We can now measure what Shakespeare has contributed himself to her character as well as to that of her husband. At first the absolute cruelty, which with Holinshed was the chief trait of his character, is wanting in Macbeth, and therefore ambition is mentioned first. Macbeth becomes the tyrant wading in blood first after the murder of Duncan and then more from a necessity to defend himself. His own wife characterizes best the earlier hero: "Yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way; Thou would'st be great; Art not without ambition; but without The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly That would'st thou holily, would'st not play false, And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'd'st have, great Glamis, That which cries, _Thus thou must do, if thou have it_; And that which rather thou dost fear to do, Than wishest should be undone." Yet Macbeth at bottom dared not murder the king, he only toyed with the thought. He must be instigated from without, if the deed is not to be put off until the Greek calends. Lady Macbeth from the very beginning feels it her task to strengthen her laggard and doubting husband in his ambition. This Shakespeare had already found in Holinshed. As the chronicle has pictured it: "Still more did his wife urge him on to attack the king, for she was exorbitantly ambitious and burned with an inextinguishable desire to bear the name of queen."[34] While she thus incited her husband, she fulfilled yet more the longing of her own heart: "Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round." [34] The words of Holinshed's chronicle. She summons herself also to the task, calls the evil spirits of the air to her aid and will become a man, since her husband is no man: "Come, come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse; That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers!" When Macbeth announces, "Duncan comes here to-night," she asks sinisterly, "And when goes hence?"--Macbeth: "To-morrow--as he purposes."--Lady Macbeth: "O, never Shall sun that morrow see! . . . . . . . . . . . . He that's coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night's great business into my despatch; Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom."