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[71]

Rather than so, — Come,, fate, into the list,
And champion me to the utterance.^[1]

In this soliloquy, Macbeth considers that, after all the guilt he has waded through in order to ascend the throne, he is still in the perpetual danger of being hurled from it; he weighs the causes of that danger;

to impeach the personal intrepidity of the Second in command to Julius in the battle of Pharsalia, and the generous Conqueror of the Republic on the plains of Philippi,—

 

"Cum fracta virtus, et minaces


Turpe solum tetigre mento."

 
Antony feared Octavius as a political, not as a

personal enemy; and this is exactly the light in which Macbeth regards Banquo,—as a rival for the sovereignty.

1. Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 1.