Thou hast no speculation in those eyes QUEEN. Think of this, good peers, Why, so ;-being gone, [Ghost disappears. QUEEN. You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admir'd disorder. K. MACB. Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine are* blanch'd with fear. Ross. What sights, my lord? QUEEN. 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, But go at once. LEN. Attend his majesty! QUEEN. Good night, and better health-120 A kind good night to all! [Exeunt Lords and Attendants. K. MACB. It will have blood they say! blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; b Augurs, and understood relations, have By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth QUEEN. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. (*) Old text, is. The baby of a girl.] Steevens altered the above, which is the old text, to,-" If trembling I inhibit thee," but we concur with Henley in thinking that "inhabit" is here used in a neutral sense, and that the original affords a better and more forcible meaning than the alteration,-"Dare me to an encounter in the desert, and if then trembling, I keep house, proclaim me," &c. Augurs, and understood relations, &c.] So, unintelligibly, reads the folio. What the poet wrote we cannot doubt was, "Augurs that understood relations," &c. which D'Avenant turned to, "Augurs well read in Languages of Birds," &c. K. MACB. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person, At our great bidding?a QUEEN. Did you send to him, sir? K. MACB. I hear it by the way; but I will send : More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd. QUEEN. You lack the season of all natures, sleep. K. 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. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-The Heath. Thunder. Enter HECATE, (2) meeting the three Witches. 1 WITCH. Why, how now, Hecate? you look angerly. HEC. Have I not reason, beldams as you are, Saucy, and over-bold? How did you dare To trade and traffic 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, And, which is worse, all you have done, Spiteful and wrathful; who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now: get you gone, Meet me i' the morning; thither he I am for the air; this night I'll spend - 2 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; How say'st thou, &c.] This has been interpreted, "What say you to the fact that Macduff refuses to appear upon our summons?" 17 the season-] The preservative. And that, distill'd by magic slights, As, by the strength of their illusion, Is mortals' chiefest enemy. SONG. [Without.] Come away, come away, &c. (3) 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. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-Forres. A Room in the Palace. Enter LENNOX, and another Lord. LEN. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts, Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan Whom, you may say, if 't please you, Fleance kill'd, Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain To kill their gracious father? damned fact! That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep? (As, an 't please heaven, he shall not) they should find But, peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd Macduff lives in disgrace: sir, can you tell * of Duncan, LORD. * Old text, Sonnes. • Who cannot want the thought, &c.] The sense obviously requires us to read,"Who can want," &c. i.e., Who can be without, &c.; but, as Malone remarks, Shakespeare is sometimes incorrect in these minutiæ. Takes from his high respect: thither Macduff Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid-30 Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights; LEN. Sent he to Macduff? LORD. He did: and with an absolute, Sir, not I, And hums, as who should say, You'll rue the time LEN. And that well might His LORD. I'll send my prayers with him! [Exeunt. ACT IV. SCENE I.-A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. (1) In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone,a Days and nights has thirty-one; (*) Old text, their. Toad, that under cold stone,-] The deficiency in this line has been variously supplied. D'Avenant has, Pope, Steevens, "This Toad which under mossy stone," &c. "Toad, that under the cold stone," &c. "Toad, that under coldest stone," &c. We ought probably to read, with Pope," the cold stone," or a cold stone" Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake, ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw and gulfa Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; 30 ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. Enter HECATE.C HEC. O, well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i' the gains. Enchanting all that you put in. [Music and Song, "Black spirits," &c. (2) [Exit. -gulf-] The throat, the swallow. -chaudron,-] Entrails. Enter HECATE.] The stage direction of the folio is, "Enter Hecat, and the other three Witches," but it is very unlikely that Shakespeare purposed any addition to the original triad. Nothing is more common in our early dramas than upon the entrance of each character on a scene, for the stage direction to recapitulate the personages already there, as if they had entered at the same time with the last comer. |