And fortune, on his damned quarrel fmiling," Again, in God's Revenge against Murder, hift, vi; « Sypontus in the mean time is prepared of two wicked gondaliers," &c. Again, in The Hiftory of Helyas Knight of the Sun, b. 1. no date: "-he was well garnished of fpear, fword, and armoure," &c. These are a few out of a thousand instances which might be brought to the fame purpose. Kernes and Gallowglaffes are characterized in the Legend of Roger Mortimer. See The Mirror for Magiftrates: -the Gallowglas, the Kerne, "Yield or not yield, whom so they take, they flay." STEEVENS. The old copy has Gallow-groffes. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 7 And fortune, on his damned quarrel fmiling,] The old copy hasquarry; but I am inclined to read quarrel. Quarrel was formerly ufed for caufe, or for the occafion of a quarrel, and is to be found in that fenfe in Holinfhed's account of the ftory of Macbeth, who, upon the creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, fays the hiftorian, that he had a juft quarrel to endeavour after the crown. The fenfe therefore is, Fortune fmiling on his execrable cause, &c. JOHNSON. The word quarrel occurs in Holinfhed's relation of this very fact, and may be regarded as a fufficient proof of its having been the term here employed by Shakspeare: "Out of the western ifles there came to Macdowald a great multitude of people, to affift him in that rebellious quarrel." Befides, Macdowald's quarry (i. e. game) must have confifted of Duncan's friends, and would the speaker then have applied the epithet-damned to them? and what have the fmiles of fortune to do over a carnage, when we have defeated our enemies? Her business is then at an end. Her fmiles or frowns are no longer of any confequence. We only talk of thefe, while we are pursuing our quarrel, and the event of it is uncertain. STEEVENS. The reading propofed by Dr. Johnson, and his explanation of it, are ftrongly fupported by a paffage in our author's King John: And put his cause and quarrel "To the difpofing of the cardinal.” Again, in this play of Macbeth: 66 and the chance, of goodness, "Be like our warranted quarrel." Here we have warranted quarrel, the exact oppofite of damned quarrel, as the text is now regulated. Show'd like a rebel's whore: But all's too weak: Carv'd out his paffage, till he fac'd the flave;" 2 Lord Bacon, in his Efays, uses the word in the fame fense: "Wives are young men's miftreffes, companions for middle age, and old men's nurfes; fo as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will." MALONE. 8 Show'd like a rebel's whore:] I fuppofe the meaning is, that fortune, while fhe fmiled on him, deceived him. Shakspeare probably alludes to Macdowald's first fuccessful action, elated by which he attempted to purfue his fortune, but loft his life. 9 Like valour's minion, MALONE. Carv'd out his paffage, till he fac'd the flave;] The old copy reads Like valour's minion, carv'd out his paffage Till he fac'd the flave. As an hemistich must be admitted, it seems more favourable to the metre that it fhould be found where it is now left.-Till he fac'd the flave, could never be defigned as the beginning of a verfe, if harmony were at all attended to in its conftruction. STEEVENS. Like valour's minion,] So, in King John: "Out of one fide, her happy minion," MALONE. And ne'er shook hands, &c.] The old copy reads-Which nev'r, STEEVENS, Mr. Pope, inftead of which, here and in many other places, reads who. But there is no need of change. There is fcarcely one of our author's plays in which he has not used which for who. So, in The Winter's Tale: "the old fhepherd, which stands by," &c. MALONE. The old reading-Which never, appears to indicate that fome antecedent words, now irretrievable, were omitted in the playhoufe manufcript; unlefs the compofitor's eye had caught which from a foregoing line, and printed it inftead of And. Which, in the prefent inftance, cannot well have been fubftituted for who, because it will refer to the flave Macdonel, instead of his conqueror Macbeth. STEEVENS. Till he unfeam'd him from the nave to the chops, And fix'd his head upon our battlements. DUN. O, valiant coufin! worthy gentleman! he unfeam'd him from the nave to the chops,] We seldom hear of fuch terrible crofs blows given and received but by giants and mifcreants in Amadis de Gaule. Befides, it must be a ftrange aukward ftroke that could unrip him upwards from the navel to the chops. But Shakspeare certainly wrote: be unfeam'd him from the nape to the chops. i. e. cut his skull in two; which might be done by a Highlander's fword. This was a reasonable blow, and very naturally expreffed, on fuppofing it given when the head of the wearied combatant was reclining downwards at the latter end of a long duel. For the nape is the hinder part of the neck, where the vertebræ join to the bone of the skull. So, in Coriolanus: "O! