And pour'd them down before him. To give thee, from our royal master, thanks; Not pay thee. Roffe. And for an earnest of a greater honour, Ban. What, can the devil speak true ? Mach. Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor! Do you not hope, your children shall be Kings ? [Afide. [To Angus. [To Banquo. When those, that gave the Thane of Caudor to me, Ban. That trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Win us with honest trifles, to betray us In deepest consequence. Coufins, a word, I pray you. Macb. Two truths are told, [To Rosse and Angus. [Afide. As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen This fupernatural folliciting Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it giv'n me earnest of fuccess, My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, But what is not. Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt! Mach. If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me, Without my fstir. Ban. New honours, come upon him, (9) --prefent fears [Afide. Are less than borrible imaginings.] Macbeth, while he is projecting the murder, which he afterwards puts in execution, is thrown into the most agonizing affright at the profpect of it: which soon recovering from, thus he reasons on the nature of his disorder. But imaginings are so far from being more or less than present fears, that they are the fame things under different words. Shakespeare certainly wrote; Are less than horrible imaginings. present feats i. e. When I come to execute this murder, I shall find it much less dreadful than my frighted imagination now presents it to me. A confideration drawn from the nature of the imagination. Mr. Warburton. Macbeth, speaking again of this murder in a subsequent scene, uses the very fame term; I'm fettled, and bend up Each corp'ral agent to this terrible feat. And it is a word, elsewhere, very familiar with our poet. I'll only add, in aid of my friend's correction, that we meet with the very same sentiment, which our poet here advances, in OVID's Epistles; Terror in bis ipso major folet effe periclo. Paris Helenæ. ver. 349. And it is a maxim with Machiavel, that many things are more fear'd afar off, than near at hand. E fono molte cose che discosto paiono terribili, infopportabili, ftrani; & quando ti appressi loro, le riescono bumane, sopportabili, domeftiche. Et pero fi dice, che fono maggiori spaventi che i mali, Mandragola, Atto. 3. Sc. 11. Like N4 tu li Like our ftrange garments cleave not to their mould, Mach. Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. With things forgot. Kind gentlemen, your pains [To Banquo. (The Interim having weigh'd it,) let us speak Mach. "Till then enough: come, friends. SCENE changes to the Palace. [Exeunt. Flourish. Enter King, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lenox, and King Attendants. S execution done on Carudor yet? Mal. My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke King. There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face : An abfolute truft. Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Roffe, and Angus. O worthiest Coufin! The fin of my ingratitude e'en now Was Was heavy on me. Thou'rt so far before, (10) - More is thy due, than more than all can pay.. 1 King. Welcome hither : I have begun to plant thee, and will labour And hold thee to my heart.. Ban. There if I grow, The harvest is your own. King. My plenteous joys, Wanton, in fulness, seek to hide themselves (10) Thou art fo far before, That swifteft wind of recompence is flaw To overtake thee.] Thus the editions by Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope:: whether for any reason, or purely by chance, I cannot determine.. I have chose the reading of the more authentick copies, Wing. We meet with the fame metaphor again in Troilus and Creffida.. But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehenfion. (11) and our duties Are to your throne and state, children and fervantsi Safe towards your love and honour.): This may be sense; but,, I own --by doing every thing, Fiefs towards your love and honour. i.e. We hold our duties to your throne, &c. under an obligation of doing every thing in our power: as we hold our Fiefs, (feuda) those: estates and tenures, which we have on the terms of homage and fer vices. In drops of forrow. Sons, kinsmen, Thanes, Our eldeft Malcolm, whom we name hereafter Not unaccompanied, invest him only; But figns of Nobleness, like stars, shall shine On all defervers. Hence to Inverness, And bind us further to you. Mach. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you; I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful King. My worthy Cawdor! 'Mach. The Prince of Cumberland!-that is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Which the eye fears, when it is done, to fee. [Afide [Exit. King. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant; And in his commendations I am fed; It is a banquet to me. Let us after him, L [Flourish. Exeunt. SCENE, changes to an Apartment in Macbeth's Castle, at Inverness. Enter Lady Macbeth alone, with a letter. Lady. T HEY met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfectest report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burnt in defire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. While I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail'd me Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these weird fifters Saluted me, and referr'd me to the coming on of time, with hail, King that shalt be! This have I thought good to deliver |