Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before, wm That swiftest"wing"of recompense is slow To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less deserv'd; That the proportion both of thanks and payment more Might have been mine! only I have left to say, More is thy due than more than all can pay.

Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,

2

In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children, and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing3
Safe toward your love and honour.*

Dun.

Welcome hither:

We cannot construe or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in King Henry IV, P. 11:

"Construe the times to their necessities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase:

66

These profound heaves

"You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Cressida:

"I'll decline the whole question."

In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment asserted:

[ocr errors][merged small]

More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not say all, but more than all, i. e. the greatest recompense, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus.

There is an obscurity in this passage, arising from the word all, which is not used here personally, (more than all persons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the speaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII:

"More than my all is nothing."

This line appeared obscure to Sir William D'Avenant, for he altered it thus:

3

"I have only left to say

"That thou deservest more than I have to pay. Malone.

servants;

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing-] From Scripture: "So when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." Henley.

1

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour

4 Which do but what they should, by doing every thing Safe toward your love and honour.] Mr. Upton gives the word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially.

Read

66

Steevens

Safe (i. e. saved) toward you love and honour;" and then the sense will be-" Our duties are your children, and servants or vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allusion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king, was absolute, and without any exception; but simple bomage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a saving of the allegiance (the love and bonour) due to the sovereign. "Sauf la fov que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy," as it is in Littleton And though the expression be somewhat stiff and forced, it is not more so than many others in this play, and suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere says, [in Julius Cæsar:]

"When love begins to sicken and decay,

"It useth an enforced ceremony."

Blackstone.

A similar expression occurs also in the Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II, p. 245: " - ye shalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my consciense and worshyp savy'd." Steevens.

A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation :

"I'll speak it freely, always my obedience
"And love preserved unto the prince."

So also the following words, spoken by Henry duke of Lancaster to king Richard II, at their interview in the castle of Flint (a passage that Shakspeare had certainly read and perhaps remembered): "My sovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your bonour saved] to have againė restitution of my person, my landes, and heritage, through your favourable license." Holinshed's Chron. Vol. II.

Our author himself also furnishes us with a passage that likewise may serve to confirm this emendation. See The Winter's

Tale, Act IV, sc. iii:

"Save him from danger; do HIM love and honour." Again, in Twelfth Night:

"What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, "That bonour sav'd may upon asking give?" Again, in Cymbeline:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing
(Always reserv'd my hole duty) what
"His rage can do on me

[ocr errors]

To make thee full of growing. 5-Noble Banque,
That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee,

And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.

Dun.

There if I grow,

My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.6-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The Prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,"

Our poet has used the verb to safe in Antony and Cleopatra: best you saf'd the bringer

5

[ocr errors]

"Out of the host " Malone

•full of growing.] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth. So, in Othello:

What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" Malone,

6 My plenteous joys,

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves

In drops of sorrow.]

[ocr errors]

lachrymas non sponte cadentes

"Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto;
"Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis
"Gaudia, quam lachrymis." Lucan, Lib. IX.

There was no English translation of Lucan before 1614.We meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale: "It seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears." It is likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing. Malone.

It is thus also that Statius describes the appearance of Argia and Antigone, Theb. III, 426:

Flebile gavisa,

Steevens.

7 hence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the walls of the castle of Macbeth, at Inverness, are yet standing. Steevens.

The circumstance of Duncan's visiting Macbeth is supported by history; for, from the Scottish Chronicles, it appears that it was customary for the king to make a progress through his dominions every year. "Inerat ei [Duncano] laudabilis consuetudo regni pertransire regiones semel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. Lib. IV, c. xliv.

And bind us further to you.

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you: I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful The hearing of my wife with your approach; So, humbly take my leave.

Dun.

My worthy Cawdor!

Macb. The prince of Cumberland!—That is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap, [Aside.

"Singulis annis ad inopum querelas audiendas perlustrabat provincias." Buchan. Lib. VII. Malone.

8 The prince of Cumberland!—] So, Holinshed, History of Scotland, p. 171: "Duncan having two sonnes, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolme, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdome immediatlie after his decease. Mackbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered, (where, by the old laws of the reaime the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of bloud unto him should be admitted) he began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter,) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might, in time to come, pretend unto the crowne."

The crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. When a successor was declared in the lifetime of a king, (as was often the case) the title of prince of Cumberland was immediately bestowed on him as the mark of his designation. Cumberland was at that time held by Scotland of the crown of England, as a fief. Steevens.

The former part of Mr. Steevens's remark is supported by Bellenden's translation of Hector Boethius: "In the mene tyme kyng Duncane maid his son Malcolme prince of Cumbir, to signify y be suld regne eftir bym, quhilk wes gret displeseir to Makbeth; for it maid plane derogatioun to the thrid weird promittit afore to hym be this weird sisteris. Nochtheles he thoct gif Duncane were slane, he had maist rycht to the croun, because he wes nerest of blud yairto, be tenour of ye auld lavis maid eftir the deith of king Fergus, quhen young children wer unable to govern the croun, the nerrest of yair blude sal regne." So also Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Hist Lib. VII:

"Duncanus e filia Sibardi reguli Northumbrorum, duos filios genuerat. Ex iis Milcolumbum, vixdum puberem, Cumbria præfecit. Id factum ejus Macbethus molestius, quam cred poterat, tulit, eam videlicet moram sibi ratus injectam, ut, prioi res jam magistratus (juxta visum nocturnum) adeptus, au

[blocks in formation]

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be,

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to,see. [Exit.
Dun. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant;9

An ex

omnino a regno excluderetur, aut eo tardius potiretur, cum præfectura Cumbriæ velut aditus ad supremum magistratum SEMPER esset habitus." It has been asserted by an anonymous writer [Mr. Ritson] that "the crown of Scotland was always hereditary, and that it should seem from the play that Malcolm was the first who had the title of prince of Cumberland.” tract or two from Hector Boethius will be sufficient relative to these points. In the tenth chapter of the eleventh book of his History we are informed, that some of the friends of Kenneth III, the eightieth king of Scotland, came among the nobles, desiring them to choose Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, to be lord of Cumbir, “y be mycht be yt way the better cum to ye crown after his faderis deid." Two of the nobles said, it was in the power of Kenneth to make whom he pleased lord of Cumberland; and Malcolm was accordingly appointed. "Sic thingis done, king Kenneth, be advise of his nobles, abrogat, auld lawis concerning the creation of yair king, and made new lawis in manner as followes: 1. The king beand decessit, his eldest son or his eldest nepot, (notwithstanding quhat sumevir age he be of, and youcht he was born efter his faderis death, sal succede ye croun, ," &c. Notwithstanding this precaution, Malcolm, the eldest son of Kenneth, did not succeed to the throne after the death of his father; for after Kenneth, reigned Constantine, the son of king Culyne. To him succeeded Gryme, who was not the son of Constantine, but the grandson of king Duffe. Gryme, says Boethius, came to Scone, quhare he was crownit by the tenour of the auld lawis." After the death of Gryme, Malcolm, the son of king Kenneth, whom Boethius frequently calls prince of Cumberland, became king of Scotland; and to him succeeded Duncan, the son of his eldest daughter.

66

These breaches, however, in the succession, appear to have been occasioned by violence in turbulent times; and though the eldest son could not succeed to the throne, if he happened to be a minor at the death of his father, yet, as by the ancient laws the next of blood was to reign, the Scottish monarchy may be said to have been hereditary, subject however to peculiar regulations. Malone.

9 True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant;] i. e. he is to the full as valiant as you have described him. We must imagine, that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding lines, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium sup

« ZurückWeiter »