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks." The word unfeamed likewife becomes very proper; and alludes to the future which goes crofs the crown of the head in that direction called the futura fagittalis; and which, confequently, muft be opened by fuch a ftroke. It is remarkable, that Milton, who in his youth read and imitated our poet much, particularly in his Comus, was misled by this corrupt reading. For in the manufcript of that poem, in Trinity-College library, the following lines are read thus: "Or drag him by the curls, and cleave his fcalpe "Down to the hippes." An evident imitation of this corrupted paffage. But he alter'd it with better judgement to: 66 to a foul death "Curs'd as his life." WARBURTON. The old reading is certainly the true one, being juftified by a paffage in Dido Queene of Carthage, by Tho. Nafh, 1594: "Then from the navel to the throat at once "He ript old Priam." So likewife in an ancient MS, entitled The boke of buntyng, that is cleped Mayfter of Game: Cap.. V. " Som mem haue fey hym flitte a man fro the kne up to the breft, and flee hym all ftarke dede at o ftrok." STEEVENS. Again, by the following paffage in an unpublished play, entitled The Witch, by Thomas Middleton, in which the fame wound is defcribed, though the ftroke is reverfed: "Draw it, or I'll rip thee down from neck to NAVEL,' Though there's fmall glory in't," MALONE. SOLD. As whence the fun 'gins his reflexion3 Shipwrecking ftorms and direful thunders break ;* So from that fpring, whence comfort feem'd to come, 5 Discomfort fwells. Mark, king. of Scotland, mark: No fooner justice had, with valour arm'd, 3. As whence the fun 'gins bis reflection] The thought is expreffed with fome obfcurity, but the plain meaning is this: As the fame quarter, whence the blessing of day-light arifes, fometimes fends us, by a dreadful reverfe, the calamities of forms and tempefts; fo the glorious event of Macbeth's victory, which promifed us the comforts of peace, was immediately fucceeded by the alarming news of the Nor weyan invafion. The natural hiftory of the winds, &c. is foreign to the explanation of this paffage. Shakspeare does not mean, in conformity to any theory, to fay that ftorms generally come from the eaft. If it be allowed that they fometimes iffue from that quarter, it is fufficient for the purpose of his comparison. STEEVENS. The natural hiftory of the winds, &c. was idly introduced on this occafion by Dr. Warburton. Sir William Davenant's reading of this paffage, in an alteration of this play, published in quarto, in 1674, affords a reasonably good comment upon it: "But then this day-break of our victory Serv'd but to light us into other dangers, "That spring from whence our hopes did feem to rife." MALONE. thunders break ;] The word break is wanting in the oldest copy. The other folios and Rowe read-breaking. Mr. Pope made the emendation. STEEVENS. Break, which was fuggefted by the reading of the fecond folio, is very unlikely to have been the word omitted in the original copy. It agrees with thunders;-but who ever talked of the breaking of a form? MALONE. The phrafe, I believe, is fufficiently common. Thus Dryden in All for Love, &c. A&I: the Roman camp Hangs o'er us black and threat'ning, like a form Difcomfort fwells.] Difcomfort the natural oppofite to comfort. JOHNSON. Compell'd these skipping Kernes to truft their heels; But the Norweyan lord, furveying vantage, DUN. Difmay'd not this Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? SOLD. Yes;" As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks;" 6 Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo; Sold. Yes;] The reader cannot fail to obferve, that fome word, neceffary to complete the verse, has been omitted in the old copy. Sir T. Hanmer reads→→ Our captains, brave Macbeth, &c. STEEVENS. "As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks; &c.] That is, with double charges; a metonymy of the effect for the caufe. HEATH. Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this paffage, by altering the punctuation thus: -they were As cannons overcharg'd; with double cracks He declares, with fome degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a cannon charged with double cracks; but surely the great author will not gain much by an alteration which makes him fay of a hero, that he redoubles ftrokes with double cracks, an expreffion not more loudly to be applauded, or more easily pardoned, than that which is rejected in its favour. That a cannon is charged with thunder, or with double thunders, may be written, not only without nonfenfe, but with elegance, and nothing else is here meant by cracks, which in the time of this writer was a word of fuch emphasis and dignity, that in this play he terms the general diffolution of nature the crack of doom. JOHNSON. Crack is ufed on a fimilar occafion by Barnaby Googe, in his Capido Conquered, 1563: "The canon's cracke begins to roore “And darts full thycke they flye, "And cover'd thycke the armyes both, "And framde a counter-fkye." STEEVENS. |