Act 1, Scene 7

The same. A Lobby in the Castle.

[Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over, a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter Macbeth.]
Macbeth
440 If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
441 It were done quickly. If the assassination
442 Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
443 With his surcease, success; that but this blow
444 Might be the be-all and the end-all—here,
445 But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,—
446 We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
447 We still have judgement here; that we but teach
448 Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
449 To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
450 Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
451 To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
452 First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
453 Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
454 Who should against his murderer shut the door,
455 Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
456 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
457 So clear in his great office, that his virtues
458 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
459 The deep damnation of his taking-off:
460 And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
461 Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
462 Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
463 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
464 That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur
465 To prick the sides of my intent, but only
466 Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
467 And falls on the other.
[Enter Lady Macbeth.]
Macbeth
468 How now! what news?
Lady Macbeth
469 He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
Macbeth
470 Hath he ask'd for me?
Lady Macbeth
471 Know you not he has?
Macbeth
472 We will proceed no further in this business:
473 He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
474 Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
475 Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
476 Not cast aside so soon.
Lady Macbeth
477 Was the hope drunk
478 Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
479 And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
480 At what it did so freely? From this time
481 Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
482 To be the same in thine own act and valor
483 As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
484 Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
485 And live a coward in thine own esteem;
486 Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
487 Like the poor cat i' the adage?
Macbeth
488 Pr'ythee, peace!
489 I dare do all that may become a man;
490 Who dares do more is none.
Lady Macbeth
491 What beast was't, then,
492 That made you break this enterprise to me?
493 When you durst do it, then you were a man;
494 And, to be more than what you were, you would
495 Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
496 Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
497 They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
498 Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
499 How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
500 I would, while it was smiling in my face,
501 Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
502 And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
503 Have done to this.
Macbeth
504 If we should fail?
Lady Macbeth
505 We fail!
506 But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
507 And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,—
508 Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
509 Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains
510 Will I with wine and wassail so convince
511 That memory, the warder of the brain,
512 Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
513 A limbec only: when in swinish sleep
514 Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
515 What cannot you and I perform upon
516 The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
517 His spongy officers; who shall bear the guilt
518 Of our great quell?
Macbeth
519 Bring forth men-children only;
520 For thy undaunted mettle should compose
521 Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,
522 When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
523 Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers,
524 That they have don't?
Lady Macbeth
525 Who dares receive it other,
526 As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar
527 Upon his death?
Macbeth
528 I am settled, and bend up
529 Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
530 Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
531 False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 442archaic vocab
“Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, With his surcease, success”
'Trammel up' means to ensnare or net something — a 'trammel' was a kind of fishing or fowling net. Macbeth wishes the assassination could catch ('trammel up') all the consequences that would follow from it. 'Surcease' means Duncan's death or cessation; 'success' here means the outcome that would come after — not 'triumph' but simply 'what follows.' The whole clause means: if killing Duncan could somehow net every consequence along with the death itself, stopping the chain of results cold.
TLN 444archaic vocab
“the be-all and the end-all—here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time”
'Be-all and end-all' means the total, absolute thing — the act that is everything in itself and completes itself. 'Bank and shoal of time' is one of the most debated phrases in the play. The Folio reads 'Schoole' (not 'shoal'), but most editors follow 'shoal' — a shallow sandbar — making time a shallow ford Macbeth could cross quickly to the afterlife. Either way Macbeth is comparing his mortal life to a brief, precarious stopping-point before the deep current of eternity. 'Jump' (TLN 446) means 'risk' or 'hazard,' not leap.
TLN 451historical topical
“He's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject”
Macbeth sets out why killing Duncan would be a triple crime, not just murder. First, he is Duncan's kinsman (a blood relative) and subject — both relationships creating absolute obligations of loyalty. Second, he is Duncan's host: Elizabethan and Jacobean hospitality law held that a host had a sacred duty to protect a guest under his roof. To murder a guest was among the gravest breaches of honor imaginable. This triple violation — kinsman, subject, host — frames the deed as monstrous before Macbeth even considers its political consequences.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 457biblical allusion
“his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off: And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air”
Macbeth imagines two supernatural figures crying out against the murder: angels blowing trumpets — the standard image of the Last Judgment, when angels sound the last trump — will proclaim Duncan's innocence, while Pity itself will appear as a newborn infant riding the wind, and as cherubim (a high order of angels) mounted on the invisible winds ('sightless couriers of the air'). Both images draw on biblical and traditional Christian iconography to say that heaven itself will denounce the killing.
