A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch. Who's there? MACB. A friend. BAN. What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed: He hath been in unusual pleasure, and Sent forth great largess to your officers": Again, in our author's 21st Sonnet : "As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air.” See vol. v. p. 150, n. 5. MALOne. 7 Merciful powers! Restrain in me the cursed thoughts, that nature Gives way to in repose!] It is apparent from what Banquo says afterwards, that he had been solicited in a dream to attempt something in consequence of the prophecy of the Witches, that his waking senses were shocked at; and Shakspeare has here most exquisitely contrasted his character with that of Macbeth. Banquo is praying against being tempted to encourage thoughts of guilt even in his sleep; while Macbeth is hurrying into temptation, and revolving in his mind every scheme, however flagitious, that may assist him to complete his purpose. The one is unwilling to sleep, lest the same phantoms should assail his resolution again, while the other is depriving himself of rest through impatience to commit the murder. The same kind of invocation occurs in Cymbeline: "From fairies, and the tempters of the night, 8 Sent forth great largess to your OFFICES:] Thus the old copy, and rightly. Offices are the rooms appropriated to servants and culinary purposes. Thus, in Timon : "When all our offices have been oppress'd 66 Again, in King Richard II. : "Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones." Duncan was pleased with his entertainment, and dispensed his bounty to those who had prepared it. All the modern editors have transferred this largess to the officers of Macbeth, who This diamond he greets your wife withal, By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up9 In measureless content. MACB. Being unprepar'd, Our will became the servant to defect; Which else should free have wrought'. would more properly have been rewarded in the field, or at their return to court. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens, who has introduced so many arbitrary alterations of Shakspeare's text, has here endeavoured to restore a palpable misprint from the old copy; officers means servants in this passage. So before, p. 87: 66 What not put upon "His spongy officers." i. e. his chamberlains. So also, in The Taming of The Shrew, vol. v. p. 459: "Is supper ready, &c. the serving men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer his wedding garment on?" MALONE. 9-shut up-] To shut up, is to conclude. So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "And heavens have shut up day to pleasure us." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. ix. : "And for to shut up all in friendly love." Again, in Reynolds's God's Revenge against Murder, 1621, fourth edit. p. 137: though the parents have already shut up the contract." Again, in Stowe's Account of the Earl of Essex's Speech on the scaffold: "he shut up all with the Lord's prayer.” STEEVENS. Again, in Stowe's Annals, p. 833: "the kings majestie [K. James] shut up all with a pithy exhortation on both sides." MALONE. I should rather suppose it means enclosed in content; content with every thing around him. So Barrow: "Hence is a man shut up in an irksome bondage of spirit." Sermons, 1683, vol. ii. 231. BOSWELL. Being unprepar'd, Our will became the servant to defect; Which else should free have wrought.] This is obscurely expressed. The meaning seems to be :-" Being unprepared, our entertainment was necessarily defective, and we only had it in our power to show the King our willingness to serve him. Had we received sufficient notice of his coming, our zeal should have been more clearly manifested by our acts. Which refers, not to the last antecedent, defect, but to will. MALONE. BAN. All's well 2. I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: Масв. I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, Would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time. BAN. At your kind'st leisure. MACB. If you shall cleave to my consent,-when 'tis 3 It shall make honour for you. 2 All's well.] I suppose the poet originally wrote (that the preceding verse might be completed,)-" Sir, all is well." STEEVENS. 3 If you shall cleave to my CONSENT,-when 'tis,] Consent, for will. So that the sense of the line is, If you shall go into my measures when I have determined of them, or when the time comes that I want your assistance. WARBURton. Macbeth expresses his thought with affected obscurity; he does not mention the royalty, though he apparently had it in his mind. "If you shall cleave to my consent," if you shall concur with me when I determine to accept the crown, "when 'tis," when that happens which the prediction promises, "“it shall make honour for you." JOHNSON. Such another expression occurs in Lord Surrey's translation of the second book of Virgil's Æneid: "And if thy will stick unto mine, I shall "In wedlocke sure knit, and make her his own." Consent has sometimes the power of the Latin concentus. Both the verb and substantive, decidedly bearing this signification, occur in other plays of our author. Thus, in King Henry VI. Part I. Sc. I.: 66 scourge the bad revolting stars "That have consented to King Henry's death-." i. e. acted in concert so as to occasion it. Again, in King Henry IV. Part II. Act V. Sc. I.: "they (Justice Shallow's servants) flock together in consent, (i. e. in a party,) like so many wild geese." In both these instances the words are spelt erroneously, and should be written concent and concented. See Spenser, &c. as quoted in a note on the passage already adduced from King Henry VI. The meaning of Macbeth is then as follows:-" If you shall cleave to my consent-" i. e. if you shall stick, or adhere, to my BAN. So I lose none, In seeking to augment it, but still keep party-"when tis," i. e. at the time when such a party is formed, your conduct shall produce honour for you. That consent means participation, may be proved from a passage in the 50th Psalm. I cite the translation 1568: "When thou sawdest a thiefe, thou dydst consent unto hym, and hast been partaker with the adulterers." In both instances the particeps criminis is spoken of. Again, in our author's As You Like It, the usurping Duke says, after the flight of Rosalind and Celia― 66 some villains of my court "Are of consent and sufferance in this." Again, in King Henry V.: "We carry not a heart with us from hence, "That grows not in a fair consent with ours." Macbeth mentally refers to the crown he expected to obtain in consequence of the murder he was about to commit. The commentator, indeed, (who is acquainted with what precedes and follows,) comprehends all that passes in the mind of the speaker; but Banquo is still in ignorance of it. His reply is only that of a man who determines to combat every possible temptation to do ill; and therefore expresses a resolve that in spite of future combinations of interest, or struggles for power, he will attempt nothing that may obscure his present honours, alarm his conscience, or corrupt his loyalty. Macbeth could never mean, while yet the success of his attack on the life of Duncan was uncertain, to afford Banquo the most dark or distant hint of his criminal designs on the crown. Had he acted thus incautiously, Banquo would naturally have become his accuser, as soon as the murder had been discovered. STEEVENS. The word consent has always appeared to me unintelligible in the first of these lines, and was, I am persuaded, a mere error of the press. A passage in The Tempest leads me to think that our author wrote-content. Antonio is counselling Sebastian to murder Gonsalo : "O, that you bore "The mind that I do; what a sleep were there 66 Seb. I think I do. "Ant. And how does your content "Tender your own good fortune? In the same play we have-"Thy thoughts I cleave to," which differs but little from "I cleave to thy content." My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear, In The Comedy of Errors our author has again used this word in the same sense: "Sir, I commend you to your own content." Again, in All's Well That Ends Well: 66 Madam, the care I have taken to even your content-." i. e. says Dr. Johnson, to act up to your desires. Again, in King Richard III. : "God hold it to your honour's good content!" Again, in the Merry Wives of Windsor: "You shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your own content." The meaning then of the present difficult passage, thus corrected, will be: If you will closely adhere to my cause, if you will promote, as far as you can, what is likely to contribute to my satisfaction and content,-when 'tis, when the prophecy of the weird sisters is fulfilled, when I am seated on the throne, the event shall make honour for you. If Macbeth does not mean to allude darkly to his attainment of the crown, (I do not say to his forcible or unjust acquisition of it, but to his attainment of it,) what meaning can be drawn from the words, "If you shall cleave," &c. whether we read consent, or the word now proposed? In the preceding speech, though he affects not to think of it, he yet clearly marks out to Banquo what it is that is the object of the mysterious words which we are now considering: "Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, "We would spend it in some words upon that business ;' i. e. " upon the prophecy of the weird sisters, [that I should be thane of Cawdor, and afterwards king,] which, as you observe, has been in part fulfilled, and which by the kindness of fortune may at some future time be in the whole accomplished." I do not suppose that Macbeth means to give Banquo the most distant hint of his having any intention to murder Duncan; but merely to state to him, that if he will strenuously endeavour to promote his satisfaction or content, if he will espouse his cause, and support him against all adversaries, whenever he shall be seated on the throne of Scotland, by whatever mysterious operation of fate that event may be brought about, such a conduct shall be rewarded, shall make honour for Banquo. The word content admits of this interpretation, and is supported by several other passages in our author's plays; the word consent, in my apprehension, affords here no meaning whatsoever. Consent or concent may certainly signify harmony, and, in a metaphorical sense, that union which binds to each other a party or number of men, leagued together for a particular purpose; |