in one of his poems, has " a summer'Seeming Winter's night."
15 Probably meaning " the sword that has slain our kings " ; or, perhaps,
** the evil that has caused our kings to be slain with the sword."
16 Poison is an old word {ox plenty or abundance. ā Portable is endurable,
ā WeigKd for balanced, counterpoised, or compensated. ā " Your mere own "
is entirely or absolutely your own. Mere and merely were often used thus.
17 Temperance in its proper Latin sense of self-restraint; the opposite of
intemperance as used a little before. ā Verity for veracity.
18 Division seems to be used here in the sense of variation. So it ap-
pears to have been sometimes used as a term in music.
19 A singular use of uproar; but probably meaning to turmoil^ to JUl
with tumult and uproar, ā Confound^ again, for destroy.
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I40 MACBETH. ACT rv.
Macd, Fit to govern !
No, not to live. ā O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter*d,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
5 Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accursed.
And does blaspheme his breed? ā Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king ; the queen that bore thee,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
10 Died every day she liv^d. Fare thee well !
These evils thou repeat*st upon thyself
Have banished me from Scotland. ā O my breast,
Thy hope ends here !
MaL Macduff, this noble passion.
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
1 5 Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains ^o hath sought to win me
Into his power ; and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste : but God above
2o Deal between thee and me ! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction ; here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself.
For strangers to my nature. I am yet
25 Unknown to woman ; never was forsworn ;
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own ;
^ Trains is arts or devices of circumvention. The Edinburgh Review^
October, 1872, shows the word to have been " a technical term both in
hawking and hunting : in hawking, for the lure thrown out to reclaim a fal-
con given to ramble ; and in hunting, for the bait trailed along the ground,
and left exposed, to tempt the animal from his lair or covert, and bring him
fairly within the power of the lurking huntsman."
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 141
At no time broke my faith ; would not betray
The Devil to his fellow ;2i and delight
No less in truth than life : my first false-speakmg
Was this upon myself. What I am truly,
5 Is thine and my poor country's to command ;
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men.
Already at a point,^ was setting forth :
Now we'll together ; and the chance of goodness
10 Be like our warranted quarrel ! ^3 Why are you silent ?
Macd, Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
Tis hard to reconcile.
Enter a Doctor.
MaL Well, more anon. ā Comes the King forth, I pray
you?
Doct, Ay, sir ; there are a crew of wretched souls
15 That stay his cure : their malady convinces ^^
The great assay of art ; but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.
MaL I thank you, doctor. \^Exit Doctor.
Macd, What's the disease he means ?
MaL Tis call'd the evil :
20 A most miraculous work in this good King ;
21 Fellow for friend or companion ; and the sense is, that, if he would
not betray the Devil to his friend, much less would he betray him to his en-
emy. Pretty strong 1
22 At a point is ready, prepared ; or at a stop or period where there is
nothing further to be said or done.
23 " May the chance for virtue to succeed be as good, as well warranted,
as our cause is just." For this use of quarrel in the sense of cause, see page
50, note 5.
^ Convince^ again, in its old sense of overcome. See page 77, note 17.
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142 MACBETH. ACT IV.
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
IVe seen him do. How he solicits Heaven,
Himself best knows : but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
5 The mere^^ despair of surgery, he cures ;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks.
Put on with holy prayers : and *tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction .^^ With this strange virtue,
10 He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy ;
And sundry blessings hang about his throne.
That speak him full of grace.
Enter Ross.
Macd. See, who comes here ?
Mai. My countryman ; but yet I know him not.
Macd, My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
15 Mai. I know him now.^^ ā Good God, betimes remove
The means that makes us strangers !
Ross. Sir, amen.
Macd. Stands Scotland where it did ?
Ross. Alas, poor country,
2Ā« Mere, again, for absolute or utter. See page 139, note 16.
