Re-enter Lady MACBETH. Lady M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart fo white. [Knock.] I hear a knocking At the fouth entry :-retire we to our chamber: A little water clears us of this deed: How easy is it then? Your conftancy Hath left you unattended.-[Knocking.] Hark! more knocking: Get on your nightgown, left occafion call us, Macb. To know my deed,-'twere beft not know myself.3 [Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking !4 Ay, 'would thou could'st! [Exeunt. SCENE the tinct of blood. Waves appearing over waves are no unapt fymbol of a crowd. He who beholds an audience from the ftage or any other multitude gazing on any particular object, muft perceive that their heads are raised over each other, velut unda fupervenit undam. If therefore our author by the "multitudinous fea" does not mean the aggregate of feas, he must be understood to defign the multitude of waves, or the waves that bave the appearance of a multitude. STEEVENS. 2 The line before us, on the fuggeftion of the ingenious author of The Gray's-Inn Journal, has been printed in fome late editions in the following manner : Making the green-one red. Every part of this line, as thus regulated, appears to me exceptionable, One red does not found to my ear as the phrafeology of the age of Elizabeth; and the green, for the green one, or for the green fea, is, I am perfuaded, unexampled. The quaintnefs introduced by fuch a regulation feems of an entirely different colour from the quaintneffes of Shakspeare. He would have written, I have no doubt, "Making the green fea, red," if he had not used the word feas in the preceding line, which forced him to employ another word here. MALONE. 3 i. e. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were beft not know, or be loft to, myself. This is an answer to the lady's reproof: be not loft So poorly in your thoughts. WARBURTON. 4 Macbeth is addreffing the perfon who knocks at the outward gate.Sir William D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, reads-(and intended probably Porter. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he fhould have old turning the key." [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock : Who's there, i'the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, that hang'd himself on the expectation of plenty Come in time; have napkins enough 7 about you; here you'll fweat for't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there, i'the other devil's name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator,& that could swear in both the scales against either fcale; who committed treafon enough for God's fake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there? 'Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for ftealing out of a French hofe :9 Come probably to point) "Wake, Duncan, with this knocking!" conceiving that Macbeth called upon Duncan to awake. From the fame misapprehenfion, I once thought his emendation right; but there is certainly no need of change. MALONE. 5 Though Shakspeare (fee Sir J. Reynolds's excellent note on Act I. fc. vi.) might have defigned this fcene as another inftance of what is called the repofe in painting, I cannot help regarding it in a different light. A glimpse of comedy was expected by our author's audience in the most ferious drama; and where else could the merriment, which he himself was always ftruggling after, be fo happily introduced? STEEVENS. i. e. frequent, more than enough. STEEVENS. 7 i. e. handkerchiefs. STEEVENS. 8 Meaning a Jefuit: an order fo troublesome to the state in queen Elizabeth and king James the firft's time. The inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation. WARBURTON. 9 The archnefs of the joke confifts in this, that a French hose being very short and ftrait, a taylor must be matter of his trade who could steal any thing from thence. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has faid this at random. The French hofe (according to Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses) were in the year 1595 much in fashion.. "The Gallic hofen are made very large and wide, reaching down to their knees only, with three or foure gards apeece laid down along either bafe." STEEVENS. When Come in, tailor; here you may roaft your goofe. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Never at quiet! What are you -But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in fome of all profeffions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate. Enter MACDUFF and LENOX. Macd. Was it fo late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you did lie fo late? Port. 'Faith, fir, we were caroufing 'till the fecond cock :* and drink, fir, is a great provoker of three things. Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke ? Port. Marry, fir, nofe-painting, fleep, and urine. Lechery, fir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the defire, but it takes away the performance: Therefore, much drink may be faid to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it fets him on, and it takes him off; it perfuades him, and disheartens him; makes him ftand to, and not stand to: in conclufion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. Macd. I believe, drink gave thee the lie last night.3 Port. When Mr. Steevens cenfured Dr. Warburton in this place, he forgot the uncertainty of French Fashions. In The Treafury of ancient and modern Times 1613, we have an account (from Guyon, I fuppofe) of the old French dreffes: "Mens bofe anfwered in length to their fhort-skirted doublets; being made clofe to their limbes, wherein they had no means for pockets.' And Withers, in his fatyr against vanity, ridicules the fpruze, diminitive, neat, Frenchman's bofe." FARMER. From the following paffages in The Scornful Lady, by Beaumont and Fletcher, which appeared about the year 1613, it may be collected that large breeches were then in fashion: Saville. [an old steward.] "A comelier wear, I wis, than your dangling flops." Afterwards Young Loveless fays to the steward," This is as plain as your old minikin breeches." MALONE. 2 Cockcrowing. So, in King Lear: "he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock. STEEVENS. It appears from a paffage in Romeo and Juliet, that Shakspeare means, that they were carousing till three o'clock: The fecond cock has crow'd; The curfew-bell has toll'd: 'tis three o'clock.' MALONE. 3 It is not very easy to ascertain precifely the time when Duncan is mur dered. Port. That it did, fir, i'the very throat o'me: But requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my legs fometime, yet I made a fhift to caft him.4 dered. The converfation that paffes between Banquo and Macbeth in the first scene of this act might lead us to fuppofe that when Banquo retired to reft it was not much after twelve o'clock: "Ban. How goes the night, boy? "Fle. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. "Fle. I take't 'tis later fir." The king was then "abed;" and immediately.after Banquo retires Lady Macbeth ftrikes upon the bell, and Macbeth commits the murder. In a few minutes afterwards the knocking at the gate commences, (end of fc. ii.) and no time can be fuppofed to elapfe between the fecond and the third fcene, because the porter gets up in confequence of the knocking yet here Macduff talks of laft night, and says that he was commanded to call timely on the king, and that he fears he has almost overpafs'd the hour; and the porter tells him "we were carousing till the fecond cock ;” fo that we muft fuppofe it to be now at least fix o'clock; for Macduff has already expreffed his furprize that the porter fhould tie fo late.. From Lady Macbeth's words in the fifth act, One,-two-'tis time to do't," it should feem that the murder was committed at two o'clock, and that hour is certainly not inconfiftent with the converfation above quoted between Banquo and his fon; for we are not told how much later than twelve it was when Banquo retired to reft: but even that hour of two will not correspond with what the Porter and Macduff fay in the prefent fcene, I fufpect our author (who is feldom very exact in his computation of time) in fact meant that the murder fhould be fuppofed to be committed a little before day-break, which exactly correfponds with the fpeech of Macduff now before us, though not fo well with the other circumstances already mentioned, or with Lady Macbeth's defiring her husband to put on his nightgown (that he might have the appearance of one newly roufed" from bed,) left occafion fhould call them, and fhow them to be watchers;" which may fignify perfons who fit up late at night, but. can hardly mean thofe who do not go to bed till day-break. Shakspeare, I believe, was led to fix the time of Duncan's murder near the break of day by Holinfhed's account of the murder of king Duffe, already quoted he was long in his oratorie, and there continued till it was late in the night." Donwald's fervants"enter the chamber where the king laie, a little before cocks crow, where they fecretlie cut his throat." Donwald himself fat up with the officers of the guard the whole of the night. MALONE. 4 To caft bim up, to eafe my ftomach of him. The equivocation is between caft or throw, as a term of wrestling, and caf or caft up. Macd. Is thy master stirring ? Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes. Enter MACBETH. Len. Good-morrow, noble fir! Macb. Good-morrow, both! Not yet. Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane? Macd. He did command me to call timely on him; I have almoft flipp'd the hour. Macb. But yet, 'tis one. Mach. The labour we delight in, phyficks pain, This is the door. Macd. I'll make fo bold to call, [Exit MACDUFF. For 'tis my limited fervice." From hence to-day? Macb. Goes the king He does: he did appoint fo. Of dire combuftion, and confus'd events, The obfcure bird Clamour'd the livelong night: fome say, the earth Was feverous, and did shake.? 5 i. e. affords a cordial to it. STEEVENS. Limited, for appointed. WARBURTON. So, in Timon: Macb. In limited profeffions." i. e. profeffions to which people are regularly and legally appointed. STEEVENS. 7 Thefe lines, I think, should be rather regulated thus: -prophecying with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion and confus'd events. A propbeg |