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Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN,

DON. What is amifs?

MACB.

You are, and do not know it:

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.

MACD. Your royal father's murder'd.

MAL.

O, by whom?

LEN. Thofe of his chamber, as it seem'd, had

done't:

Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood,
So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found
Upon their pillows:"

They ftar'd, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trufted with them.

MACB. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

MACD.

Wherefore did fo?

you

MACB. Who can be wife, amaz'd, temperate, and

furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:

The expedition of my

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violent love

-badg'd with blood,] I once thought that our author wrote

bath'd; but badg'd is certainly right.

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So, in the fecond part of K. Henry VI.

"With murder's crimson badge." MALONE.

their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found

Upon their pillows:] This idea, perhaps, was taken from The Man of Larves Tale, by Chaucer, 1. 5027, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit: "And in the bed the blody knif he fond."

See alfo the foregoing lines. STEEVENS.

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Out-ran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan,
His filver skin lac'd with his golden blood; 2
And his gafh'd ftabs look'd like a breach in nature,

Here lay Duncan,

His filver Skin lac'd with his golden blood;] Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of thefe lines by fubftituting goary blood for golden blood; but it may easily be admitted that he, who could on fuch an occafion talk of lacing the filver skin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.

It is not improbable, that Shakspeare put thefe forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and diffimulation, to fhow the difference between the ftudied language of hypocrify, and the natural outcries of fudden paffion. This whole fpeech, fo confidered, is a remarkable inftance of judgement, as it confifts entirely of antithefis and metaphor.

JOHNSON,

To gild any thing with blood is a very common phrase in the old plays. So Heywood, in the fecond part of his Iron Age, 1632: we have gilt our Greekish arms

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"With blood of our own nation."

Shakspeare repeats the image in K. John:

"Their armours that march'd hence fo filver bright,
"Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood."

STEEVENS.

His filver fkin lac'd with his golden blood;] The allufion is to the decoration of the richeft habits worn in the when it was ufual to lace cloth of filver with gold, and cloth of age of Shakspeare, gold with filver. The fecond of these fashions is mentioned in Much ado about Nothing, A&t III. fc. iv: "Cloth of gold,-laced with filver." STEEVENS,

We meet with the fame antithefis in many other places. in Much ado about Nothing:

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to fee the fish

"Cut with her golden oars the filver stream.”

Again, in The Comedy of Errors:

Thus,

"Spread o'er the filver waves thy golden hairs." MALONE. The allufion is fo ridiculous on fuch an occafion, that it difcovers the declaimer not to be affected in the manner he would reprefent himself. The whole fpeech is an unnatural mixture of farfetch'd and common-place thoughts, that shows him to be acting a part. WARBURTON.

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For ruin's wafteful entrance: 3 there, the murderers, Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore:+ Who could refrain,

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For ruin's wasteful entrance:] This comparison occurs likewife. in A Herring's Tayle, a poem, 1598:

"A batter'd breach where troopes of wounds may enter in.” STEEVENS.

4 Unmannerly breech'd with gore:] The expreffion may mean, that the daggers were covered with blood, quite to their breeches, i. e. their hilts or handles. The lower end of a cannon is called the breech of it; and it is known that both to breech and to unbreech a gun are common terms. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Cuftsm of the Country:

"The main fpring's weaken'd that holds up his cock,
"He lies to be new breech'd."

Again, in A Cure for a Cuckold, by Webfter and Rowley:
"Unbreech his barrel, and discharge his bullets."

STEEVENS.

Mr. Warton has juftly obferved that the word unmannerly is here ufed adverbially. So friendly is ufed for friendlily in K. Henry IV. P. II. and faulty for faultily in As you like it. A paffage in the preceding fcene, in which Macbeth's vifionary dagger is described, ftrongly fupports Mr. Steevens's interpretation:

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I fee thee ftill;

"And on thy blade, and dudgeon, [i. e. hilt or haft] gouts of blood,

"Which was not fo before."

The following lines in King Henry VI. P. III. may perhaps, after all, form the beft comment on thefe controverted words: "And full as oft came Edward to my fide, "With purple faulchion, painted to the hilt "In blood of thofe that had encounter'd him."

So alfo, in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1587:

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a naked fword he had,

"That to the hilts with blood was all embrued." The word unmannerly is again ufed adverbially in K. Henry VIII: "If I have us'd myself unmannerly,.'