TLN 464rhetorical device
“I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other”
Macbeth concludes his soliloquy with an extended metaphor from horsemanship: he has no legitimate motive (no 'spur') to drive forward ('prick the sides of') his murderous intention — only ambition, which is like a horse-rider who jumps too high to clear the saddle, overleaps the horse entirely, and falls on the other side. 'Vaulting' means both leaping dramatically (vaulting onto a horse) and overreaching. The metaphor captures Macbeth's self-awareness that his only motive is ambition, and that ambition itself causes the overreach that leads to ruin.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)
TLN 486cultural context
“Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would," Like the poor cat i' the adage”
Lady Macbeth refers to a well-known proverb or 'adage' about a cat that wanted fish but refused to get its paws wet. The cat 'would eat fish but durst not wet her feet' — wanting the prize but unwilling to endure the means. She is accusing Macbeth of the same cowardice: he wants the crown but will not do what it takes to seize it, letting his fear ('I dare not') hold back his desire ('I would').
TLN 498rhetorical device
“I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums And dash'd the brains out”
To shame Macbeth into proceeding with the murder, Lady Macbeth invokes the most extreme image of violated tenderness she can think of: she claims she has nursed a child (her own or another's — the play never clarifies this), and that even so, if she had sworn as Macbeth has to kill Duncan, she would have dashed that baby's brains out rather than break the oath. The image is deliberately shocking: it uses the most protected relationship in nature — a nursing mother — to argue that an oath once sworn must be kept no matter what.
TLN 506archaic vocab
“screw your courage to the sticking-place”
'Screw your courage to the sticking-place' means to tighten your nerve to its highest pitch and hold it there. The image comes from a crossbow or a stringed instrument (a viol or lute): a screw-pin or peg is turned to tune a string up to the right tension — the 'sticking-place' is the notch or stop where the peg lodges when the tension is right. Lady Macbeth is telling Macbeth to tune his courage up to maximum tension and hold it steady.
TLN 510archaic vocab
“wine and wassail so convince That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbec only”
'Wassail' is a heavy spiced ale or wine drunk at festive toasts — here, the generous drink Lady Macbeth will ply the chamberlains with until they are stupefied. 'Convince' means to overpower or overcome, not just to persuade. The elaborate metaphor that follows describes what drink does to the brain: 'memory' (the guardian or 'warder' of conscious thought) becomes mere vapor, and the 'receipt' (vessel, container) of reason becomes a 'limbec' — a distilling flask that drips out alcoholic fumes rather than clear thought.
TLN 528archaic vocab
“I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat”
'Bend up' echoes the crossbow and string-tension imagery Lady Macbeth just used: Macbeth is 'screwing' his entire physical being to maximum tension. 'Corporal agent' means every bodily instrument — each limb and faculty of the body. The word 'corporal' (of the body, Latin corpus) is a false friend: it does not mean military rank here but 'bodily.' Macbeth is saying he has made his decision and is now tensing every physical and mental faculty to carry it out.
TLN 530rhetorical device
“mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know”
'Mock the time' means to deceive the present world — all those around them — by putting on the best possible performance of normality ('fairest show'). The closing couplet is the scene's moral epigraph: Macbeth will present a smiling, innocent face ('false face') to conceal the murderous intention his heart already holds. This is the explicit adoption of the equivocal strategy Lady Macbeth urged in 1.5 — 'look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't.' The rhymed couplet seals the scene with the play's central theme: the gap between appearance and reality.
historical Equivocation and the Gunpowder Plot