BULLER.
Why—Yes and No.
NORTH.
Attend, Talboys, to the words "supernatural soliciting." What "supernatural soliciting" to evil is there here? Not a syllable had the Weird Sisters breathed about Murder. But now there is much soliloquising—and Cawdor contemplates himself objectively—seen busy upon an elderly gentleman called Duncan—after a fashion that so frightens him subjectively—that Banquo cannot help whispering to Rosse and Angus—
"See how our partner's rapt!"
TALBOYS.
"My thought whose murder's yet fantastical." I agree with you, sir, in suspecting he must have thought of the murder.
NORTH.
It is from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters—whom I never set eyes on but once, and then without interchanging a word, leapt momentarily out of this world into that pitch-pot of a pond in Glenco—it is, I say, from no leaning towards the Weird Sisters that I take this view of Macbeth's character. No "sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, tenderness, and every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind," do I ever suffer to pass by without approbation, when coruscating from the character of any well-disposed man, real or imaginary, however unaccountable at other times his conduct may appear to be; but Shakspeare, who knew Macbeth better than any of us, has here assured us that he was in heart a murderer—for how long he does not specify—before he had ever seen a birse on any of the Weird Sisters' beards. But let's be canny. Talboys—pray, what is the meaning of the word "soliciting," "preternatural soliciting," in this Soliloquy?
TALBOYS.