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(To leave no rubs, nor botches, in the work,)
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;
I'll come to you anon*.

2 MUR.

We are resolv'd, my lord. MACB. I'll call upon you straight; abide within.

ancient language, "acquaint yourselves" with the exact time most favourable to your purposes; for such a moment must be spied out by you, be selected by your own attention and scrupulous observation. You is ungrammatically employed, instead of yourselves; as him is for himself, in The Taming of the Shrew :

"To see her noble lord restor'd to health,

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Who, for twice seven years, hath esteemed him

"No better than a poor and loathsome beggar."

In this place it is evident that him is used instead of himself. Again, in King Henry IV. Part I.:

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Advantage feeds him fat-." i. e. himself.

Again, more appositely, in King Richard II. where York, addressing himself to Bolingbroke, Northumberland, and others,

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"And there repose you [i. e. yourselves] for this night." Again, in Coriolanus :

"Breathe you, my friends—." Macbeth, in the intervening time, might have learned, from some of Banquo's attendants, which way he had ridden out, and therefore could tell the murderers where to plant themselves so as to cut him off on his return; but who could ascertain the precise hour of his arrival, except the ruffians who watched for that purpose?" STEEVENS.

3 always thought,

That I require a clearness:] i. e. you must manage matters so, that throughout the whole transaction I may stand clear of suspicion. So, Holinshed: "-appointing them to meet Banquo and his sonne without the palace, as they returned to their lodgings, and there to slea them, so that he would not have his house slandered, but that in time to come he might cleare himself.”

STEEVENS.

4 I'll come To You anon.] Perhaps the words-to you, which corrupt the metre, without enforcing the sense, are another playhouse interpolation. STEEVENS.

It is concluded:

-Banquo, thy soul's flight,

If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.

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[Exeunt.

Enter Lady MACBETH and a Servant.

LADY M. Is Banquo gone from court?

SERV. Ay, madam, but returns again to-night : LADY M. Say to the king, I would attend his leisure

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Where our desire is got without content:

'Tis safer to be that which we destroy,

Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy.

Enter MACBeth.

How now, my lord? why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making ?

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S NOUGHT'S HAD, all's spent,] Surely, the unnecessary words -Nought's had, are a tasteless interpolation; for they violate the measure without expansion of the sentiment.

"For a few words. Madam, I will. All's spent."

is a complete verse.

There is sufficient reason to suppose the metre of Shakspeare was originally uniform and regular. His frequent exactness in making one speaker complete the verse which another had left imperfect, is too evident to need exemplification. Sir T. Hanmer was aware of this, and occasionally struggled with such metrical difficulties as occurred; though for want of familiarity with ancient language, he often failed in the choice of words to be rejected or supplied. STEEVENS.

SORRIEST fancies-] i. e. worthless, ignoble, vile. So, in

Othello:

"I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me."

Using those thoughts, which should indeed have

died

With them they think on? Things without all remedy 7,

Should be without regard: what's done, is done. MACB. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it;

She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth.

But let the frame of things disjoint,

Both the worlds suffer

Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams,

That shake us nightly:
nightly: Better be with the
dead,

Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace',

Sorry, however, might signify sorrowful, melancholy, dismal. So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"The place of death and sorry execution." Again, in the play before us, (as Mr. M. Mason observes,) Macbeth says, "This is a sorry sight." STEEVENS.

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- Things without remedy,] The old copy-" all remedy.” But surely, as Sir T. Hanmer thinks, the word all is an interpolation, hurtful to the metre, without improvement of the sense. The same thought occurs in King Richard II. Act II. Sc. III. : Things past redress, are now with me past care."

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STEEVENS.

8 - scotch'd-] Mr. Theobald.-Fol. scorch'd. JOHNSON. Scotch'd is the true reading. So, in Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. V.: he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a carbonado."

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9 But let

STEEVENS.

The frame of things disjoint, BOTH THE WORLDS suffer,] The old copy reads thus, and I have followed it, rejecting the modern contraction, which was :

"But let both worlds disjoint, and all things suffer.”

The same idea occurs in Hamlet:

"That both the worlds I give to negligence." STEevens. I Whom we, to gain our PLACE, have sent to peace,] The old copy reads:

"Whom we, to gain our peace—."

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstacy 2. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestick, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further!

LADY M. Come on; gentle my lord,

Sleek o'er your rugged looks; be bright and jovial Among your guests to-night.

Масв.

3

So shall I, love; And so, I pray, be you let : your remembrance Apply to Banquo: present him eminence, both With eye and tongue : unsafe the while, that we Must lave our honours in these flattering streams; And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are ".

The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 2 In restless ECSTACY.] Ecstacy, for madness. WARBURTON. Ecstacy, in its general sense, signifies any violent emotion of the mind. Here it means the emotion of pain, agony. So, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Part I. :

"Griping our bowels with retorqued thoughts,
"And have no hope to end our extasies."

Again, Milton, in his ode on The Nativity:

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In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit." Thus also Chapman, in his version of the last Iliad, where he describes the distracting sorrow of Achilles :

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Although he saw the morn

"Shew sea and shore his extasie." STEEevens. remembrance-] Is here employed as a quadrisyllable.

So, in Twelfth-Night:

"And lasting in her sad remembrance." STEEvens. present him eminence,] i. e. do him the highest honours. WARBURTON.

5-unsafe the while, that we

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams;

And make our faces vizards to our hearts,

Disguising what they are.] The sense of this passage (though clouded by metaphor, and perhaps by omission,) appears to be as follows:-"It is a sure sign that our royalty is unsafe, when it must descend to flattery, and stoop to dissimulation."

LADY M.

You must leave this.

MACB. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear

wife!

Thou know'st, that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives. LADY M. But in them nature's copy's not

eterne "

And yet I cannot help supposing (from the hemistich, Unsafe the while that we,) some words to be wanting which originally rendered the sentiment less obscure. Shakspeare might have

written

"Unsafe the while it is for us, that we," &c.

By a different arrangement in the old copy, the present hemistich, indeed, is avoided; but, in my opinion, to the disadvantage of the other lines. See former editions. STEEVENS.

The arrangement in the text is Mr. Malone's. The old copy reads this and the preceding speech thus:

"Lady.

Come on:

"Gentle my lord, sleeke o'er your rugged looks,
"Be bright and joviall among your guests to night.
"Macb. So shall I, love, and so
I pray be you:

"Let your remembrance apply to Banquo,

"Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue :

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Unsafe the while that we must lave

"Our honors in these flattering streames," &c.

Except in the instance of the hemistichs, distinguished by italicks, and printing 'mong for "among your guests," Mr. Steevens has followed the folio. BoSWELL.

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nature's copy's not ETERNE.] The copy, the lease, by which they hold their lives from nature, has its time of termination limited. JOHNSON.

Eterne, for eternal, is often used by Chaucer. So, in The Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1305:

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O cruel goddes, that governe

"This world with binding of your word eterne,

"And writen in the table of athamant

"Your parlement and your eterne grant." STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson's interpretation is supported by a subsequent pasin this play :

sage

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and our high-plac'd Macbeth

"Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath

"To time and mortal custom.'

Again, by our author's 13th Sonnet:

"So should that beauty which you hold in lease,

"Find no determination." MALONE.

I once thought that by "Nature's copy," &c. our author meant

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