But that myself should be the root, and father And fet me up in hope? But, hush; no more. Senet founded. Enter MACBETH, as King; Lady MACBETH, as Queen; LENOX, ROSSE, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants. MACB. Here's our chief guest. LADY M. If he had been forgotten, It had been as a gap in our great feaft, And all-things unbecoming. MACB. To-night we hold a folemn supper, fir, And I'll request your prefence.3 2 * (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,)-] Shine, for profper. WARBURTON. Shine, for appear with all the luftre of conspicuous truth. JOHNSON. I rather incline to Dr. Warburton's interpretation. So, in King Henry VI. P. I. fc. ii: "Heaven, and our lady gracious, hath it pleased 3 And I'll request your prefence.) I cannot help suspecting this passage to be corrupt, and would with to read : And I request your prefence. Macbeth is speaking of the present, not of any future, time. Sir W. D'Avenant reads: And all request your prefence. The fame mistake has happened in King Richard III. A& I. fc. iii. where we find in the folio: "O Buckingham, I'll kiss thy princely hand,-" instead of-I kiss-the reading of the quarto. In Timon of Athens the fame error is found more than once. MALONE. BAN. Let your highness Command upon me; 4 to the which, my duties Are with a most indissoluble tie (Which still hath been both grave and profperous,) In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow. Is't far you ride ? The old reading is, I believe, the true one. So, in King John: "I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power" &c. * Let your highness STEEVENS. Command upon me;] Thus the old copy, and perhaps rightly, though modern editors have been content to read-Lay your highness &c. Every uncouth phrafe in an ancient author should not be suspected of corruption. In As you like it an expression somewhat fimilar occurs : "And take upon command what help we have." STEEVENS. The change was suggested by Sir W. D'Avenant's alteration of this play: it was made by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. I should rather read lay, or fet your command upon me, than let: for unless command is used as a noun, there is nothing to which the following words-to the which can possibly refer. sto the which, my duties Are with a most indisfòluble tie M. MASON. For ever knit.] So, in our author's Dedication of his Rape of Lucrece, to Lord Southampton, 1594: "What I have done is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; mean time as it is, it is bound to your lordship." MALONE. we'll take to-morrow. Thus the old copy, and, in my opinion, rightly. Mr. Malone would read- we'll talk to-morrow. STEEVENS. BAN. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time I proposed this emendation some time ago, and having fince met with two other passages in which the fame mistake has happened, I trust I shall be pardoned for giving it a place in my text. In King Henry V. edit. 1623, we find, "For I can take (talke) for Pistol's cock is up." Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1623, p. 31: "It is no matter for that, so she sleep not in her take." [inftead of talke, the old spelling of talk.] On the other hand, in the first scene of Hamlet, we find in the folio, 1623: So again, in the play before us: "The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak "Our free hearts each to other." Again, Macbeth says to his wife: “ We will speak further." Again, in a fubsequent scene between Macbeth and the assassins: "Was it not yesterday we spoke together?" In Othello we have almost the same sense, expressed in other words: -To-morrow, with the earliest, "Let me have speech with you." Had Shakspeare written take, he would furely have faid" but we'll take't to-morrow." So, in the first scene of the second Act, Fleance says to his father: "I take't, 'tis later, fir." MALONE. I do not perceive the neceffity of change. The poet's meaning could not be misunderstood. His end was answered, if his language was intelligible to his audience. He little fuppofed the time would arrive, when his words were to abide the stricteft fcrutiny of verbal criticism. With the ease of converfation, therefore, he copied its incorrectness. To take, is to use, to employ. To take time is a common phrase; and where is the impropriety of saying-" we'll take to-morrow?" i.e. we will make use of to-morrow. So, in King Henry VI. P. III. Act V. fc. i: "Come, Warwick, take the time." Banquo, "without a prompter," must have understood, by this familiar expreffion, that Macbeth would employ to-morrow, as he wished to have employed to-day. When Pistol fays-" I can take"-he means, he can kindle, or lay hold, as fire does on its object.-So Dryden, speaking of flames: "At first they warm, then scorch, and then they take." 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,' I must become a borrower of the night, MACB. Fail not our feaft. Again, in Froissart's Chronicle, Vol. II. cap. C.xcii. fol. CCxliii. b. "-he put one of the torches that his servauntes helde, so nere, that the heate of the fyre entred into the flaxe (wherein if fyre take, there is no remedy)," &c. That the words talk and take may occafionally have been printed for each other, is a fact which no man converfant with the press will deny; and yet the bare possibility of a fimilar mistake in the present instance, ought to have little weight in oppofition to an old reading sufficiently intelligible. The word take is employed in quite a different sense by Fleance, and means to understand in any particular sense or manner. So, Bacon: "I take it, that iron brass, called white brass, hath some mixture of tin." Again, in King Henry VIII: there, I take it, "They may, cum privilegio, wear away -go not my horse the better,] i. e. if he does not go well. Shakspeare often uses the comparative for the positive and Superlative. So, in King Lear : -her fmiles and tears "Were like a better day." Again, in Macbeth: "-it hath cow'd my better part of man." Again, in King John: "Nay, but make haste; the better foot before." Again, in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. B. IX. c. xlvi: Many are caught out of their fellowes hands, if they beftirre not themselves the better." Thus also Virgil : "oblitos famæ melioris amantes." It may, however, mean, If my horse does not go the better for the hafte I shall be in to avoid the night. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's first interpretation is, I believe, the true one. It is supported by the following passage in Stowe's Survey of London, 1603: "-and hee that hit it not full, if he rid not the fafter, had a found blow in his neck, with a bag full of fand hanged on the other end." MALONE. BAN. My lord, I will not. MACB. We hear, our bloody coufins are bestow'd In England, and in Ireland; not confeffing Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers With strange invention: But of that to-morrow; When, therewithal, we shall have cause of state, Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: Adieu, Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you? BAN. Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon us. MACE. I wish your horses swift, and fure of foot; And so I do commend you to their backs.8 Farewell. [Exit BANQUO. Let every man be master of his time [Exeunt Lady MACBETH, Lords, Ladies, Sc. Sirrah, a word: 9 Attend those men our pleasure? • And So I do commend you to their backs.] In old language one of the senses of to commend was to commit, and fuch is the meaning here. So, in King Richard II: "And now he doth commend his arms to ruft." So, in Milton's Comus, v. 831: MALONE. "Commended her fair innocence to the flood." Commend, however, in the present instance, may only be a eivil term, fignifying-fend. Thus, in King Henry VIII: "The king's majesty commends his good opinion to you." Thus alfo, in Chapman's version of the eighteenth Book of Homer's Oduffey : "The others other wealthy gifts commended What Macbeth, therefore, after expressing his friendly wish relative to their horfes, appears to mean, is-fo I fend (or difmifs) you to mount them. STEEVENS. • Sirrah, a word: &c.] The old copy reads Sirrah, a word with you: Attend those men our plca fure? |