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Cf. line 236 below. The plural was used in the same sense (so force and forces now). See 7. C. p. 168, note on Are levying powers.

191. None. There is none. For the ellipsis, see Gr. 403.

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On give out show (Schmidt), cf. W. T. iv. 4. 149; T. N. iii. 4. 203; Oth. iii. 3. 209, etc. 194. Would.

195. Latch.

See Gr. 329.

Catch. Cf. Sonn. 113. 6:

"For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, or flower, or shape, which it doth latch."

Schmidt explains the verb similarly in M. N. D. iii. 2. 36, where some make it smear; a meaning found nowhere else.

Spenser has latched caught, in Shep. Kal. March, 94:

"So long I shott, that al was spent ;

Tho pumie stones I hastly hent,

And threw; but nought availed;

He was so wimble and so wight,

From bough to bough he lepped light,
And oft the pumies latched."

Cf. Golding's Ovid, Met. i.: "As though he would, at everie stride, betweene his teeth hir latch ;" and Met. viii. :

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"But that a bough of chesnut-tree, thick-leaved, by the way

Did latch it," etc.

196. A fee-grief. “A grief that hath a single owner (Johnson). 202. Possess them with. Fill them with.

Cf. K. John, iv. 2. 203:

Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?" See also I Hen. IV. ii. 2. 112; Hen. VIII. ii. 1. 158; M. W. i. 3. 110, etc.

206. Quarry. Dead bodies; literally, the game killed in hunting. Cf. Cor. i. 1. 202, and Ham. v. 2. 375.

208. Ne'er pull your hat, etc. Steevens notes that the same expression occurs in the old ballad of "Northumberland betrayed by Douglas:"

"He pulled his hatt down over his browe,
And in his heart he was full woe," etc.

209. The grief that does not speak, etc. White Devil:

Steevens quotes Webster,

"Poor heart, break;

These are the killing griefs which dare not speak ;"

Seneca, Hippolytus: “Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent ;" and Greene, Fair Bellora:

"Light sorrowes often speake,

Cf. V. and A. 329:

210. Whispers.

When great the heart in silence breake."

"the heart hath treble wrong

When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue."

For the omission of the preposition, see Gr. 200.

212. Must be. Was destined to be (Gr. 314).

216. He has no children. The C. P. ed. takes this as referring to Macbeth: "therefore my utmost revenge must fall short of the injury he has

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inflicted upon me." We prefer, with Malone, to apply it to Malcolm. Cf. K. John, iii. 1. 91: "He talks to me that never had a son.' Moberly refers it to Macbeth, but explains it thus: "Had he had children, he could not have done it." He cites 3 Hen. VI. v. 5. 63 :

"You have no children, butchers; if you had,

The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse."

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220. Dispute it. "Contend with your present sorrows (Steevens), fight against it; or, perhaps, "reason upon it," as Schmidt explains it. 221. But I must also feel it, etc. On this passage Horn (quoted by Furness) remarks: "Put these lines before hundreds of French, English, and German tragedies, and they sound like scathing satire; put them before Egmont or William Tell, and they give us a hearty delight. Let them never again, ye dear poets, sound like irony, but give us human beings with hearts that can bleed and heal! Then you will never shrink from that motto."

223. That. 225. Naught. naught," etc.

On that following such, see Gr. 279.

Worthless thing. Cf. Ham. iii. 2. 157:

"You are

229. Convert. Change. Cf. R. of L. 592: "For stones dissolv'd to water do convert ;" Id. 591: "This hot desire converts to cold disdain ;" Much Ado, i. I. 123: Courtesy itself must convert to disdain," etc.

231. But, gentle heavens, etc. It is here, and not at line 216, that the possibility of revenge on Macbeth first occurs to Macduff (Delius). 232. Intermission. Delay. Cf. M. of V. iii. 2. 201:

"You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission

No more pertains to me, my lord, than you."

234. Scape. See on iii. 4. 20.

235. Too.

"If I don't kill him, then I am worse than he, and I not only forgive him myself, but pray God to forgive him also; or perhaps it is, then I am as bad as he, and may God forgive us both. I cannot point to an instance, anywhere, of language more intensely charged with meaning" (H.).

Tune is Rowe's emendation for the "time" of the folios. On the adverbial use of manly, see Gr. 447. Cf. iii. 5. I.

Coleridge observes: "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 S. always master of himself and of his subjecta genuine Proteus ;-we see all things in him, as images in a calm lake, most distinct, most accurate-only more splendid, more glorified."

237. Our lack, etc. We need only the king's leave to set out; or, perhaps, to take our leave of the king. Schmidt makes it the latter.

239. Put on. "Set to work" (Schmidt). Cf. Ham. iv. 7. 132, v. 2. 408, etc. It often means to instigate, incite; as in Lear, i. 4. 227, Oth. ii 3.357, etc.

For instruments applied to persons, cf. i. 3. 124 and iii. 1. 80 above.

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SCENE I.-3. Went into the field. Steevens thinks S. forgot that he had shut up Macbeth in Dunsinane; but, as Boswell notes, Ross says (iv. 3. 185) that he had seen "the tyrant's power afoot." The strength of his adversaries, and the revolt of his own troops (v. 2. 18), had probably led him to retreat into his castle.

4. Nightgown. See on ii. 2. 70.

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9. Effects. Actions. Cf. Ham. iii. 4. 129; Lear, i. 1. 188, ii. 4. 182, etc. 10. Slumbery. For other adjectives of similar formation, see Gr. 450. II. Actual. Consisting in doing anything, in contradistinction to thoughts or words" (Schmidt); as in Oth. iv. 2. 153, the only other instance of the word in S.