So alfo Taylor the Water-poet, Works, 1630, p. 173: "Thefe and more the like fuch pretty afperfions, the outcaft rubbish of my company hath very liberally and anmannerly and ingratefully be ftowed upon me." MALONE.

That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make his love known?

LADY M.

MACD. Look to the lady."

Help me hence, ho!

Though fo much has been written on this paffage, the commentators have forgotten to account for the attendants of Duncan being furnished with daggers. The fact is, that in Shakspeare's time a dagger was a common weapon, and was ufually carried by fervants and others, fufpended at their backs. So, in Romeo and Juliet : "Then I will lay the ferving creature's dagger on your pate.". Again, ibid:

"This dagger hath mista'en; for lo! his house
"Is empty on the back of Mountague,

"And is misheathed in my daughter's bofom!"

MALONE.

The fenfe is, in plain language, Daggers filthily-in a foul manner, -fheath'd with blood. A fcabbard is called a pilche, a leather coat, in Romeo ;—but you will afk, whence the allufion to breeches? Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnson have well obferved, that this fpeech of Macbeth is very artfully made up of unnatural thoughts and language: in 1605 (the year in which the play appears to have been written) a book was published by Peter Erondell (with commendatory poems by Daniel, and other wits of the time,) called. The French Garden, or a Summer Dayes Labour, containing, among. other matters, fome dialogues of a dramatick caft, which, I am perfuaded, our author had read in the English; and from which he took, as he fuppofed, for his prefent purpofe, this quaint expreffion. I will quote literatim from the 6th dialogue: "Boy! you do nothing but play tricks there, go fetch your mafter's filver-hatched daggers, you have not brushed their breeches, bring the brushes,. and bruth them before me."-Shakspeare was deceived by the pointing, and evidently fuppofes breeches to be a new and affected term for fcabbards. But had he been able to have read the French on the other page, even as a learner, he must have been fet right at once. Garçon, vous ne faites que badiner, allez querir les poignards argentez de vos maiftres, vous n'avez pas efpouffeté leur haut-de-chauffes," their breeches, in the common fenfe of the word: as in the next fentence bas-de-chauffes, stockings, and fo on through all the articles of drefs. FARMER,

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5 Look to the lady.] Mr. Wheatley, from whofe ingenious remarks on this play I have already made a large extract, juftly obferves that " on Lady Macbeth's feeming to faint,-while Banquo

MAL.

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?
DON. What should be spoken here,

Where our fate, hid within an augre-hole,"
May rush, and feize us? Let's away; our tears
Are not yet brew'd.

MAL.

Nor our strong forrow on

and Macduff are folicitous about her, Macbeth, by his unconcern, betrays a consciousness that the fainting is feigned."

I may add, that a bold and hardened villain would from a refined policy have affumed the appearance of being alarmed about her, left this very imputation fhould arife against him: the irrefolute Macbeth is not fufficiently at ease to act such a part.

- here,

MALONE.

Where our fate, bid within an augre-hole,] The oldest copy reads only -in an augre-hole.” I have adopted the correction of the fecond folio,-within.

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. Mr. Malone reads

Here, where our fate, hid in an augre-hole." STEEVENS. In the old copy the word here is printed in the preceding line. The lines are difpofed fo irregularly in the original edition of this play, that the modern editors have been obliged to take many liberties fimilar to mine in the regulation of the metre. In this very speech the words our tears do not make part of the following line, but are printed in that fubfequent to it. Perhaps however the regulation now offered is unneceffary; for the word where may have been used by our author as a diffy llable. The editor of the fecond folio, to complete the measure, reads-within an augre. hole. A word having been accidentally omitted in K. Henry V:

— Let us die in [fight]," Mr. Theobald, with equal impropriety, reads there" Let us die inftant:" but I believe neither tranfcriber or compofitor ever omitted half a word. MALONE.

More skilful and accurate compofitors than thofe employed in. our prefent republication, cannot eafily be found; and yet, I believe, even they will not deny their having occafionally furnished examples of the omiffion of half a word. STEEVENS.

within an augre-hole,] So, in Coriolanus:

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"Into an angre's bore." STEEVENS.

QIL -] The old copy-upon. STEEVENS.

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