2Ā» Holinshed has the following respecting Edward the Confessor: "As
it has been thought, he was inspired with the gift of prophecy, and also to
have the gift of healing infirmities and diseases. He used to help t^ose
that were vexed with the disease commonly called the king's evil, and left
that virtue as it were a portion of inheritance unto his successors, the kings
of this realm." The custom of touching for the king's evil was not wholly
laid aside till the days of Queen Anne, who used it on the infant Dr. John-
son. ā The j^oiden stamp was the coin called angel.
27 The Prince at first distrusts Ross, just as he had before distrusted
Macduff: but he has given his confidence Ā«Ā«^j^rv^^^ to the latter ; and
now he has full faith in Ross as soon as he sees how Macduff regards him.
The passage is very delightful. ā Means, next line, is put for cause.
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 1 43
Almost afraid to know itself ! It cannot
Be caird our mother, but our grave : where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile ;2Ā®
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
5 Are made, not marked ; where violent sorrow seems
A modem ecstasy : ^ the dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask*d for who ; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps.
Dying or ere they sicken.
Macd, O, relation
Too nice,3Ā® and yet too true !
10 MaL What's the newest grief?
Ross,. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker ;3i
Each minute teems a new one.
Macd, How does my wife ?
Ross. Why, well.32
Macd, And all my children ?
Ross, Well too.
Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace ?
Ross, No; they were well at peace when I did leave
15 'em.
Macd, Be not a niggard of your speech : how goes't ?
Ross, When I came hither to transport the tidings.
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
28 Where none but idiots and innocents are ever seen to smile.
29 Ecstasy is any strong disturbance of mind. See page 105, note 5. ā
Modem is common^ trite, every-day; as in the well-known passage, " Full
of wise saws and modem instances."
^ Too nice, because too elaborate, or having too much an air of study
and art; and so not like the frank utterance of deep feeling.
81 That which is but an hour old seems out of date, and so causes the
speaker to be hissed as tedious.
'2 An equivocal phrase, the sense of which is explained in Antony and
Cleopatra^ ii. $ : " We use to say the dead are well,**
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144 MACBETH. ACT IV.
Of many worthy fellows that were out ; ^
Which was to my belief witness*d the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot ;
Now is the time of help ; your eye in Scotland
5 Would create soldiers, make our women fight.
To doff34 their dire distresses.
MaL Be*t their comfort
We're coming thither : gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men ;
An older and a better soldier none
That Christendom gives out.
10 Ross, Would I could answer
This comfort with the like ! But I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.^^
Macd, What concern they?
The general cause ? or is it a fee-grief ^^
Due to some single breast?
IS Ross, No mind that's honest
But in it shares some woe ; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.
Macd, If it be mine,
Keep it not firom me, quickly let me have it.
Ross, Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
88 Here f7Ā«/has the force of in arms, or in open revolt ā What follows
means that the rumour is confirmed by the fact that Macbeth has put his
troops in motion. ā For that is because, or for the reason that A frequent
usage.
** Doff'is do off. So the Poet has don for do on, and dup for do up,
85 Present usage would here transpose should and would. See page 75,
note 9. ā Latch is an old North-of-England word for catch. Our door-lcUch
is that which ccUches the door.
8Ā« A fee-grief is a private or individual grief, as distinguished from one
that is public or common.
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 145
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
Macd, Hum ! I guess at it.
Ross, Your casde is surprised ; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughter*d : to relate the manner,
5 Were, on the quarry ^7 of these murdered deer,
To add the death of you.
Mai. Merciful Heaven ! ā
What, man ! ne*er pull your hat upon your brows :
Give sorrow words ; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o*er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd, My children too ?
10 Ross, Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
Macd, And I must be from thence ! ā
My wifekiU'd too?
Ross. IVe said.
Mai, Be comforted :
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly gr^ef.
1 5 Macd, He has no children.^s ā All my pretty ones ?
Did you say all ? ā O hell-kite ! ā AU ?
