Is fmother'd in furmise; and nothing is, BAN. Look, how our partner's rapt. MACB. If chance will have me king, why, chance -function Is fmother'd in furmife; and nothing is, But what is not.] All powers of action are oppreffed and crushed by one overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is prefent to me but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. JOHNSON. Surmife, is fpeculation, conjecture concerning the future. MALONE. Shakspeare has somewhat like this fentiment in The Merchant of Venice: "Where, every fomething being blent together, Again, in K. Richard II : 66 is nought but shadows "Of what it is not." STEEVENS. 7 Time and the hour runs through the rougheft day.] "By this, I confefs, I do not with his two latt commentators imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allufion to time painted with an hour-glafs, or an exhortation to time to haften forward, but rather to lay tempus hora, time and occafion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to fome determined point and end, let its nature be what it will." This note is taken from an Effay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu. BAN. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your lei fure. MACB. Give me your favour: -my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten.' Kind gentlemen, your pains The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.- Such tautology is common to Shakspeare. "The very head and front of my offending," is little lefs reprehenfible. Time and the hour, is Time with his hours. STEEVENS. The fame expreffion is ufed by a writer nearly contemporary with Shakspeare: "Neither can there be any thing in the world more acceptable to me than death, whole bower and time if they were as certayne," &c. Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 1579. Again, in Davifon's Poems, 1621: "Time's young bowres attend her still," Again, in our author's 126th Sonnet : 8 9 "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power MALONE. favour:] i. e. indulgence, pardon. STEEVENS. my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten.] My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. JOHNSON. So, in Othello: "Of one not eafily jealous, but being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme.' STEEVENS. where every day I turn The leaf to read them.] He means, as Mr. Upton has obferved, that they are registered in the table-book of his heart. So Hamlet fpeaks of the table of his memory. MALONE. 3 The interim having weigh'd it,] This intervening portion of time is almoft perfonified: it is reprefented as a cool impartial judge; as the paufer Reafon. Or perhaps we should read-Î' th' interim. STEEVENS. I believe, the interim is ufed adverbially: "you having weighed it in the interim." MALONE. BAN. Very gladly. [Exeunt. MACB. Till then, enough.-Come, friends. 1 SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. DUN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not 4 Those in commiffion yet return'd? My liege, MAL. They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that faw him die:' who did report, That very frankly he confefs'd his treasons ; Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth A deep repentance: nothing in his life Became him, like the leaving it; he died As one that hath been studied in his death," Are not-] The old copy reads-Or not. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 5 With one that faw him die:] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor correfponds in almost every circumftance with that of the unfortunate earl of Effex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the fcaffold, are minutely defcribed by that hiftorian. Such an allufion could not fail of having the defired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS. 6 -Audied in his death,] Inftructed in the art of dying. It was ufual to fay ftudied, for learned in science. JOHNSON. To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, DUN. There's no art, To find the mind's conftruction in the face: 4 Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. The fin of my ingratitude even now To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadft lefs deferv'd; His own profeffion furnished our author with this phrafe. To be ftudied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALONE. To find the mind's conftruction in the face:] The conftruction of the mind is, I believe, a phrafe peculiar to Shakspeare: it implies the frame or difpofition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson feems to have understood the word conftruction in this place, in the fenfe of frame or ftructure; but the school-term was, I believe, intended by Shak fpeare. The meaning, is,-We cannot conftrue or difcover the difpofition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in K. Henry IV. P. II: Conftrue the times to their neceffities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase: "You must tranflate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Cressida: "I'll decline the whole queftion." In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary fentiment afferted: In many's looks the false heart's hiftory "Is writ." MALONE. More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not fay all, but, more than all, i. e. the greatest recompence, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus. MACB. The fervice and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part Is to receive our duties: and our duties Are to your throne and ftate, children, and fervants; Which do but what they fhould, by doing every thing, Safe toward your love and honour.* There is an obfcurity in this paffage, arifing from the word all which is not ufed here perfonally (more than all perfons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the fpeaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII: "More than my all is nothing." This line appeared obfcure to Sir William Davenant, for he altered it thus: "I have only left to fay, "That thou deferveft more than I have to pay." -fervants; MALONE. Which do but what they should, by doing every thing-] From Scripture: "So when ye fhall have done all thofe things which are commanded you, fay, We are unprofitable fervants: we have done that which was our duty to do." HENLEY. 1 Which do but what they should, by doing every thing Safe toward your love and honour.] Mr. Upton gives the word fafe as an inftance of an adjective used adverbially. STEEVENS. Read-" Safe (i. e. faved) toward you love and honour;" and then the fenfe will be-" Our duties are your children, and fervants or vaffals to your throne and ftate; who do but what they fhould, by doing every thing with a faving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allufion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king was abfolute and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a fubject for lands holden of him, was always with a faving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the fovereign. Sauf la foy que jeo doy a noftre feignor le roy," as it is in Littleton. And though the expreffion be fomewhat stiff and forced, it is not more fo than many others in this play, and fuits well with the fituation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elfewhere fays, [in Julius Cæfar:] "When love begins to ficken and decay, 66 "It useth an enforced ceremony." BLACKSTONE. |