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Come in, without there!

Len,

Enter LENOX.

What's your grace's will?

No, my lord.

Macb. Saw you the weird sisters?
Len.

Macb. Came they not by you?

Len.

No, indeed, my lord. Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride ;6 And damn'd, all those that trust them!-I did hear The galloping of horse: who was 't came by?

Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you

word,

Macduff is fled to England.

Macb.

Len. Ay, my good lord.

Fled to England?

Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:7 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it: From this moment,

The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now

5 Stand aye accursed in the calendar!] In the ancient almanacks the unlucky days were distinguished by a mark of reprobation. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635:

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henceforth let it stand

"Within the wizard's book, the kalender,

"Mark'd with a marginal finger, to be chosen,
"By thieves, by villains, and black murderers."

Steevens.

6 Infected be the air whereon they ride:] So, in the first part of Selimus, 1594:

"Now Baiazet will ban another while,

"And vtter curses to the concaue skie,

"Which may infect the regions of the ayre." Todd.

▾ Time, thou anticipat❜st my dread exploits:] To anticipate is here meant to prevent, by taking away the opportunity. Johnson.

The very firstlings] Firstlings, in its primitive sense, is the first produce or offspring. So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:

"The firstlings of their vowed sacrifice." Here it means the thing first thought or done. The word is used again in the prologue to Troilus and Cressida :

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'Leaps o'er the vant and firstlings of these broils."

Steevers.

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and

done:

The castle of Macduff I will surprise;

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool:
But no more sights!1-Where are these gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle.

Enter Lady MACDUFF, her Son, and Rosse.

L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly the

land?

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He had none.:

Rosse. You must have patience, madam. L. Macd. His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.2

Rosse.

You know not,

Whether it was his wisdom, or his fear.

9 That trace his line.] i. e. follow, succeed in it. Thus, in a poem interwoven with A Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Cautels: &c. translated out of the French &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton]

4to. 1578:

66

They trace the pleasant groves, "And gather floures sweete

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Again, in Sir Arthur Gorges' translation of the third Book of Lucan, 1614:

"The tribune's curses in like case
"Said he, did greedy Crassus trace.”

The old copy reads

"That trace him in his line."

The metre, however, demands the omission of such unnecessary expletives.

Steevens.

1 But no more sights!] This hasty reflection is to be considered as a moral to the foregoing scene:

"Tu ne quæsieris scire (nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
"Finem Di dederint, Leuconöe, nec Babylonios
"Tentaris numeros, ut melius, quicquid erit, pati.”

2 Our fears do make us traitors.] i. e. our flight is considered as an evidence of our guilt. Steevens.

L. Macd. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his

babes,

His mansion, and his titles, in a place

From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch :3 for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear, and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.

My dearest coz',

Rosse. I pray you, school yourself: But, for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows

The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further: But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,

And do not know ourselves;6 when we hold rumour

3 natural touch:] Natural sensibility. He is not touched with natural affection. Johnson.

So, in an ancient MS. play, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy:

4

66 How she 's beguil'd in him!

"There's no such natural touch, search all his bosom."

Steevens.

the poor wren, &c.] The same thought occurs in The Third Part of King Henry VI:

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doves will peck, in safety of their brood. "Who hath not seen them (even with those wings "Which sometimes they have us'd in fearful flight) "Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest, "Offering their own lives in their young's defence?" Steevens.

The fits o' the season.] The fits of the season should appear to be, from the following passage in Coriolanus, the violent disorders of the season, its convulsions:

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"The violent fit o' th' times craves it as physick."

Steevens. Perhaps the maning is,-what it most fitting to be done in every conjuncture. Anonymous.

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And do not know ourselves;] i. e. we think ourselves innocent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourselves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters it to

And do not know 't ourselves;

From what we fear, yet know not what we fear;
But float upon a wild and violent sea,

Each way, and move.—I take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before. My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you!

L. Macd. Father'd he is, and yet he 's fatherless. Rosse. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, It would be my disgrace, and your discomfort: I take my leave at once.

L. Macd,

[Exit Rosse. Sirrah, your father's dead ;9

But sure they did know what they said, that the state esteemed them traitors. Warburton.

Rather, when we are considered by the state as traitors, while at the same time we are unconscious of guilt; when we appear to others so different from what we really are, that we seem not to know ourselves. Malone.

7

when we bold rumour

From what we fear,] To hold rumour signifies to be go. verned by the authority of rumour. Warburton.

I rather think to bold means, in this place, to believe, as we say, I hold such a thing to be true, i. e. I take it, I believe it to be so. Thus, in King Henry VIII:

66

Did you not of late days hear, &c.

"1 Gen. Yes, but beld it not."

The sense of the whole passage will then be: The times are cruel when our fears induce us to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumoured or reported abroad; and yet at the same time, as we live under a tyrannical government where will is substituted for law, we know not what we have to fear, because we know not when we offend. Or: When we are led by our fears to believe every rumour of danger we hear, yet are not conscious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed with those fears. A passage like this occurs in King John:

"Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams,

"Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear." This is the best I can make of the passage. Steevens..

8 Each way, and move.-] Perhaps the poet wrote-And each way move. If they floated each way, it was needless to inform us that they moved. The words may have been casually transposed, and erroneously pointed. Steevens.

9 Sirrah, your father's dead;] Sirrab, in our author's time, was not a term of reproach, but generally used by masters to servants, parents to children, &c. So before, in this play,

And what will you do now? How will you live?
Son. As birds do, mother.

L. Macd.

What, with worms and flies? Son. With what I get, I mean; and so do they. L. Macd. Poor bird! thou 'dst never fear the net, nor lime,

The pit-fall, nor the gin.

Son. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.

My father is not dead, for all your saying.

L. Macd. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?

Son. Nay, how will you do for a husband?

L. Macd. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. Son. Then you 'll buy 'em to sell again.

L. Macd. Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and yet i' faith,

With wit enough for thee.

Son. Was my father a traitor, mother?

L. Macd. Ay, that he was.

Son. What is a traitor?

L. Macd. Why, one that swears and lies.
Son. And be all traitors, that do so?

L. Macd Every one that does so, is a traitor, and must be hanged.

Son. And must they all be hanged, that swear and lie? L. Macd. Every one.

Son. Who must hang them?

L. Macd. Why, the honest men.

Son. Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men, and hang up them.

L. Macd. Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?

Son. If he were dead, you'd weep for him: if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.

L. Macd. Poor prattler! how thou talk'st!

Macheth says to his servant," Sirrab, a word with you: attend those men our pleasure?" Malone.

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