^ Quarry was a hunter's term for a heap of dead game, and was often
applied as here. See Hamlet, page 231, note 65. ā In "murder'd deer" it
may seem that the Poet intended a pun ; but probably not ; at least I can
hardly think he meant the speaker to be conscious of it as such.
ā¢* " He has no children " is most likely said of Malcolm, and with refer-
ence to what he has just spoken ; though I believe it is commonly taken as
; referring to Macbeth, and in the idea that, as he has no children, there can
be no adequate revenge upon him. But the true meaning, I have no doubt,
is, that if Malcolm were a &ther, he would know that such a grief cannot
be healed with the medicine of revenge. Besides, it would seem that Mac-
beth has children ; else why should he strain so hard to have the regal suc-
cession " stand in his posterity " ? And Lady Macbeth " knows how tender
'tis to love the babe that milks me.'*
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146 MACBETH. ACT IV.
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop ? ^9
MaL Dispute it like a man.
Macd. I shall do so ;
But I must also feel it as a man :
5 I cannot but remember such thmgs were,
That were most precious to me. Did Heaven look on.
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee ! naught '^^ that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
10 Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now !
MaL Be this the whetstone of your sword : let grief
Convert to anger ; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Macd, O, I could play the woman with mine eyes.
And braggart with my tongue ! ā But, gentle Heaven,
15 Cut short all intermission ; front to front
Bring Thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him ; if he scape.
Heaven forgive him too ! ^^
MaL This tune goes manly ."^^
Come, go we to the King : our power is ready ;
^ Swoop was a term for the descent of a bird of prey upon his quarry.
^^ Naught appears to have had the same meaning as bad, only stronger.
It should not be confounded with nought.
*i The little word too is so used here as to intensify, in a very remarka-
ble manner, the sense of what precedes. " Put him once within the reach
of my sword, and if I don't kill him, then I am as bad as he, and may God
forgive us both 1 " I cannot point to an instance anywhere of language
more intensely charged with meaning.
^ How admirably Macduff's grief is in harmony with the whole play!
It rends, not dissolves the heart " The tune of it goes manly." Thus is
Shakespeare always master of himself and of his subject, ā a genuine Pro-
teus; ā we see all things in him, as images in a calm lake, most distinct,
most accurate, ā only more splendid, more glorified. ā Colerjdgb.
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 147
Our lack is nothing but our leave : ^^ Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments.^* Receive what cheer you may :
The night is long that never finds the day. \^Exeunt
ACT V.
Scene I. ā ^ Dunsinane, A Room in the Castle,
Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.
5 Doct, I have two nights watched with you, but can per-
ceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk'd ?
Gentiew. Since his Majesty went into the field,^ I have
seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown ^ upon her,
unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read
10 it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed ; yet all this
while in a most fast sleep.
Doct, A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once
the benefit of sleep and do the effects ^ of watching ! In this
slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual per-
15 formances, what at any time have you heard her say?
*Ā« That is, " nothing remains to be done here but to take our leave of
the King." A ceremony of partipg.
^^Instruments is here used of persons, ā Put on means stir up, insti-
gate, urge on. Often so. See Hamlet, page 195, note 28.
1 In the preceding scene, Macbeth was said to have his " power a-foot "
against " many worthy fellows that were out." Probably the coming of the
English forces has induced him to withdraw his troops from the field, and
put them within the strong fortress of Dunsinane.
2 That is, dressing-gown, not what we call a night-gown.
Ā« Effects here means acts or actions. Repeatedly so.
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148 MACBETH. ACT V.
Gentlew. That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doct You may to me ; and *tis most meet you should.
Gentlew. Neither to you nor any one ; having no witness
to confirm my speech.
Enter Lady Macbeth, with a Taper,
5 Lo you, here she comes ! This is her very guise ; and, upon
my life, fast asleep. Observe her ; stand close.*
Doct, How came she by that light?
Gentlew, Why, it stood by her : she has light by her con-
tinually ; 'tis her command.^
10 Doct. You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlew, Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doct, What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her
hands.
Gentlew. It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem
15 thus washing her hands : I have known her continue in this
a quarter of an hour.
