The next is the Banquet Scene. It opens with _formal ceremony_. The murderers then inform Macbeth that they have executed his will on Banquo. Macbeth expresses surprise and regret at Banquo’s absence, but in the midst of his hypocritical professions, his excited imagination _embodies_ the description which has just been given him by the murderers, and the ghost of Banquo, “with twenty trenched gashes on its head,” rises and shakes its gory locks at him. The whole scene abounds with illustrations of the theme. Macbeth endeavors to shelter himself under the _letter of the law_, when he exclaims, “thou canst not say I did it!” He thinks that after a man has been regularly murdered, he should stay in his grave; he declares his readiness to encounter any _substantial_ foe—the rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; it is the “horrible _shadow_” that blanches his cheek with fear. After the guests have retired, he falls into a superstitious train of reflection, in which he expresses his belief in augurs, etc. He declares his intention to revisit the weird sisters; he is fast becoming as formal and as reckless of consequences as his wife; he speaks of his qualms of conscience as the “_initiate_ fear that wants hard use;” and, as if he now passively allowed himself to be borne onward by the tide of events, says he has strange things in his head, “which must be _acted_ e’er they may be _scanned_.” Scene 5th. This is another witch scene. Hecate declares her intention to raise up artificial sprites for the purpose of deluding Macbeth, and drawing him on to his confusion, thus preparing the way for the ambiguous predictions. In the 6th Scene, the relation between the letter and the spirit is exhibited in the _ironical_ speech of Lennox, and in the King of England’s regard for the “dues of birth.” Things have been strangely born; the gracious Duncan Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead; And the right valiant Banquo walked too late, Whom you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed, For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late. Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain, To kill their gracious father? damned fact! How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight, In pious rage, the two delinquents tear, That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep? Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely, too; For ’twould have angered any heart alive To hear the men deny it. etc. etc. ACT IV. Scene 1st. Here we have the witches boiling their cauldron. It is composed of various and contradictory materials; Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray. And so truth and falsehood are mingled in the promises to Macbeth which immediately follow; and which are kept literally to the ear, but broken fatally to the hope.