I sheathe again undeeded. There thou should'st be; [Exit. Alarum. Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD. Siw. This way, my lord;-the castle 's gently ren- The tyrant's people on both sides do fight; Mal. We have met with foes apostrophising her absent hushand, has used nearly the same phrase: Hie thee hither, "That I may pour my spirits in thine ear." I cannot, however, persuade myself that any line is wanting to complete the sense of the passage. That abruptness which Mr. Malone regards as a blemish, (considering the present state of Macduff's mind) should be received as a beauty. Shakspeare (as Prior says of the author of Hudibras)— 66 sagacious master, knew "When to leave off, and when pursue." Steevens. My conjecture is, I believe, unfounded, In Cymbeline, we have a similar phraseology: 66 Let's see 't; I will pursue her "Even to Augustus' throne: Or this, or perish." Malone. Seems bruited:] From bruit. Fr. To bruit is to report with clamour; to noise. So, in King Henry IV, P. II: "One that rejoices in the common wreck, Again, in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: "Lais was one of the most bruited common women that clerkes do write of." 8 There thou should'st be; By this great clatter, one of greatest note Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune! Steevens. And more I beg not] I suspect, from deficience of metre, that the latter part of this passage originally stood thus: Seems bruited there. Let me but find him, fortune! And more &c. Steevens. That strike beside us. Siw. Enter, sir, the castle. [Exeunt. Alarum, Re-enter MACBETH. Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword?9 whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them. Macd. Re-enter MACDUFF. Turn, hell-hound, turn. Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already. Macd. I have no words, My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain Macb. [They fights Thou losest labour: As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air 9 Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword?] Alluding, perhaps, to the suicide of Cato Uticensis, which our author must have read of in the old translation of Plutarch, as the same circumstance is mentioned again in Julius Cæsar: 66 I did blame Cato for the death "Which he did give himself." Steevens. 1 I have no words, My voice is in my sword;] Thus Casca, in Julius Cæsar : 2 As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:] That is, air which cannot be cut. Johnson. Mr. M. Mason wishes to interpret the word intrenchant differently, and says that it may signify surrounding; but of a participle with such a meaning, I believe there is no example.Shakspeare's indiscriminate use of active and passive participles has been frequently noticed. In Timon he has trenchant in an active sense, and in the line before us intrenchant is employed as passive. Milton, in his Paradise Lost, B. VI, seems to have imitated this passage: "Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound "Receive no more than can the fluid air." Steevens. So, in Hamlet: "For it is as the air invulnerable." Malone. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield Macd. Despair thy charm; And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd, Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me sa, And live to be the show and gaze o' the time. 3 I bear a charmed life,] In the days of chivalry, the champions' arms being ceremoniously blessed, each took an oath that he used no charmed weapons. Macbeth, according to the law of arms, or perhaps only in allusion to this custom, tells Macduff of the security he had in the prediction of the spirit. To this likewise Posthumus alludes in Cymbeline, Act V: I, in my own woe charm'd, 66 "Could not find death." Upton. So, in The Dumb Knight, 1633, by L. Machin: "Here you shall swear by hope, by heaven, by Jove, Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I, c. iv: "And eke enchaunted arms that none can pierce." Steevens. palter with us in a double sense;] That shuffle with ambiguous expressions. Johnson. So, in Marius and Sylla, 1594: "Now fortune, frown and palter, if thou please." Again, in Julius Cæsar: 66 Romans, that have spoke the word, B We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole ;] That is, on cloth suspended on a pole. Malone. Here may you see the tyrant. Macb. I'll not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, I throw my warlike shield; lay on, Macduff; And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough. [Exeunt, fighting Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with Drum and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, Rosse, Lenox, Angus, CATHNESS, MENTETH, and Soldiers. Mai. I would the friends we miss, were safe arriv'd. Siw. Some must go off: and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought. Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: He only liv'd but till he was a man; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. Siw, Then he is dead? Rosse, Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then It hath no end. Siw. Had he his hurts before? Rosse. Ay, on the front. Hold, enough.] See Mr. Tollet's note on the words-"To cry, hold, bold!" p. 57, n. 9. Again, in Stowe's Chronicle, one of the combatants was an esquire, and knighted after the battle, which the king terminated by crying Hoo, i. e. hold. Thus also, in the ancient MS. Romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 33: "His bare guttis men myght see, Steevens. "To cry bold, is the word of yielding," says Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 74, i. e. when one of the combatants cries so. Tollet. Siw. Why then, God's soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: Mal. He 's worth more sorrow, He's worth no more; And that I'll spend for him. The usurper's cursed head: the time is free: Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so his knell is knoll'd.] This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon, by Camden, in his Remains, from which our author probably copied it. When Siward, the martial earl of Northumberland, under. stood that his son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he demanded whether his wounds were in the fore part or hinder part of his body. When it was answered, in the fore part, he replied. "I am right glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine." Johnson. Our author might have found the same incident recorded by Holinshed, in his Chronicle, Vol. I, p. 192. Malone. So, God &c.] The old copy redundantly reads-And so, God &c. Steevens. 9 -on a Pole.] These words I have added to the stagedirection, from the Chronicle: "Then cutting his head from his shoulders, he set it upon a pole, and brought it unto Malcolm." This explains the word stands in Macduff's speech. Many of the stage-directions appear to have been inserted by the players; and they are often very injudicious. In this scene, (as Mr. Steevens has observed) according to their direction, Macbeth is slain on the stage, and Macduff immediately afterwards enters with Macbeth's head. Malone. Our ancient players were not even skilful enough to prevent absurdity in those circumstances which fell immediately under their own management. No bad specimen of their want of common sense, on such occasions, may be found in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: "Enter Sybilla laying in childbed, with her child laying by her," &c. Steevens. 11 thy king lom's pearl,] This metaphorical expression was excluded by Mr. Rowe, after whom our modern editors were content to read-peers. |