16 A metaphor from screwing up the cords of stringed instruments to the proper tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place.

17 To convince is to overcome or subdue. -Wassail is an old word for quaffing, carousing, or drinking to one's health.

18 The language and imagery of this strange passage are borrowed from the distillery, as it was in Shakespeare's time. Limbeck is alembic, the cap of a still, into which the fumes rise before passing into the condenser. Receipt is receptacle, or receiver. The old anatomists divided the brain into three ventricles, in the hindmost of which, the cerebellum, the memory was posted like a keeper or sentinel to warn the reason against attack. When by intoxication the memory is converted to a fume, the sphere of reason will be so filled therewith as to be like the receiver of a still; and in this state of the man all sense or intelligence of what has happened will be suffocated. Such appears to be the meaning of the passage; which is far from being a felicitous one. The Poet elsewhere uses fume thus; as in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 1: “Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, keep his brain fuming."