Imatges de pàgina
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Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.

MENT.

What does the tyrant ?

CATH. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies : Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule 9.

Now does he feel

ANG.
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENT.

Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil, and start,

When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there1?

Сатн.

Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
Meet we the medecin 2 of the sickly weal;

8 - UNROUGH youths,] An odd expression. It means smooth-faced, unbearded. STEEVENS.

See The Tempest:

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Again, in King John:

"This unhair'd sauciness, and boyish troops,

"The king doth smile at." MALONE.

9 He cannot BUCKLE his distemper'd cause

WITHIN the belt of rule.] The same metaphor occurs in Troilus and Cressida :

"And buckle in a waist most fathomless." STEEVENS. When all that is within him does condemn

Itself, for being there ?] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation. JOHNSON.

2- the medecin-] i. e. physician. Shakspeare uses this word in the feminine gender, where Lafeu speaks of Helen in

And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

LEN.

Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds3. Make we our march towards Birnam.

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE III.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. MACB. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all +;

Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus': Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman, Shall e'er have power upon thee --Then fly, false thanes,

All's Well That Ends Well; and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, calls Camillo "the medecin of our house." STEEVENS.

3 TO DEW the sovereign flower, &c.] This uncommon verb occurs in Look About You, 1600:

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Dewing your princely hand with pity's tears." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. viii. :

"Dew'd with her drops of bounty soveraigne." STEEVENS. 4 Bring me no more reports, &c.] "Tell me not any more of desertions:-Let all my subjects leave me :-I am safe till," &c. JOHNSON.

s All mortal CONSEQUENTS, pronounc'd me thus:] The old copy reads

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"All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus." But the line must originally have ran as I have printed it :Currents, consequents, occurrents, ingredients, &c. are always spelt, in the ancient copies of our author's plays, currence, consequence, occurrence, ingredience," &c. STEEVENS.

6 -ON thee.] Old copy-upon. STEEVENS.

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And mingle with the English epicures':
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,

Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.

7 English epicures:] The reproach of epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury. JOHNSON.

Of the ancient poverty of Scotland, the following mention is made by Froissart, vol. ii. cap. ii.: "They be lyke wylde and savage people-they dought ever to lese that they have, for it is a poore countrey. And when the Englyshe men maketh any roode or voyage into the countrey, if they thynke to lyve, they must cause their provysion and vitayle to followe theym at their backe, for they shall fynde nothyng in that countrey," &c.

Shakspeare, however, took the thought from Holinshed, p. 179 and 180, of his History of Scotland: "The Scotish people before had no knowledge nor understanding of fine fare or riotous surfet; yet after they had once tasted the sweet poisoned bait thereof, &c.-those superfluities which came into the realme of Scotland with the Englishmen," &c. Again: "For manie of the people abhorring the riotous manners and superfluous gormandizing brought in among them by the Englyshemen, were willing inough to receive this Donald for their king, trusting (because he had beene brought up in the Isles, with the old customes and manners of their antient nation, without tast of English likerous delicats), they should by his seuere order in gouernement recouer againe the former temperance of their old progenitors." The same historian informs us, that in those ages the Scots eat but once a day, and even then very sparingly. It appears from Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the natives had neither kail nor brogues, till they were taught the art of planting the one, and making the other, by the soldiers of Cromwell; and yet King James VI. in his 7th parliament, thought it necessary to form an act "against superfluous banqueting." STEEvens.

8 Shall never SAGG with doubt,] To sag, or swag, is to sink down by its own weight, or by an overload. See Junius's Etymologicon. It is common in Staffordshire to say, "a beam in a building sags, or has sagged." Tollet.

So, in the 16th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion :

"This said, the aged Street sag'd sadly on alone." Drayton is personifying one of the old Roman ways. Again, in The Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587:

"The more his state and tottering empire sagges."

STEEVENS.

Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon"! Where got'st thou that goose look'?

SERV. There is ten thousand

MACB.

SERV.

Geese, villain ?

Soldiers, sir.

MACB. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy'. What soldiers, patch"? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, wheyface 5?

"He tooke excep

Again, in Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1595: tions to his traveller's bag, which he wore sagging down his belly before." MALONE.

9-loon!] At present this word is only used in Scotland, and signifies a base fellow. So, in Marlowe's tragedy of King Edward II. 1598:

"For shame subscribe! and let the lowne depart." Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, second part, 1630: "The sturdy beggar, and the lazy lowne." King Stephen, in the old song, called his taylor, loon. STEEVENS.

'Where got'st thou that GOOSE look ?] So, in Coriolanus : ye souls of geese,

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"That bear the shape of men, how have ye run

"From slaves that apes would beat?" MALone. 2-lily-liver'd boy.] Chapman thus translates a passage in the 20th Iliad :

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his sword that made a vent for his white liver's blood, "That caus'd such pitiful effects"

Again, Falstaff says, in The Second Part of King Henry IV.: left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice." STEEVENS.

3

-patch?] An appellation of contempt, alluding to the pied, patched, or particoloured coats anciently worn by the fools belonging to noble families. STEEVENS.

4 - those linen cheeks of thine

Are COUNSELLORS to fear.] The meaning is, they infect others who see them, with cowardice. WARBURTON.

In King Henry V. his Majesty says to the Conspirators

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"Your cheeks are paper." STEEVENS.

WHEY-face?] So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor,

SERV. The English force, so please you.

MACB. Take thy face hence.-Seyton!-I am sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life'

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and has as it were a whey-coloured

6 or DISSEAT me now.] The old copy reads disseat, though modern editors have substituted disease in its room. The word disseat occurs in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakspeare, scene the last, where Perithous is describing the fall of Arcite from his horse :

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"Of boisterous and rough jadry, to disseat
"His lord that kept it bravely."

Dr. Percy would read:

"Will chair me ever, or disseat me now."

It is still, however, possible, that disease may be the true reading. Thus, in N. Breton's Toyes of an Idle Head, 1577 : My ladies maydes too I must please, "But chiefely Mistress Anne,

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"For else by the masse she will disease

"Me vyly now and than.”

Disease is the reading of the second folio.

STEEVENS.

"I have liv'd long enough: my WAY OF LIFE, &c.] As there is no relation between the way of life, and fallen into the sear, I am inclined to think that the W is only an M inverted, and that it was originally written :

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-my May of life."

"I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days: but I am without those comforts that should succeed the sprightliness of bloom, and support me in this melancholy season.

The author has May in the same sense elsewhere. JOHNSON. An anonymous writer [Dr. Johnson, whose Remarks on this tragedy were originally published, without his name, in 1745,] would have it:

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my May of life :"

But he did not consider that Macbeth is not here speaking of his rule or government, or of any sudden change; but of the dual decline of life, as appears from that line :

"And that, which should accompany old age."
And way is used for course, progress. WARBURTON.
To confirm the justness of "May of life" for "
Colman quotes from Much Ado About Nothing:

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way of life," Mr.

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