17. Close. Hidden; as in 7. C. i. 3. 131, etc.

20. 'T is her command. Dr. Bucknill asks: "Was this to avert the presence of those sightless substances' (i. 5. 47) 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 water clears us of this deed!""

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32. Hell is murky. Steevens thinks that she imagines herself talking to Macbeth, and that these are his words which she repeats contemptuously; but it seems better (with Clarke and Noble Butler) to regard them as the expression of her own dread of hell.

40. You mar all, etc. "Alluding to the terrors of Macbeth, when the Ghost broke in on the festivity of the banquet" (Steevens).

42. Go to. Often used as an expression of exhortation or reproof (Schmidt). Cf. Temp. iv. 1. 253; Oth. iv. 2. 194, etc. See also Genesis, xi. 3, 4, 7 and xxxviii. 16; 2 Kings, v. 5, etc.

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46. Smell. Verplanck, after remarking that “the more agreeable associations of this sense are often used for poetic effect, adds: “But the smell has never been successfully used as a means of impressing the imagination with terror, pity, or any of the deeper emotions, except in this dreadful sleep-walking scene 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 Æschylus, 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 approaching murder."

49. Sorely charged. Heavily laden. Cf. iv. 3. 210: "the o'erfraught heart."

52. The dignity, etc. "The queenly rank of the lady herself” (C. P. ed.).

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56. Which. See Gr. 266.
60. On 's.
Cf. on 't," i. 3. 42, etc.
Gr. 182.

etc.

See also Lear, i. 4. 114, iv. 5. 20,

72. Remove, etc. Lest the lady in her despair might commit suicide (Delius). On annoyance, cf. K. John, v. 2. 150; T. and C. i. 3. 48,

etc.

74. Mated. Bewildered, paralyzed. Cf. V. and A. 909; C. of E. iii. 2. 54, v. I. 281; and 2 Hen. VI. iii. 1. 265.

SCENE II.-3. Revenges. For the plural, cf. M. for M. iv. 3. 140; A. W. v. 3. 10; T. N. v. 1. 385; Cor. iv. 5. 143, etc.

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Dear causes. Cf. Lear, iv. 3. 53: "Some dear cause. On the peculiar uses of dear in S. see Temp. p. 124, note on The dear'st o' th' loss. 4. Alarm. Call to arms. See on "alarum'd,” ii. 1. 53. 5. The mortified man. "The veriest ascetic " (Moberly). Cf. L. L. L. i. I. 28. Schmidt explains mortified as "deprived of vital faculty, made apathetic and insensible." There is little to choose between the two. The C. P. ed. suggests that it may mean "dead, mortified in the literal sense;" as in Hen. V. i. I. 26.

8. File. List. See on iii. I. 94.

10. Unrough. Beardless. Cf. Temp. ii. 1. 250: “rough and razor

able." See also W. T. i. 2. 128, iv. 4. 744. Malone cites K. John, v. 2. 133: "This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops."

II. Protest. Proclaim. Cf. iii. 4. 105; and on first of manhood, iii.

1. 117.

13. Lesser.

S. uses it several times as an adverb.

See on i. 3. 65.

15. Steevens notes that we have the same metaphor in T. and C. ii. 12.30:

"And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons."

The

Sr., D., Coll., and H. (2d ed.) adopt Walker's " course " for cause. C. P. ed. explains distemper'd cause as the disorganized party, the disordered body over which he rules. Instead of being like "a well-girt man," εvwvos árno, full of vigour, his state is like one in dropsy. We have the same metaphor more elaborated in 2 Hen. IV. iii. 1. 38: "King. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger, near the heart of it.

Warwick. It is but as a body yet distemper'd," etc.

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18. Minutely. Happening every minute, continual" (Schmidt). Used nowhere else by S.

20. Nothing. Adverbial, as in v. 4. 2. Gr. 55. For the figure that follows, cf. i. 3. 145.

23. Pester'd. Troubled, perplexed. Cf. Ham. i. 2. 22; T. and C. v. I. 38, etc. On to recoil for recoiling, see Gr. 356. Cf. iv. 3. 19.

27. Medicine. Some critics take this to mean physician (Fr. médecin), as in A. W. ii. 1. 75, and W. T. iv. 4. 598. Schmidt so explains it here. But the next line rather favours taking it in its ordinary sense. Him may refer to Malcolm, as Heath suggests, not to medicine. It is not easy to decide between the two interpretations. Cf. iii. 4. 76. 30. Dew. Also used as a verb in V. and A. 66; M. N. D. ii. 1. 9; R. and J. v. 3. 14, etc.

SCENE III.-I. Them. That is, the thanes.

3. Taint. Be infected. Cf. Cymb. i. 4. 148, and T. N. iii. 4. 145. Walker conjectured "faint."

5. On the measure, see Gr. 496. For pronounce, cf. Hen. VIII. i. 1. 196. 8. English epicures. The C. P. ed. observes that gluttony was a common charge brought by the Scotch against their wealthier neighbours. "The English pock-puddings" is a phrase of frequent occurrence in the Waverley Novels. The English too brought similar charges against their Continental neighbours. Delius quotes from the drama of Edward III., falsely attributed to Shakespeare :

"Those ever-bibbing epicures,

Those frothy Dutchmen, puff'd with double beer."

9. The mind I sway by. That is, am directed by (Schmidt). explain it, "by which I bear rule."

Some

10. Sag. Droop. We infer from the C. P. ed. that the word is only provincial in England. Like some other words we have noted in S., it

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