But I muft alfo feel it as a man. I cannot but remember fuch things were, That were most precious to me: did heav'n fook on, Fell flaughter on their fouls; heav'n reft them now! Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief Convert to wrath: blunt not the heart, enrage it. Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle heav'n! Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself ; Mal. This tune goes manly: Come, go we to the king, our power is ready; Is ripe for fhaking, and the powers above may; The night is long that never finds the day. ACT V. [Exeunt. SCENE I. Enter Lady Macbeth with a Taper. Gent. Lo, you! here fhe comes; this is her very guise, and, upon my life, fast asleep; observe her, ftand close. Doct. How came fhe by that light? Gent. Why, it ftood by her: fhe has light by her continually, 'tis her command. Doct. You fee, her eyes are open. Gent. Ay, but their fenfe is fhut. Doct. What is it fhe does now? look how the rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accuftom'd action with her, to feem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady. Yet here's a spot. Do&. Hark, fhe speaks. I will fet down what comes from her, to fatisfy my remembrance the more ftrongly. Lady. Out! damned fpot; out, I fay-one; two; why then 'tis time to do't- hell is murky. Fy, my lord, fy, a foldier, and afraid? what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account ?. -yet who would have thought the old man to have had fo much blood in him? Doct. Do you mark that ?/ Lady: The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is fhe now? what, will these hands ne'er be clean ? -no more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this ftarting. Dott. Go to, go to; you have known what you fhould not. Gent. She has fpoke what she should not, I am fure. of that: heaven knows, what he has known. Lady. Here's the fmell of the blood still all the perfumes of Arabia will not fweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! Do. What a figh is there? the heart is forely charg'd: Gent. I would not have fuch a heart in my bofom, for the dignity of the whole body, Dot. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have: known those which have walk'd in their fleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not fo pale-I tell you yet again Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Dot. Even fo? Lady. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what's done, cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. * old age, I have liv'd long enough: (18) my way of life. (18) My way, &c.] Way may be explained by---the progress,. or courfe of my life: but I muft own, Mr. Johnson's conjecture appears very plaufible: as, fays he, there is no relation between the way of life, and fallen into the fear, I am inclined to believe, that the w is only an m inverted, and, that it was originally written my may of life. "I am now paffed from the fpring to the autumn of my days, but I am without thofe comforts that fucceed the sprightliness of bloom, and fupport me in this melancholy feafon.". The words the fear, and yellow leaf, seem greatly to counté-nance this conjecture. * Old-age] Sampson enumerating his forrows, laments the misery of being contemptible in his old-age : To vifitants a gaze 'Or pity'd object; these redundant locks, Vain monument of ftrength, till length of years, To a contemptible old age obfcure. Milton's Samfen Agon‹ Difeafes of the Mind, incurable. Canft thou not minister to a mind difeas'd, SCENE V. Reflections on Life. (20) To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last fyllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools (19) Oblivious, &c.] Alluding to the Nepenthe: a certain mixture, of which opium perhaps was one of the ingredients. Homer Od. 4. 221. Νηπενθες τ' αχολοντε, κακων επιληθον απαίλων. i. e. the oblivious antidote, caufing the forgetfulness of all the evils of life. What is remarkable, had Shakespear understood Greek as well as Jonson, he could not more closely have expreffed the meaning of the old bard. Upton. (20) To, &c.] A cry being heard, Macbeth enquires, Wherefore it was? and is anfwer'd, the queen is dead: upon which he obferves: She should have dy'd hereafter: There would have been a time for fuch a word : She fhould not have died now, any time hereafter, to-morrow or no matter when, it would have been more pleafing than the prefent this naturally raifes in his mind the falfe notion of our thinking to-morrow will be happier than to-day: but" to-mor row and to-morrow fteals over us unenjoy'd and unregarded, and we ftill linger in the fame expectation to the moment appointed for our end.' &c. Mr. Johnson is for reading, There would have been a time for-fuch a world! His conjecture seems rather beautiful than juft. See notè 44. The The way to (21) ftudy death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking fhadow, a poor player That ftruts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more! it is a tale, (21) Study, &c.] .e. the time itself, the yesterdays that are paft, teach even fools to study death: death is a leffon so easily learnt, that fools themselves, inform'd by the very time can reafon and moralize upon it." See As you like it, p. 17. This is a fine and just sense; and this doubtless is Shakespear's true word: the first folio reads duty death, i. e. fays Mr. Theobald, the death which reduces us to duft and afhes; and the fecond ftudy: either give good fenfe, the latter appears to me greatly preferable. In the 6th Scene of the 1ft Act of this play, fpeaking of Cawdor's dying, he fays, He dy'd As one that had been studied in his death OTHELLO |
