'Tis better thee without, than him within.
That is, I am more pleased that the blood of Banquo should be on thy face, than in his body.
NOTE XXX.
Lady Macbeth. O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear: [Aside to Macbeth. This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said, Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts, Impostures to true fear, would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool.
As starts can neither with propriety nor sense be called impostures to true fear, something else was undoubtedly intended by the author, who, perhaps, wrote,
—These flaws and starts,
Impostures true to fear, would well become
A woman's story.—
These symptoms of terrour and amazement might better become impostors true only to fear, might become a coward at the recital of such falsehoods, as no man could credit, whose understanding was not weakened by his terrours; tales, told by a woman over a fire on the authority of her grandam.
NOTE XXXI.
Macbeth.—Love and health to all! Then I'll sit down: give me some wine, fill full:— I drink to the general joy of the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all.—
Though this passage is, as it now stands, capable of more meanings than one, none of them are very satisfactory; and, therefore, I am inclined to read it thus: