Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove The means that make us strangers! Rosse. Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? Sir, Amen. Alas, poor country, Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot 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,8 Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Macd. O, relation, What is the newest grief? Too nice, and yet too true!? propriety on our stage, as all the characters are uniformly represented in English habits. Steevens. 8 rent the air,] To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long ago disused. So, in Casar and Pompey, 1607: "With rented hair and eyes besprent with tears." Again, in The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, 1597: Steevens. "While with his fingers he his haire doth rent." Malone, A modern ecstasy;] That is, no more regarded than the contorsions that fanatics throw themselves into. The author was thinking of those of his own times. Warburton. I believe modern is only foolish or trifling. Johnson. Modern is generally used by Shakspeare to signify trite, common; as "modern instances," in As you Like it, &c. &c. See Vol. V, p. 59, n. 4. Steevens. Ecstasy is used by Shakspeare for a temporary alienation of mind. Malone. 1 Expire before the flowers in their caps,] So, in All's Well that Ends Well: whose constancies 66 Expire before their fashions." Steevens. 2 Too nice, and yet too true!] The redundancy of this hemis tich induces me to believe our author only wrote "Too nice, yet true! Steevens. Well too. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them. 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 Woud create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses.5 Mal. Be it their comfort, That Christendom gives out. Rosse. 'Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words, Where hearing should not latch them. Macd. What concern they? 3 Why, well.. -Well too.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 We use "To say, the dead are well." Steevens. children?] Children is, in this place, used as a tri syllable. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "There are the parents to these children." See note on this passage, Act V. Steevens. 5 To doff their dire distresses.] To doff is to do off, to put off. See King John, Act III, sc. i. Steevens. 6 should not latch them,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. To latch any thing, is to lay hold of it. So, in the prologue to Gower, De Confessione Amantis, 1554: "Hereof for that thei wolden lache, "With such duresse," &c. The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,7 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, Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard. Macd. Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and babeş, Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, Again, B. I, fol. 27: "When that he Galathe besought "Of love, which he maie not latche." Again, in the first Book of Ovid's Metamorphosis, as translated by Golding: "As though he would, at everie stride, betweene his teeth hir latch." Again, in the eighth Book: "But that a bough of chesnut-tree, thick-leaved, by the way "Did latch it," &c. To latch (in the North country dialect) signifies the same as to catch. Steevens. 7 fee-grief,] A peculiar sorrow; a grief that hath a single owner. The expression is, at least to our ears, very harsh. Johnson. So, in our author's Lover's Complaint: 66 My woeful self that did in freedom stand, "And was my own fee-simple." Malone. It must, I think, be allowed that, in both the foregoing in stances, the Attorney has been guilty of a flat trespass on the Poet. Steevens. Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,] Quarry is a term used both in hunting and falconry. In both sports it means the game after it is killed. So, in Massinger's Guardian: he strikes "The trembling bird, who even in death appears Again, in an ancient MS. entitled The Boke of Hunting that cleped Mayster of Game: "While that the huntyng lesteth, To add the death of you. Mal. Merciful heaven!What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;9 Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,1 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. Macd. My children too? should cartes go fro place to place to bringe the deer to the querre," &c. " to kepe the querre, and to make ley it on a rowe, al the hedes o way, and every deeres feet to other's bak, and the hertes should be leyde on a rowe, and the rascaile by hemselfe in the same wise. And thei shuld kepe that no man come in the querre til the king come, safe the maister of the game." It appears, in short, that the game was arranged in a hollow square, within which none but privileged persons, such as had claims to the particular animals they had killed, were permitted to enter. Hence, perhaps, the origin of the term quarry. 9 Steevens. ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;] The same thought occurs in the ancient ballad of Northumberland betrayed by Douglas: Again: 1 "He pulled his hatt over his browe, "And in his heart he was full woe," &c. "Jamey his hatt pull'd over his brow," &c. Steevens. na, 1612: the grief, that does not speak,] So, in Vittoria Coromba "Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.” Cura leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Again, in Greene's old bl. 1. novel, entitled The Tragicall History af Faire Bellora: 66 Light sorrowes often speake, "When great the heart in silence breake." Steevens. In Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1595, we have the like sentiment: 66 'Striving to tell his woes words would not come ; So, in Venus and Adonis: 66 the heart hath treble wrong, Reed. "When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue." Malone. VOL. VII. Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, Macd. He has no children. 2All my pretty ones? 2 He has no children.] It has been observed by an anonymous critick, that this is not said of Macbeth, who had children, but of Malcolm, who, having none, supposes a father can be so easily comforted. Johnson. The meaning of this may be, either that Macduff could not, by retaliation, revenge the murder of his children, because Macbeth had none himself; or that if he had any, a father's feelings for a father would have prevented him from the deed. I know not from what passage we are to infer that Macbeth had children alive. Holinshed's Chronicle does not, as I remember, mention any. The same thought occurs again in King John: "He talks to me that never had a son. Again, in King Henry VI, P. III: "You have no children: butchers, if you had, "The thought of them would have stir'd up remorse.' Steevens. The passage, quoted from King John, seems in favour of the supposition that these words relate to Malcolm. That Macbeth had children at some period, appears from what lady Macbeth says in the first Act: "I have given suck," &c. I am still more strongly confirmed in thinking these words relate to Malcolm, and not to Macbeth, because Macbeth had a son then alive, named Lulah, who after his father's death was proclaimed king by some of his friends, and slain at Strathbolgie, about four months after the battle of Dunsinane. See Fordun. Scoti-Chron. L. V, c. viii. Whether Shakspeare was apprised of this circumstance, cannot be now ascertained; but we cannot prove that he was unacquainted with it. Malone. My copy of the Scoti-Chronicon (Goodall's edit. Vol. p. 252,) affords me no reason for supposing that Lulab was a son of Macbeth. The words of Fordun are: Subito namque post mortem Machabeda convenerunt quidam ex ejus parentela sceleris hujusmodi fautores, suum consobrinum, nomine Lulab, ignomine fatuum, ad Sconam ducentes, et impositum sede regali constituunt regem," &c. Nor does Wyntown, in his Cronykil so much as hint that this mock-monarch was the imme. diate offspring of his predecessor: "Eftyre all this, that ilke yhere, "That this Makbeth was browcht on bere, "As kyng regnyd monethis thre. "This Malcolme gert sla hym syne "Wyth-in the land of Straybolgyne." B. VI, 47, &c. |