I.vii.1 (428,1) If it were _done_] A man of learning recommends another punctuation: _If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well. It were done quickly, if, &c._ I.vii.2 (428,2) If the assassination/Could tramel up the consequence] Of this soliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakespeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus, "If that which I am about to do, when it is once _done_ and executed, were _done_ and ended without any following effects, it would then be best _to do it quickly_; if the murder could terminate in itself, and restrain the regular course of consequences, if _its success_ could secure _its surcease_, if being once done _successfully_, without detection, it could _fix a period_ to all vengeance and enquiry, so that _this blow_ might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to suffer; if this could be my condition, even _here_ in _this world_, in this contracted period of temporal existence, on this narrow _bank_ in the ocean of eternity, _I would jump the life to come_, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future state. But this is one of _these cases_ in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon as _here_ in our present life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example." (1773) I.vii.4 (428,3) With his surcease, success] I think the reasoning requires that we should read, _With its_ success surcease. I.vii.6 (429,4) shoal of time] This is Theobald's emendation, undoubtedly right. The old edition has _school_, and Dr. Warburton _shelve_. I.vii.22 (429,7) or heavens cherubin, hors'd/Upon the sightless couriers of the air] [W: couriers] _Courier_ is only _runner_. _Couriers of air_ are _winds_, air in motion. _Sightless_ is _invisible_. I.vii.25 (430,8) That tears shall drown the wind] Alluding to the remission of the wind in a shower. I.vii.28 (430,9) _Enter Lady_] The arguments by which lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the house-breaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost: _I dare do all that become a man, Who dares do more, is none_. This topic, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier, and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman, without great impatience.