And points at them for his.-What, is this so? Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprights,2 [Musick. The Witches dance, and vanish. Macb. Where are they? Gone?-Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursed in the calendar!5 to be boltered [pronounced baltered.] So, in Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History, 1601, Book XII, ch. xvii, p. 370: "they doe drop and distill the said moisture, which the shrewd and unhappie beast catcheth among the shag long haires of his beard. Now by reason of dust getting among it, it baltereth and cluttereth into knots" &c. Such a term is therefore strictly applicable to Banquo, who had twenty trenched gashes on his head. The propriety of the foregoing note has been abundantly confirmed by Mr. Homer, a truly respectable clergyman of Warwickshire. I seize this opportunity to offer my best acknowledgment for his remarks, which were obligingly conveyed o me by his son, the late Reverend and amiable Henry Homer, who favoured the world with editions of Sallust and Tacitus, the elegance of which can only be exceeded by their accuracy. Steevens. 2- — cheer we up his sprights,] i. e. spirits. So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Lib. II: "Hold thou my heart, establish thou my sprights." Steevens. I'll charm the air to give a sound,] The Hecate of Middleton says, on a similar occasion: "Come, my sweete sisters, let the air strike our tune, "Whilst we show reverence to yon peeping moone." Steevens. your antique round: and The Witches dance, and vanish.] These ideas, as well as a foregoing one"The weird sisters, hand in hand," might have been adopted from a poem, entitled Churchyard's Dreame, 1593: "All band in band they traced on "A tricksie ancient round; "And soone as shadowes were they gone, “ And might no more be found.” Steevens No, indeed, my lord. Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride ;6 And damn'd, all those that trust them!—I did hear The galloping of horse: who was 't came by? Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word, Macduff is fled to England. Macb.. Len. Ay, my good lord. Fled to England? Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:7 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, Unless the deed go with it: From this moment, The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now 5 Stand aye accursed in the calendar!] In the ancient almanacks the unlucky days were distinguished by a mark of reprobation. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: "Within the wizard's book, the kalender, Steevens. 6 Infected be the air whereon they ride:] So, in the first part of Selimus, 1594: "Now Baiazet will ban another while, "And vtter curses to the concaue skie, "Which may infect the regions of the ayre." Todd. 7 Time, thou anticipatʼst my dread exploits:] To anticipate is here meant to prevent, by taking away the opportunity. Johnson. The very firstlings-] Firstlings, in its primitive sense, is the first produce or offspring. So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613: "The firstlings of their vowed sacrifice." Here it means the thing first thought or done. The word is used again in the prologue to Troilus and Cressida: "Leaps o'er the vant and firstlings of these broils." Steevens. To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise; Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword But no more "sights! Where are these gentlemen? flights SCENE II. [Exeunt. Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle. Enter Lady MAC DUFF, her Son, and Rosse. L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly the land? Rosse. You must have patience, madam. L. Macd. He had none; His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Rosse. You know not, Whether it was his wisdom, or his fear. 9 That trace his line.] i. e. follow, succeed in it. Thus, in a poem interwoven with A Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Cautels: &c. translated out of the French &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] 4to. 1578: 66 They trace the pleasant groves, "And gather floures sweete — Again, in Sir Arthur Gorges' translation of the third Book of "The tribune's curses in like case The old copy reads "That trace him in his line." The metre, however, demands the omission of such unnecessary expletives. Steevens. 1 But no more sights!] This hasty reflection is to be considered as a moral to the foregoing scene: “Tu ne quæsieris scire (nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi 2 Our fears do make us traitors.] i. e. our flight is considered as an evidence of our guilt.. Steevens. L. Macd. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles, in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not; My dearest coz', Rosse. I pray you, school yourself: But, for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further: But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour 3 natural touch:] Natural sensibility. He is not touched with natural affection. Johnson. So, in an ancient MS. play, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy: 66 How she 's beguil'd in him! "There's no such natural touch, search all his bosom." 4- Steevens. the poor wren, &c.] The same thought occurs in The Third Part of King Henry VI: doves will peck, in safety of their brood. "Who hath not seen them (even with those wings "Which sometimes they have us'd in fearful flight) "Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest, "Offering their own lives in their young's defence?” Steevens. 5 The fits o' the season.] The fits of the season should appear to be, from the following passage in Coriolanus, the violent diserders of the season, its convulsions: but that “The violent fit o' th' times craves it as physick." Steevens. Perhaps the maning is,-what it most fitting to be done in every conjuncture. Anonymous. 6 when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves;] i. e. we think ourselves inno. cent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourselves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters it to And do not know 't ourselves; From what we fear, yet know not what we fear; Each way, and move.—I take my leave of you: Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.-My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you! L. Macd. Father'd he is, and yet he 's fatherless. Rosse. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, It would be my disgrace, and your discomfort: I take my leave at once. L. Macd. [Exit Rosse. Sirrah, your father's dead;9 But sure they did know what they said, that the state esteemed them traitors. Warburton. Rather, when we are considered by the state as traitors, while at the same time we are unconscious of guilt; when we appear to others so different from what we really are, that we seem not to know ourselves. 7 Malone. when we hold rumour From what we fear,] To bold rumour signifies to be go verned by the authority of rumour. Warburton. I rather think to bold means, in this place, to believe, as we say, I hold such a thing to be true, i. e. I take it, I believe it to be Thus, in King Henry VIII: So. Did you not of late days hear, &c. "1 Gen. Yes, but held it not." The sense of the whole passage will then be: The times are cruel when our fears induce us to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumoured or reported abroad; and yet at the same time, as we live under a tyrannical government where will is substituted for law, we know not what we have to fear, because we know not when we offend. Or: When we are led by our fears to believe every rumour of danger we hear, yet are not conscious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed with those fears. A passage like this occurs in King John: "Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams, "Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear." This is the best I can make of the passage. Steevens. 8 Each way, and move.e.-] Perhaps the poet wrote-And each way move. If they floated each way, it was needless to inform us that they moved. The words may have been casually transposed, and erroneously pointed. Steevens. • Sirrah, your father's dead;] Sirrah, in our author's time, was not a term of reproach, but generally used by masters to servants, parents to children, &c. So before, in this play, |