Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings: Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will,

Of your mere own: All these are portable,

With other graces weigh'd.

MAL. But I have none: The king-becoming graces,

As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them; but abound

In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Nay had I power, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

MACD.

O Scotland! Scotland!

MAL. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken.

MACD.

Fit to govern!

No, not to live.—O nation miserable,

With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptred,

When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction stands accurs'd,

And does blaspheme his breed?—thy royal father
Was a most sainted king: the queen, that bore thee,
Oft'ner upon her knees than on her feet,

90

86 Summer-seeming. Which appears to belong to the heyday of youth, and to pass with it.

87 The sword of our slain kings. So the revolt of the Netherlands was produced by the tax of the tenth penny' much more than by Alva's cruel executions; the Vespers of Palermo by the attempt of the French to tax every vine and every goat in Sicily.

88 Foysons. Abundance (fusio). The word is used by Boileau in speaking of bad wine :

66

'C'est en vain que j'y mets à foison De l'eau dont j'espère adoucir le poison."

95 No relish of them. No taste of them in me.

96 In the division. Under the head of each particular crime. 99 Uproar. 'Aufrühren,' stir up.

104

Untitled tyrant. A tyrant who has no title to the crown. 107 By his own interdiction. By curses self-pronounced.

F

Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself

Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast,
Thy hope ends here!

MAL.

Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul

Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste: But God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet

Unknown to woman; never was forsworn ;
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own;
At no time broke my faith; would not betray
The devil to his fellow; and delight

No less in truth, than life: my first false speaking
Was this upon myself: What I am truly,

Is thine, and my poor country's, to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
All ready at a point, was setting forth :

120

130

Now we'll together: And the chance of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
MACD. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,
'Tis hard to reconcile.

Enter a Doctor.

MAL. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray

you?

DOCT. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces

III

140

Fare thee well. Fare,' as S. Walker shews (p. 139), is treated as a dissyllable.

135 At a point. Thoroughly prepared. also used in the sense of 'quite resolved.' 136 The chance of goodness.

The expression is

And may the happy result be

like (that of) our quarrel which is made so thoroughly good. 142 Convinces the great assay. Overcomes the utmost striving of art.

The great assay of art; but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

MAL.

I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. MACD. What 's the disease he means? MAL.

'Tis call'd the evil;

A most miraculous work in this good king:
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures :
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 't is spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,

That speak him full of grace.

MACD.

Enter ROSSE.

See, who comes here?

150

MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not. 160 MACD. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MAL. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove The means that make us strangers!

ROSSE.

Sir, Amen.

MACD. Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSSE.

Alas, poor country;

144 Such sanctity. Up to the year 1719 our Prayer Book contained a service to be used when the king touched for the scrofula or 'king's evil.' Some of the last instances were when an attempt was made to exercise this power were when Dr. Johnson was touched (ineffectually) at the age of two years by Queen Anne: when, in 1716, Christopher Lovel was 'cured' by the Chevalier at Avignon: and when, in 1745, Prince Charles at Holyrood touched a child for the evil. Bishop Bull, Sermon V., speaks strongly to the effectiveness of this ceremony ("that shred of miraculous power still remaining to our faithful kings"): the latest biographer of Bishop Ken (who is the opposite to sceptical) considers that the only real effect was the piece of gold which the king hung round the patient's neck. As James I. was much in the habit of performing these 'cures,' the passage is probably introduced in compliment to him,

It cannot

Almost afraid to know itself!

Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstacy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

MACD.

Too nice, and yet too true!

O, relation,

MAL. What's the newest grief?

ROSSE. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.

MACD.

170

How does my wife?

ROSSE. Why, well.

MACD.

And all my children?

ROSSE.

Well too.

MACD. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? ROSSE. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave

them.

180

MACD. Be not a niggard of your speech: How goes it?
ROSSE. When I came hither to transport the tidings,

Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot :
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight
To doff their dire distresses.

MAL.
Be 't their comfort,
We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men ;

190

170 A modern ecstacy. An ordinary madness. Thus, in As You Like It, 'modern instances' mean ordinary instances; and in iv. I, 'modern apprehension' has the same sense. See the note at the latter place.

174 Too nice. Too particular.

175 Doth hiss the speaker. If a man tells a crime that is an hour old they say 'buzz' to him for stale news. (Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 1.)

190 Good Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Palgrave, AngloSaxons, page 282.

An older, and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

ROSSE.

'Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

MACD.

What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,
Due to some single breast?

ROSSE.

No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe; though the main part Pertains to you alone.

MACD.

If it be mine,

200

for ever,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSSE. Let not your ears despise my tongue
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound,
That ever yet they heard.

MACD.

Humph! I guess at it.

ROSSE. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife, and babes, Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,

Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

MAL.
Merciful heaven !—
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
MACD. My children too?

210

ROSSE. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.

192 Gives out.

Sends forth.

195 Should not latch them. Should not take them; from the Saxon 'laeccan.' So we have 'lynes for to latch fooles,' see Div. of Purley, page 568.

196 A fee-grief. A private grief, from 'feodum,' a fief, or property.

206 On the quarry. On the bodies. The word is French; 'curée,' probably derived from 'curer,' to clear out a hollow thing; in this case, to disembowel-a solemn ceremony at which woodcraft desired the presence of the châtelaine, (see Browning's 'Flight of the Duchess.') Hence it has secondarily the meaning assigned to it in the Glossary to Coriolanus; that which is cleared out, the entrails, &c., which are given to the dogs.

210 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart. Turns inward to the over-freighted heart.