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His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where

they &

Most breed

and haunt, I have observ'd, the air

Is delicate.

DUN.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

See, see! our honour'd hoftefs! The love that follows us, fometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you, How you shall bid God yield us for your pains, And thank us for your trouble.

1

* His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they-] Left the reader should think this verse defective in harmony, he ought to be told, that as needle was once written and pronounced neele and neeld, so cradle was contracted into crale, and consequently uttered as a monofyllable.

Thus, in the fragment of an ancient Christmas carol now before me:

"-on that day

"Did aungels round him minister

"As in his crale he lay."

In some parts of Warwickshire, (as I am informed,) the word is drawlingly pronounced as if it had been writtencraale.

STEEVENS.

Most breed) The folio-must breed. STEEVENS. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

* The love that follows us, fometime is our trouble, Which ftill we thank as love. Herein I teach you, How you shall bid God yield us for your pains,

And thank us for your trouble.) The attention that is paid us, (fays Duncan on feeing Lady Macbeth come to meet him,) sometimes gives us pain, when we reflect that we give trouble to others; yet still we cannot but be pleased with fuch attentions, because they are a proof of affection. So far is clear; but of the following words, I confefs, I have no very diftinct conception, and suspect them to be corrupt. Perhaps the meaning is, By being the occasion of fo much trouble, I furnish you with a motive to pray to heaven to reward me for the pain I give you, inasmuch as the having fuch an opportu

LADY M.

All our service

In every point twice done, and then done double,

nity of showing your loyalty may hereafter prove beneficial to you; and herein also I afford you a motive to thank me for the trouble I give you, because by showing me fuch attention, (however painful it may be to me to be the cause of it,) you have an opportunity of displaying an amiable character, and of ingratiating yourself with your fovereign: which, finally, may bring you both profit and honour. MALONE.

This passage is undoubtedly obfcure, and the following is the beft explication of it I am able to offer:

Marks of respect, importunately shown, are fometimes troublefome, though we are still bound to be grateful for them, as indications of fincere attachment. If you pray for us on account of the trouble we create in your house, and thank us for the molestations we bring with us, it must be on fuch a principle. Herein I teach you, that the inconvenience you fuffer, is the result of our affection; and that you are therefore to pray for us, or thank us, only as far as prayers and thanks can be deserved for kindnesses that fatigue, and honours that oppress. You are, in short, to make your acknowledgments for intended respect and love, however irksome our present mode of expreffing them may have proved. To bid is here used in the Saxon sense to pray. STEEVENS.

How you shall bid God-yield us-] To bid any one Godyeld him, i. e. God-yield him, was the fame as God reward him. WARBURTON.

I believe yield, or, as it is in the folio of 1623, eyld, is a corrupted contraction of shield. The wish implores not reward, but protection. JOHNSON.

I rather believe it to be a corruption of God-yield, i. e. reward. In Antony and Cleopatra we meet with it at length :

"And the gods yield you for't."

Again, in the interlude of Jacob and Efau, 1568:

"God yelde you, Efau, with all my stomach."

Again, in the old metrical romance of Syr Guy of Warwick, bl. 1. no date:

"Syr, quoth Guy, God yield it you,

"Of this great gift you give me now."

Again, in Chaucer's Sompnoure's Tale, v. 7759; Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit.

"God yelde you adoun in your village."

Were poor and fingle business, to contend Against those honours deep and broad, wherewith

Your majefty loads our house: For those of old, And the late dignities heap'd up to them,

We rest your hermits.

DUN.

Where's the thane of Cawdor?

We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well;
And his great love, sharp as his spur,3 hath holp him
To his home before us: Fair and noble hoftefs,

We are your guest to-night.

LADY M.

Your fervants ever 4

Again, one of the Pafton Letters, Vol. IV. p. 335, begins thus:

"To begin, God yeld you for my hats."

God Shield means God forbid, and could never be used as a form of turning thanks. So, in Chaucer's Milleres Tale :

"God Jhilde that he died fodenly."

V. 3427; Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. STEEVENS.

We rest your hermits.) Hermits, for beadsmen.

WARBURTON.

That is, we as hermits shall always pray for you. Thus, in

A. of Wyntown's Cronykil, B. IX. c. xxvii. v. 99;
"His bedmen thai fuld be for-thi,
"And pray for hym rycht hartfully."

Again, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"I am your beadsman, bound to pray for you."

Again, in Heywood's English Traveller, 1633:

-worshipful fir,

" I shall be still your beadfman."

This phrafe occurs frequently in The Pafton Letters.

STEEVENS.

his great love, sharp as his spur,] So, in Twelfth

3

Night, Act III. fc. iii :

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my defire,

"More Sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth."

STEEVENS.

4 Your fervants ever &c.] The metaphor in this speech is taken from the Steward's compting-house or audit-room. In compt, means, fubject to account. So, in Timon of Athens:

" And have the dates in compt."

Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in

compt,

To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
Still to return your own.

DUN.

Give me your hand:
Conduct me to mine host; we love him highly,
And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

The fame. A Room in the Cafile.

Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the flage, a Sewer,5 and divers Servants with dishes and Service. Then enter MACBETH.

MACB. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well

The sense of the whole is :-We, and all who belong to us, look upon our lives and fortunes not as our own properties, but as things we have received merely for your use, and for which we must be accountable, whenever you please to call us to our audit; when, like faithful Stewards, we shall le ready to answer your fummons, by returning you what is your own.

STEEVENS.

5 Enter-a Sewer,] I have restored this stage-direction from the old copy.

A fewer was an officer so called from his placing the dishes upon the table. Affeour, French; from affeoir, to place. Thus, in Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad:

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"Was for the reverend fewer's place; and all the

browne joints ferv'd

"On wicker veffell to the board."

Barclay, Ecl. II. has the following remark on the conduct of these domefticks:

It were done quickly: If the assassination

"Slowe be the fewers in serving in alway,
"But swift be they after, taking the meate away."

Another part of the fewer's office was, to bring water for the guests to wash their hands with. Thus Chapman, in his verfion of the Odyssey:

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- and then the fewre

"Pour'd water from a great and golden ewre."

The fewer's chief mark of diftinction was a towel round his arm. So, in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman: " -clap me a clean towel about you, like a fewer." Again: "See, fir Amorous has his towel on already. (He enters like a fewer."]

It may be worth while to observe, for the sake of preserving an ancient word, that the dishes served in by fewers were called fewes. So, in the old MS. romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 66:

"Left that lurdeynes come sculkynge out,
" For ever they have bene shrewes,
"Loke ech of them have such a cloute

"That thay never ete moo fewes." STEEVENS,

If it were done, &c.] A fentiment parallel to this occurs

"It

in The Proceedings against Garnet in the Powder Plot. would have been commendable, when it had been done, though not before." FARMER.

If the affaffination &c.] Of this foliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus :

"If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and executed, were done and ended without any following effects, it would then be best to do it quickly : if the murder could terminate in itself, and restrain the regular course of confequences, if its fuccess could secure its furcease, if, being once done fuccessfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance and enquiry, so that this blow might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to suffer; if this could be my condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of temporal existence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future state. But this is one of those cases in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our present life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example. JOHNSON.

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