MACD. I'll make fo bold to call, For 'tis my limited service." From hence to-day? MACB. [Exit MACDUFF. Goes the king He does he did appoint fo." LEN. The night has been unruly: Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say, Lamentings heard i'the air; strange screams of death; And prophecying, with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obfcure bird Clamour'd the livelong night: fome fay, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.2 So, in The Tempeft: "There be fome fports are painful; and their labour 7 For 'tis my limited fervice.] Limited, for appointed. for there is boundless theft, WARBURTON. "In limited profeffions." i. e. profeflions to which people are regularly and legally appointed. STEEVENS. 8 Goes the king From hence to-day?] I have fupplied the prepofition-from, for the fake of metre. So, in a former fcene-Duncan fays, 66 From hence to Invernefs," &c. STEEVENS. 9 He does he did appoint fo.] The words-be does—are omitted by Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton. But perhaps Shakspeare defigned Macbeth to shelter himself under an immediate falfhood, till a fudden recollection of guilt reftrained his confidence, and unguardedly difpofed him to qualify his affertion; as he well knew the King's journey was effectually prevented by his death. A fimilar trait had occurred in a former scene: "L. M. And when goes hence? "M. To-morrow, as he purposes." STEEVENS, 2 ftrange screams of death; And prophecying, with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obfcure bird Clamour'd the livelong night: fome fay, the earth Was fecerous, and did fake.] Thefe lines, I think, fhould be rather regulated thus: · prophecying with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion and confus'd events. New-hatch'd to the woeful time, the obfcure bird A prophecy of an event_new-hatch'd seems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new-hatch'd is a wry expreffion. The term new-hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen fhould be new-hatch'd to the woeful time, that is, fhould appear in uncommon numbers, is very confiftent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the univerfal disorder into which nature is described as thrown by the perpetration of this hor rid murder. JOHNSON. I think Dr. Johnson's regulation of thefe lines is improper. Prophecying is what is new-hatch'd, and in the metaphor holds the place of the egg. The events are the fruit of fuch hatching. STEEVENS. I think Steevens has juftly explained this paffage, but should wish to read-prophecyings in the plural. M. MASON. Dr. Johnson obferves, that " a prophecy of an event new-hatch'd feems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new-hatch'd is a wry expreffion." The conftruction fuggefted by Mr. Steevens meets with the firft objection. Yet the following paffage in which the fame imagery is found, inclines me to believe that our author meant, that new-hatch'd fhould be referred to events, though the events were yet to come. Allowing for his ufual inaccuracy with refpect to the active and paffive participle, the events may be faid to be" the hatch and brood of time." See King Henry IV. P. II: "The which obferv'd, a man may prophesy, "With a near aim, of the main chance of things "Such things become the hatch and brood of time." Here certainly it is the thing or event, and not the prophecy, which is the hatch of time; but it must be acknowledged, the word "become" fufficiently marks the future time. If therefore the conftruction that I have fuggefted be the true one, hatch'd must be here used for hatching, or "in the state of being hatch'd."-To the woeful time, means-to fuit the woeful time. MALONE. Re-enter MACDUFF. MACD. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee! MACB. LEN. What's the matter? MACD. Confufion now hath made his masterpiece! Moft facrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence MACB. What is't you say? the life? LEN. Mean you his majesty? MACD. Approach the chamber, and destroy your fight With a new Gorgon:-Do not bid me fpeak; 3 fome fay, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.] So, in Coriolanus: as if the world "Was feverous, and did tremble." STEEVENS. Tongue, nor heart, Cannot conceive, &c.] The ufe of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more ftrongly, is very common in our author. So, in Julius Cæfar, A&t III. fc. i: there is no harm "Intended to your perfon, nor to no Roman elfe." As from your graves rife up, and walk like fprights, To countenance this horror! 5 LADY M. Enter Lady MACBETH. [Bell rings. What's the bufinefs, That fuch a hideous trumpet calls to parley MACD. 5 - this horror!] Here the old copy adds-Ring the bell. STEEVENS. The fubfequent hemiftich-" What's the bufinefs?"—which completes the metre of the preceding line, without the words "Ring the bell," affords, in my opinion, a strong prefumptive proof that these words were only a marginal direction. It fhould be remembered that the ftage directions were formerly often couched in imperative terms: "Draw a knife;" "Play mufick;" "Ring the bell;" &c. In the original copy we have here indeed alfo Bell rings, as a marginal direction; but this was inferted, I imagine, from the players mifconceiving what Shak fpeare had in truth fet down in his copy as a dramatick direction to the property-man, ("Ring the bell.") for a part of Macduff's fpeech; and, to diftinguish the direction which they inferted, from the fuppofed words of the fpeaker, they departed from the ufual imperative form. Throughout the whole of the preceding feene we have conftantly an imperative direction to the prompter: "Knock within." I fuppofe, it was in confequence of an imperfect recollection of this hemiftich, that Mr. Pope, having in his preface charged the editors of the firft folio with introducing ftage-directions into their author's text, in fupport of his affertion quotes the following line: My queen is murder'd :-ring the little bell." a line that is not found in any edition of thefe plays that I have met with, nor, I believe, in any other book. MALONE. 6fpeak, Speak,-] Thefe words, which violate the metre, were probably added by the players, who were of opinion thatSpeak, in the following line, demanded fuch an introduction. The repetition, in a woman's ear, STEEVENS, BAN. Woe, alas! Too cruel, any where. Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, And fay, it is not fo. Re-enter MACBETH and LENox. MACB. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a bleffed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing ferious in mortality: All is but toys renown, and grace, is dead; He would drown the ftage with tears, "And cleave the general ear with horrid fpeech.' Again, in The Puritan, 1607: "The punishments that shall follow you in this world, would with horrour kill the ear should hear them related." MALONE. 8 What, in our houfe?] This is very fine. Had the been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its aggravating circumftances, would naturally have affected her. As it was, her bufinefs was to appear highly difordered at the news. Therefore, like one who has her thoughts about her, fhe feeks for an aggravating circumftance, that might be fuppofed moft to affect her perfonally; not confidering, that by placing it there, the discovered rather a concern for herself than for the king. On the contrary, her husband, who had repented the act, and was now labouring under the horrors of a recent murder, in his exclamation, gives all the marks of forrow for the fact itself. WARBURTON. 9 Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time;] So, in The Winter's Tale : "If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd "To die when I defire." MALONE. |