And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are abfent too. MACD. 8 Let our just cenfures Attend the true event, and put we on SIW. The time approaches, That will with due decifion make us know Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. V. c. viii: - all other weapons leffe or more; "Which warlike ufes had devis'd of yore." STEEVENS. Where there is advantage to be given, I believe, means, where advantageous offers are made to allure the adherents of Macbeth to forfake him. HENLEY. I suspect that given was caught by the printer's eye glancing on the fubfequent line, and ftrongly incline to Dr. Johnson's emendation, gone. MALONE. Why is the repetition of the word—given, less venial than the recurrence of the word-ftuff'd, in a preceding page? See Mr. Malone's objections to my remark on "Cleanse the stuff'd bofom of that perilous fluff." STEEVENS. 8 Let our juft cenfures Attend the true event,] The arbitrary change made in the fecond folio (which fome criticks have reprefented as an improved edition is here worthy of notice: Let our bet cenfures Before the true event, and put we on, &c. MALONE. Surely, a few errors in a few pages of a book, do not exclude all idea of improvement in other parts of it. I cherish this hope for my own fake, as well as for that of other commentators on Shakspeare. STEEVENS. 9 What we hall fay we have, and what we Owc. ] i. e. property and allegiance. WARBURTON. When we are governed by legal kings, we fhall know the limits of their claim, i. e. fhall know what we have of our own, and what they have a right to take from us. Mr. Henley explains the paffage thus: "The iffue of the conteft will foon decide what we shall fay we have, and what may be ac counted our own." To owe here is to poffefs. STEEVENS. 2 Thoughts fpeculative their unfure hopes relate: 3 [Exeunt, marching. Had thefe lines been put into the mouth of any of the Scottish Peers, they might poffibly bear the meaning that Steevens contends for; but as they are fuppofed to be spoken by Siward, who was not to be governed either by Malcolm or Macbeth, they can scarcely admit of that interpretation. Siward probably only means to fay in more pompous language, that the time approached which was to decide their fate. M. MASON. Siward, having undertaken the caufe of Scotland, fpeaks, as a Scoifman would have fpoken: and efpecially as he is now in the prefence of Malcolm, Macduff, and others of the fame country. STEEVENS. 3 Towards which, advance the war. ] It has been understood that local rhymes were introduced in plays to afford an actor the advantage of a more pointed exit or to clofe a fcene with additional force. Yet, whatever might be Shakspeare's motive for continuing fuch a practice, it may be observed that he often feems immediately to repent of it; and, in the tragedy before us, has repeatedly counteracted it by hemiftichs which deftroy the effect and confequently defeat the fuppofed purpose of the antecedent couplets. See the following inftances, in addition to that which introduces the prefent note. In Hamlet &c we find fuch hemiftichs after the rhymes at the ends of acts, as well as fcenes. STEEVENS. Enter, with drums and colours, MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers. MACB. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is fill, They come Our caftle's Arength SEY. It is the cry of women, my good lord. MACB. I have almoft forgot the tafte of fears: The time has been,4 my fenfes would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair‘ 6 4 The time has been, &c.] May has imitated this paffage twice; once in The Heir, and again in The Old Couple. See Dodfley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. VIII. p. 150. Vol. X. p. 473. edit. 1780. REED. 5 my fenfes would have cool'd To hear a night-fhrick;] The blood is fometimes faid to be chilled; but I do not recollect any other inftance in which this phrase is applied to the fenfes. Perhaps our author wrote coil'd. My fenfes would have fhrunk back; died within me. fcene of the prefeut a&t: Who then fhall blame So, in the fecond "His pefter'd fenfes to recoil and start?" MALONE. I retain the old reading. Perhaps, no word fo forcible can be placed in its room. Thus, in the fifth Eneid: Sanguis hebet, frigentque effœte in corpore vires." Would at a difmal treatife roufe, and ftir As life were in't: I have fupp'd full with horrors ;' Direness, familiar to my flaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once flart me.-Wherefore was that cry ? SEY. The queen, my lord, is dead. MACE. She fhould have died hereafter; There would have been a time for fuch a word." The fame expreffion occurs alfo in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "My humour shall not cool." Again, in K. Henry IV. P. II : "My lord Northumberland will foon be cool'd." But what example is there of the verb recoiled clipped into 'coiled? Coiled can only afford the idea of wound in a ring, like a rope or a ferpent. STEEVENS. 6 fell of hair-] My hairy part, my capillitium. Fell is Skin. JOHNSON. So, in Alphonfus, Emperor of Germany, by George Chapman, 1654: Where the lyon's hide is thin and scant, "I'll firmly patch it which the fox's fell.” Again in K. Lear: "The goujeres fhall devour them, flesh and fell." A dealer in hides is ftill called a 7- fell-monger. STEEVENS. - I have fupp'd full with horrors;] Statius has a fimilar thought in the fecond book of his Thebais: "attollit membra, toroque Erigitur, plenus monflris, vanumque cruorem "Excutiens." The conclusion of this passage may remind the reader of lady Macbeth's behaviour in her fleep. STEEVENS. 8 She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for fuch a word. &c.] This paffage has very juftly been suspected of being corrupt. It is not apparent for what word there would have been a time, and that there would or would not be a time for any word, feems not a confideration of importance fufficient to transport Macbeth into the following exclamation. I read therefore: She fhould have died hereafter, There would have been a time for—fuch a world !— To-morrow, &c. It is a broken fpeech, in which only part of the thought is expreffed, and may be paraphrafed thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 9 2 Her death fhould have been deferred to fome more peaceful hour; had She lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world-fuch is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day, but to-morrow and to-morrow feals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we fill linger in the fame expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All thefe days, which have thus passed away, have fent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engrossed by the fame dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to-morrow. Such was once my conjecture, but I am now lefs confident. Macbeth might mean, that there would have been a more convenient time for fuch a word, for fuch intelligence, and fo fall into the following reflection. We fay we fend word when we give intelligence. JOHNSON. By -a word Shakspeare certainly means more than a fingle one. Thus, in King Richard 11: 9 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,] This repetition, as Dr. Farmer obferved to me, occurs in Barclay's Ship of Fooles, 1570: life. STEEVENS. To the last fyllable of recorded time;] Recorded time feems to fignify the time fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period of The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expreffion; but, as we only know tranfa&ions paft or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prefcience in which future events may be supposed to be written. JOHNSON. So, in All's well that ends well: "To the utmost fyllable of your worthiness. Recorded is probably here ufed for recording or recordable; one participle for the other, of which there are many inftances both in Shakspeare and other English writers. Virgil ufes penetrabile frigus for penetrans frigus, and penetrabile telum for telum penetrans. STEEVENS. By recorded time, Shakspeare means not only the time that has been, but also that which shall be recorded. M. MASON. 1 |