“Were such things here as we do speak about?”
whilst Macbeth persists in recurring to the self-concerning:—
“Your children shall be kings.
_Ban._ You shall be king.
_Macb._ And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?”
So surely is the guilt in its germ anterior to the supposed cause, and
immediate temptation! Before he can cool, the confirmation of the tempting
half of the prophecy arrives, and the concatenating tendency of the
imagination is fostered by the sudden coincidence:—
“Glamis, and thane of Cawdor:
The greatest is behind.”