Lady M, Yet here's a spot.
Doct, Hark ! she speaks : I will set down what comes
from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
20 Lady M. Out, damned spot ! out, I say ! ā One, two ;
why, then 'tis time to do't. ā Hell is murky ! ^ ā Fie, my
* Here, as often, close is secret, hidden, or in concealment, -
6 Was this to avert the presence of those " sightless substances " once
impiously invoked ? She seems washing her hands, and " continues in this
a quarter of an hour." What a comment on her former boast, "A little wa-
ter clears us of this deed ! " ā BUCKNILL.
6 Some commentators think that Lady Macbeth imagines her husband
to utter these words, and repeats them after him with a peculiar intonation
as in ridicule or reproach of his fears. And so I suspect it is. But the
learned Editors of the " Clarendon Press Series " think otherwise decidedly
and note as follows : " Her recollections of the deed and its motives alter-
nate with recollections of subsequent remorse and dread of future punish-
ment"
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SCENE I. MACBETH. 149
lord, fie ! a soldier, and afeard ? What need we fear who
knows it, when none can call our power to account ? ā Yet
who would have thought the old man to have had so much
blood in him ?
5 Doct Do you mark that?
Lady M, The Thane of Fife had a wife : where is she
now? ā What, will these hands ne*er be clean? ā No more
o* that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this
starting^
10 Doct. Go to, go to ; you have known what you should not.
Gentlew. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
that : Heaven knows what she has known.
Lady M, Here's the smell of the blood still : all the per-
fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.'^ O !
15 O! O!
Doct. What a sigh is there ! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlew. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for
the dignity of the whole body.
Doct. Well, well, well,ā
7 She is alluding to the terrors of Macbeth on seeing the Ghost of Ban-
quo in the banquet-scene.
* Upon this passage, Verplanck, after remarking how fertile the sense of
smell is in the milder and gentler charms of poetry, adds the following :
ā¢' But the smell has never been successfully used as the means of impress-
ing the imagination with terror, pity, or any of the deeper emotions, except
in this dreadful sleep-walking of the guilty Queen, and in one parallel scene
of the Greek Drama, as wildly terrible as this. It is that passage of the
Agamemnon of iEschylus, where the captive prophetess Cassandra, wrapt
in visionary inspiration, scents first the smell of blood, and then the vapours
of the tomb breathing from the palace of Atrides, as ominous of his ap-
proaching murder. These two stand alone in poetry ; and Fuseli in his
lectures informs us that when, in the kindred art of painting, it has been
attempted to produce tragic effect through the medium of ideas drawn
from ' this squeamish sense,' even Raphael and Poussin have failed, and
excited disgust instead of terror or compassion."
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150 MACBETH. ACT V.
Gentlew, Pray God it be, sir.^
Doct ā this disease is beyond my practice: yet I have
known those which have walk'd in their sleep, who have died
holily in their beds.
5 Lady M, Wash your hands, put on your nightgown ; look
not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo*s buried; he
cannot come out on's grave.
Doct Even so?
Lady M, To bed, to bed ! there's knocking at the gate :
10 come, come, come, come, give me your hand : what's done
cannot be undone : to bed, to bed, to bed ! \Exit.
Doct Will she go now to bed ?
Gentlew. Directly.
Doct Foul whisperings are abroad : unnatural deeds
1 5 Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician. ā
God, God forgive us all ! ā Look after her ;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,^'^
20 And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night :
My mind she has mated^^ and amazed my sight,
I think, but dare not speak.
Gentlew, Good night, good doctor.
\Exeunt
ā¢ Does the Gentlewoman misunderstand the Doctor's " Well, well, well/*
or does she mean this as a further hint how dreadful the thing is ? At all
events, I have long been wont to pause upon it as one of the Poet's quiet,
unobtrusive master-strokes of delineation.
10 That is, the means of doing violence to herself.
U To mate or amaU is to astonish^ to strike with dismay.
