“Lady Macbeth.  Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dressed yourself?  Hath it slept since, And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time, Such I account thy love.  Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire?  Would’st thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting, I dare not, wait upon, I would, Like the poor cat in the adage?

  Macbeth.  Prithee, peace: 
  I dare do all that may become a man;
  Who dares do more is none.

Lady Macbeth.  What beast was’t then That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man, And to be more than what you were you would Be so much more the man.  Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you.  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 plucked my nipple from its boneless gums, And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.”

With respect to the above lines, let us observe that, the words, “nor time nor place did then adhere,” render it evident that they hold reference to something which passed before Duncan had signified his intention of visiting the castle of Macbeth.  Consequently the words of Lady Macbeth can have no reference to the previous communication of any definite intention, on the part of her husband, to murder the king; because, not long before, she professes herself aware that Macbeth’s nature is “too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way;” indeed, she has every reason to suppose that she herself has been the means of breaking that enterprise to him, though, in truth, the crime had already, as we have seen, suggested itself to his thought, “whose murder was as yet fantastical.”

Again the whole tenor of this passage shows that it refers to verbal communication between them. But no such communication can have taken place since Macbeth’s rencontre with the witches; for, besides that he is, immediately after that recontre, conducted to the presence of the king, who there signifies an intention of proceeding directly to Macbeth’s castle, such a communication would have rendered the contents of the letter to Lady Macbeth completely superfluous.  What then are we to conclude concerning these problematical lines?  First begging the reader to bear in mind the tone of sophistry which has been observed by Schlegel to pervade, and which is indeed manifest throughout the persuasions of Lady Macbeth, we answer, that she wilfully confounds her husband’s,—­probably vague and unplanned—­“enterprise” of obtaining the crown, with that “nearest way” to which she now urges him; but, at the same time, she obscurely individualizes the separate purposes in the words, “and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.”