I am in this earthly world; where to do harm To say I have done no harm? What are these faces? Enter Murderers. MUR. Where is your L. MACD. I hope, in no place so unsanctified, Where such as thou mayst find him. SCENE III.-England. Before the King's Palace. Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF. MAL. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty. Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men, Bestride our down-fall'n* birthdom. Each new morn, As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out MAL. What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. (*) Old text, downfall. -shag-hair'd] The folio has, "shagge-ear'd," but ear'd is an obvious misprint of the old word heard = hair'd. b As I shall find the time to friend,-] The expression "to friend," meaning propitious, assistant, favourable, &c. occurs again in "Cymbeline," Act I. Sc. 4,-" Had I admittance and opportunity to friend;" and in " Julius Cæsar," Act III. Sc. 1,—“ I know that we shall have him well to friend." It is not uncommon in our old poets Thus, in Spenser, "Faerie Queen," Book I. c. 1, Stanza xxviii. : "So forward on his way (with God to frend) and also in Massinger's play of "The Roman Actor," Act I. Sc. 1, 66 with this assurance, That the state, sick in him, the gods to friend, Was once thought honest: you have lov'd him well; He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young, but something To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb, To appease an angry god. MACD. I am not treacherous. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon; MACD. I have lost my hopes. MAL. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child, (Those precious motives, those strong knots of love) Without leave-taking?-I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, But mine own safeties:-you may be rightly just, MACD. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs, I would not be the villain that thou think'st For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp, MAL. ■ You may deserve of him through me ;] Theobald's correction, the old text having,— "You may discerne," &c. and wisdom-] One more of the innumerable passages in this great play which have suffered by mutilation or corruption. We ought, perhaps, to read,— • The title is affeer'd!-] To affeer-a legal term-signifies to assess or confirm; and the meaning of the passage may, therefore, be, "Great tyranny, be firmly seated now, since goodness dare not curb thee! Wear openly thy ill-got acquisitions, for the title to them is approved!" Shall have more vices than it had before; MACD. What should he be? MAL. It is myself I mean: in whom I know That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth With my confineless harms. MACD. Not in the legions Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd In evils to top Macbeth! MAL. I grant him bloody, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That did oppose my will. Than such an one to reign. Better Macbeth, 60 Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been As will to greatness dedicate themselves MAL ■ Sudden,-] Impetuous, violent. b you may Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,-] For "convey," signifying to manage any thing by stealth, an admirably appropriate word here, Mr. Collier substitutes the comparatively inexpressive one enjoy, and styles it an "important change"! That Mr. Collier should be unacquainted with the following quotation, where convey" occurs in precisely the same sense as Shakespeare uses it above, is pardonable,-"But verily, verily, though the adulterer do never so closely and cunningly convey his sin under a canopy, yet," &c.-The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, 1599:-but how comes he to have forgotten that the word is found in the corresponding passage of "The History of Makbeth," which he himself edited? Maedu:F there says, in reply to Malcolm's confession of immoderate sensuality, "Make thy selfe king, and I shall conveie the matter so wiselie, that thou shalt be so satisfied at thy pleasure in such secret wise, that no man shall be aware thereof." VOL. VL E And my more-having would be as a sauce MACD. 90 MAL. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth. MACD. O, Scotland! Scotland! MAL. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. MACD. Fit to govern! No, not to live.-O, nation miserable! With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptred, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, By his own interdiction stands accurs'd, And does blaspheme his breed?-Thy royal father Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee,— Died every day she liv'd. Fare thee well! These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast, Thy hope ends here! MAL. Macduff, this noble passion, Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts 129 summer-seeming lust;] Warburton proposed to read, " summer-teeming ;" Blackstone, "summer-seeding," while Steevens conjectured that "summer-seeming" might be right, and signify lust that seems as hot as summer. As Malone has quoted from Donne's Poems "winter-seeming," we are unwilling to disturb the old text, though we have a strong persuasion that the poet wrote, "summer-seaming lust," i.e. lust fattened by summer heat. b Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,-] By "hell," may be meant confusion, anarchy, disorder, and if so, we ought possibly to read, "Sour the sweet milk," &c. Deal between thee and me! for even now No less in truth than life: my first false speaking Now we'll together: and the chance of goodness Enter a Doctor. MAL. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you? That stay his cure: their malady convinces b The great assay of art; but, at his touch, MAL. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. "T is call'd the evil; A most miraculous work in this good king; To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace. MACD. See, who comes here? MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not. This passage has been inexplicable heretofore from "Belike" being always printed as two words, Be like. The meaning is,-And the fortune of goodness approve or favour our justifiable quarrel. b convinces-] To convince, as we have seen before, signified to vanquish, to over come. |