- Sold. It fhall be done. Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant Keeps ftill in Dunfinane, and will endure Mal. 'Tis his main hope: 'For where there is advantage to be given, Macd. Let our juft cenfures the confin'd tyrant, WARBURTON. He was confident of fuccefs; fo confident that he would not fly, but endure their fetting down before his caftle. JoHNSON. 1 For where there is advantage to be given, Both more and lefs have given him the revolt ;] The impropriety of the expreffion, advantage to be given, instead of advantage given, and the difagreeable repetition of the word given in the next line, incline me to read: where there is a 'vantage to be gone, Both more and lefs have given him the revolt. Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, fignified opportunity. He hut up himself and his foldiers, (fays Malcolm) in the caftle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all defert bim. More and lefs is the fame with greater and lefs. So, in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the More and the Lefs. JOHNSON. I would read, if any alteration were neceffary: For where there is advantage to be got, But the words as they stand in the text, will bear Dr. Johnson's explanation, which is moft certainly right." For wherever an opportunity of flight is given them &c." More and lefs, for greater and lefs, is likewife found in Chaucer : "From Boloigne is the erle of Pavie come, "Of which the fame yfpronge to moft and lefte." Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, fong the 12th: "Of Britain's forefts all from th' lefs unto the more" Again, in Spenfer's Facry Queen, b. v. c. 8: 66 all other weapons leffe or more, Which warlike ufes had devis'd of yore." STEEVENS. Induftrious foldierfhip. Siw. The time approaches, That will with due decifion make us know 2 What we shall say we have, and what we owe. Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers with drums and colours. Mach. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is ftill, They come: Our caftle's ftrength Will laugh a fiege to fcorn: here let them lie, 'Till famine, and the ague, eat them up: Were they not forc'd with thofe that fhould be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. What is that noife? [A cry within, of women, Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears The time has been, my fenfes would have cool'd To hear a night-fhriek; and my fell of hair 2 What we shall fay we have, and what we owe. i. e. property and allegiance. WARBURTON. What we shall fay we have, and what we owe.] Would When we are governed by legal kings, we shall know the limits of their claim, i. e. fhall know what we have of our own, and what they have a right to take from us. STEEVENS. 3 arbitrate:] i. e. determine. JOHNSON. So, in the 18th Ödyffey tranflated by Chapman : 4 66 ftraight "Can arbitrate a war of deadliest weight." STEEVENS. -fell of hair] My hairy part, my capillitium. Fell is fkin, JOHNSON. Q94 So, Would at a difmal treatise roufe, and ftir As life were in't I have fupt full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my flaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once ftart me.. Wherefore was that cry Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead. 6 Macb. She fhould have dy'd hereafter; ? There would have been a time for fuch a word. So, in Alphonfus Emperor of Germany: 66 Where the lyon's hide is thin and fcant, "I'll firmly patch it with the fox's fell," So, again, in K. Lear: The goujeres fhall devour them flesh and fell.” A dealer in hides is still called a fell-monger. STEEVENS. I have fupt full with horrors;] The Oxford editor alters this to, furfeited with horrors; To and fo, for the fake of a politer phrafe, has made the speaker talk abfurdly. For the thing we furfeit of, we behold with uneasiness and abhorrence. But the fpeaker fays, the things he fupt full of were grown familiar to him, and he viewed them without emotion, WARBURTON. Statius has a fimilar thought in the second book of his Thebais: 66 -attollit membra, toroque, "Erigitur plenus monftris, vanumque cruorem "Excutiens." The conclufion of this paffage, may remind the reader of lady Macbeth's behaviour in her fleep. STEEVENS, • She should have dy'd hereafter; There would have been a time for fuch a word. This paffage has very juftly been fufpected of being corrupt. It is not apparent for what word there would have been a time, and that there would or would not be a time for any word feems not a confideration of importance fufficient to tranfport Macbeth into the following exclamation, I read therefore : She should have dy'd hereafter. There would have been a time for-fuch a world! It is a broken fpeech, in which only part of the thought is expreffed, and may be paraphrafed thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. Her death fhould have been deferred to fome more peaceful hour; bad fhe liv'd longer, there would at length have been a time for the bonours due to her as a queen, and that refpect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world-fuch is the condition of human To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, The way to dufty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking fhadow; a poor player, life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day, but to-morrow and to-morrow fieals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we ftill linger in the fame expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All thefe days, which have thus passed away, have fent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engroffed by the fame dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to-morrow. Such was once my conjecture, but I am now lefs confident. Macbeth might mean, that there would have been a more conve nient time for fuch a word, for fuch intelligence, and fo fall into the following reflection. We fay we fend word when we give in, telligence. JOHNSON. To the last fyllable of recorded time ;] Recorded time feems to fignify the time fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expreffion, but as we only know transactions paft or prefent, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience in which future events may be supposed to be written. So, in All's Well that Ends Well: JOHNSON. "To the utmost fyllable of your worthiness." Recorded is probably here ufed for recording or recordable; one participle for the other, of which there are many inftances both in Shakespeare and other English writers. Virgil ufes penetrabile frigus for penetrans frigus, and penetrabile telum for telum penetrans. STEEVENS. 8 The way to dufty death.] We fhould read dufky, as appears from the figurative term lighted The Oxford editor has condefcended to approve of it. WARBURTON. Dufy is a very natural epithet. The fecond folio has: The way to study death. which Mr. Upton prefers, but it is only an errour by an accidental tranfpofition of the types. JOHNSON. The duft of death is an expreffion used in the 22d Pfalm. Dufy death alludes to the expreffion of duft to duft in the burial fervice, and to the fentence pronounced against Adam: "Duft thou art, and to duft thou fhalt return."-Shakespeare, however, in the first act of this play, fpeaks of the thane of Cawdor, as of one "wha had been studied in his death." STEEVENS. That That ftruts and frets his hour upon the ftage, Enter a Messenger. Thou com'ft to use thy tongue; thy ftory quickly. I fhould report that which, I fay I saw, Mach. Well, fay, fir. Mej. As I did ftand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. Mach. Liar, and flave! [Striking him, Mef. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so; Within this three mile may you fee it coming; I fav, a moving grove. Mach. If thou fpeak'ft falfe, Upon the next tree fhalt thou hang alive, 9 'Till famine cling thee:] I care Clung, in the northern counties, fignifies any thing that is fhrivelled or fhrunk up. By famine, the intestines are, as it were, ftuck together. In the Roman Actor by Maffinger, the fame word, though differently fpelt, appears to be used: 26 my entrails "Are clamm'd with keeping a continual fast." To cling likewife fignifies, to gripe, to comprefs, to embrace. So, in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1607: 66 flide from the mother, "And cling the daughter," Again, in Antonio's Revenge, 1602: "And found even cling'd in fenfuality." Again, in Northward Hoe, 1607: "I will never fee a white flea before I will cling you." Ben Jonfon uses the word clem in the Poetafter, act I. fc. ii: "I cannot eat ftones and turfs; fay, what will he clem me and my followers? afk him an he will clem me." To be clem'd is a Staffordshire expreffion, which means, to be farved: and there is |