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SCENE 11. MACBETH. 151
Scene II. ā The Country near Dunsinane.
Drum and Colours, Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus,
Lennox, and Soldiers.
Ment, The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siwaxd, and the good Macduff:
Revenges bum in them ; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.^
5 Ang, Near Bimam wood
Shall we well meet them ; that way are they coming.
Caith, Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
Len, For certain, sir, he is not : IVe a file
Of all the gentry : there is Siward's son,
10 And many unrough^ youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.
Ment. What does the tyrant?
Caith. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies ;
Some say he's mad ; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury : ^ but, for certain,
15 He cannot buckle his distempered course
Within the belt of rule.
Ang, Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands ;
1 Would rouse and impel even a hermit to the war, to the signal for car-
nage and horror. By " the mortified man " is meant a religious man ; one
who has mortified his passions, is dead to the world.
2 Unrough is unbearded, smooth-faced. So in The Tempest : " Till new-
bom chins be wugA and razorable."
ā¢ Fury in the poetical sense ; inspiration, or heroic rapture. So in Hoby-
noll's lines to Spenser in praise of Thf Faerie Queene : " Some sacred /5Ā»y
bath enricb'd thy brains."
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152 MACBETH. ACTV.
Now minutely revolts^ upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love : now does he feel his tide
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
5 Ment Who, then, shall blame
His pester*d senses to recoil and start,^
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there ?
Caith, Well, march we on,
To give obedience where 'tis truly owed :
10 Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal ;Ā®
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' weeds.''
Make we our march towards Bimam. [^Exeunt, marching.
Scene HI. ā Dunsinane, A Room in the Castle.
Enter Macbeth, the Doctor, and Attendants.
1 5 Macb, Bring me no more reports ; let them fly all :
Till Bimam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint ^ with fear. What's the boy Malcolm ?
Was he not bom of woman ? The spirits that know
* " Minutely revolts " are revolts occurring every minute,
fi That \%, for recoiling and starting. See page 86, note 26.
Ā« " The medicine of the sickly weal " refers to Malcolm, the lawful Prince.
In the olden time, the best remedy for the evils of tyranny, or the greater
evils of civil war, was thought to be a king with a clear and unquestioned
title.
7 " Let us shed so much of our blood as may be necessary in order to
seat our rightful Prince on the throne, and destroy the usurping tyrant."
1 To tetint is to corrupt, to infect; here used intransitively.
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SCENE III. MACBETH. 153
All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus :
Fear not, Macbeth ; no man thafs bom of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee. Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures : ^
5 The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
Shall never sag^ with doubt nor shake with fear, ā
Enter a Servant.
The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon !^
Where gott*st thou that goose look ?
Serv, There is ten thousand ā
Macb. Geese, villain ?
Serv, Soldiers, sir.
10 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, whey-face ?
Serv, The English force, so please you.
Macb. Take thy face hence. ā \Exit Servant.
15 Seyton ! ā I'm sick at heart,
' Scotland being a comparatively lean and sterile country, the Scotch
might naturally plume themselves on being plain livers and high thinkers,
and so speak of the high-feeding English as epicures.
' To sag, or swag, is to hang down by its own weight "A word," says
Mr. Fumess, " of every-day use in America among mechanics and engin-
eers.** And I can add that I used to hear it often among farmers.
ā¢ This word, which signifies a base, abject fellow, was formerly common
in England, but spelt lown, and is justly considered by Home Tooke as the
past participle of to low or abase. Lout has the same origin.
ā¢ Lily-liver' d, white-liver" d, milk-liver' d, were all strong words for cow-
ardly: the liver being formerly considered the special seat of courage;
where, however, courage could not live without a good supply of the red
fluid.
ā¢ Patch was often used as a term of contempt. The use probably grew
from tht motley ot patch-work dress worn by professional fools.
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154 MACBETH. act v.
When I behold ā Seyton, I say ! ā This push
Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now.'
I have lived long enough : my way of life
Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf;Ā®