Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/425

 while Malcolm is out of his reach, 'tis a superfluity of naughtiness to slay Banquo and Fleance. His wife might have counselled better, but he did not dare to confide his temper of murder to her. Henceforth, murder is become a necessary of their daily life. But her feeling that nought is had and all is spent does not involve a threat of Banquo's person. She broods in spiritless reaction, and tells Macbeth that "what's done is done." He broods in dangerous recklessness, feeling that it is not yet done:—

"Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance live."

She does not perceive what he is darkly hinting, and merely replies that they cannot live for ever. He judges hastily that they must die at once; and "there's comfort yet." But he does not venture to be explicit with her, because, if she cannot detect the murder in his words,—

"There shall be done A deed of dreadful note,"—

it is because there is murder no longer in her heart. He does not dare to risk his resolutions openly with her returning womanhood. So, when she unconsciously asks, "What's to be done?" he cannot muster courage to expose his thought:—

"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed."

Then his imagination, excited by the dire policy which he premeditates, shudders into language that recalls to us her own when she unsexed herself to make a man of