Certain Nezv Elucidations of Shakespeare 19 



to fill up the scene, — for what? To furnish audience for things 

 now to be said. Macbeth has returned from the place of death. 

 All eyes are fastened on him. He must now meet the test. His 

 nature is sensitive and sympathetic, and no situation could be 

 more trying. He begins well, though not quite naturally : 



Had I but died an hour before this chance, 

 I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant 

 There's nothing serious in mortality. 

 All is but toys.' Renown and grace is dead. 

 The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 

 Is left this vault to brag of. 



It is not so hard to talk in sublime generals. But when the 

 question comes, Who did it, the case is changed. Macbeth is 

 silent, and Lennox answers, — 



Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done it. 

 Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood. 

 So were their daggers, which unwip'd we found 

 Upon their pillows. 



Is there then a pause, each looking to his fellow ? Those victims 

 have been struck down, half-awake, with no chance to speak, and 

 Lennox attempts to gloss over the ugly fact. ' They stared,' he 

 says, ' and were distracted. No man's life was to be trusted 

 with them.' Do the company think so? Macbeth, looking into 

 their faces, seems to read dark imaginings. At any rate, he 

 spoils his part by a colossal blunder. Feeling that he must not 

 delay longer an avowal of his act, he tries fatally to explain and 

 at the same time deprecate and excuse, — 



I yet do I repent me of my fury, 

 That I did kill them. 



If, taking his cue from Lennox's last remark, he had said, ' I killed 

 them at sight, and would fain have made them die ten thousand 

 deaths,' he would have passed this crisis of his trial perhaps suc- 

 cessfully. But he is hopelessly unmanned, and his unaccountable, 

 almost imbecile remark, that he ' repents him ' of his ' fury ' can 

 have but one effect upon the company. There is one man only 

 among them all whose soul reacts naturally and utterly and 

 worthily. Macduff, as with the voice of doom, turns on him, — ■ 

 Wherefore did you so? 

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