It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way: Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it.

highly,

What thou wouldst

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou 'dst have, great
Glamis,

That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it:
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical
To have thee crown'd withal.-

aid doth seem

-What is your tidings?

Enter an Attendant.

Atten. The king comes here to-night.

Lady M.

Thou 'rt mad to say it:

Is not thy master with him? who, wer 't So,

Would have inform'd for preparation.

Atten. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming : One of my fellows had the speed of him;

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

Than would make up his message.

Lady M.

Give him tending,

He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse

[Exit Attendant.

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect, and it!a Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murthering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief!

Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell! That my keen knife see not the wound it makes; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, "Hold, hold!". Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor!

To cry,

Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond.
This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

Macb.

Duncan comes here to-night.

Lady M.

My dearest love,

And when goes hence?

O, never

Macb. To-morrow,— -as he purposes.

Lady M.

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters :-To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Macb. We will speak further.

a If fear, compassion, or any other compunctious visitings, stand between a cruel purpose and its realization, they may be said to keep peace between them, as one who interferes between a violent man and the object of his wrath keeps peace.

Lady M.

To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

Only look up clear;

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-The same. Before the Castle.

Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attendants.

Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

Ban.

This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle :
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd,
The air is delicate.

Dun.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

See, see our honour'd hostess !
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you,
How you shall bid God-eyld us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.*

Lady M.
All our service
In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business, to contend

We have restored the old familiar expression God-eyld, as suiting better with the playfulness of Duncan's speech than the God yield us of the modern text. There is great refinement in the sentiment of the passage, but the meaning is tolerably clear. The love which follows us is sometimes troublesome; so we give you trouble, but look you only at the love we bear to you, and so bless us and thank us.

Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: For those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,

We rest your hermits.a

Dun.

Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well;

And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
To his home before us; Fair and noble hostess,
We are your guest to-night.

Lady M.

Your servants ever

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,
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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.-The same. A Room in the Castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the stage, a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH.

Macb. If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well

It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
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,

a Hermits-beadsmen-bound to pray for a benefactor. Shoal-in the original, schoole. Theobald corrected the word to shoal, "by which," says Steevens, "our author means the shallow ford of life." We shall not disturb the received reading, which is unquestionably the safest.

We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the 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 murtherer 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 cherubim, hors'd
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
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,"
And falls on the other b-How now, what news?

a It has been proposed to read, instead of itself, its sell, its saddle. However clever may be the notion, we can scarcely admit the necessity for the change of the original. A person (and vaulting ambition is personified) might be said to overleap himself, as well as overbalance himself, or overcharge himself, or overlabour himself, or overmeasure himself, or overreach himself. The word over in all these cases is used in the sense of too much.

After other Hanmer introduced side. The commentators say that the addition is unnecessary, inasmuch as the plural noun, sides, occurs just before. But surely this notion is to produce a jumble of the metaphor. Macbeth compares his intent to a courser: I have no spur to urge him on. Unprepared I am about to vault into my seat, but I overleap myself and fall. It appears to us that the sentence is broken by the entrance of the messenger; that it is not complete in itself; and would not have been completed with side.