I would not be the villian that thou think'st,
For the whole space that 's in the tyrant's grasp,
And the rich East to boot.

Mal.

Be not offended:
I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

I think, our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds: I think, withal,
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here, from gracious England, have I offer
Of goodly thousands: But, for all this,
When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before;
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.

Macd.

What should he be?

Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted,

That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state

I have, however, adopted Mr. Malone's emendation, as it varies, but in a single letter, from the reading of the old copy. See his subsequent note. Steevens.

:

If we read-The title is affeer'd, the meaning may be:Poor country, wear those thy wrongs, the title to them is legally settled by those who had the final judication of it.

Affeerers had the power of confirming, or moderating fines and amercements. Tollet.

To affeer (for so it should be written) is to assess, or reduce to certainty. All amerciaments—that is, judgments of any court of justice, upon a presentment or other proceeding, that a party shall be amerced, or in mercy,—are by Magna Charta to be affeered by lawful men, sworn to be impartial. This is the ordinary practice of a Court Leet, with which Shakspeare seems to have been intimately acquainted, and where he might have occasionally acted as an affeerer. Ritson.

The was,

For the emendation now made I am answerable. I conceive, the transcriber's mistake, from the similar sounds of the and thy, which are frequently pronounced alike.

Perhaps the meaning is,-Poor country, wear thou thy wrongs! Thy title to them is now fully established by law. Or, perhaps, he addresses Malcolm. Continue to endure tamely the wrongs you suffer: thy just title to the throne is cow'd, has not spirit to establish itself. Malone

Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd

With my confineless harms.

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd

In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.

I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name: But there 's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust; and my desire

All continent impediments would o'er-bear,
That did oppose my will: Better Macbeth,
Than such a one to reign.

Macd.

Boundless intemperance1

In nature is a tyranny: it hath been
The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
To take upon you what is yours: you may
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hood-wink.
We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
That vulture in you, to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclin'd.

Mal.
With this, there grows,
In my most ill-compos'd affection, such
A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands;
Desire his jewels, and this other's house;
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good, and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth.

دو

Steevens.

8 confineless barms.] So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II, sc. ii: " - thou unconfinable baseness 9 Sudden, malicious,] Sudden, for capricious. Warburton. Rather, violent, passionate, hasty. Johnson.

1 Boundless intemperance-] Perhaps the epithet-boundLess, which overloads the metre, was a play-house interpolation Steevens

Macd.

This avarice

Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeding lust:2 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,*

2 grows with more pernicious root

Than summer-seeding lust;] The old copy has-summerseeming. Steevens.

Summer-seeming has no manner of sense: correct,

Than summer-teeming lust;

i. e. the passion that lasts no longer than the beat of life, and which goes off in the winter of age. Warburton.

When I was younger, and bolder, I corrected it thus:
Than fume, or seething lust.

That is, than angry passion, or boiling lust. Johnson.
Summer-seeming lust, may signify lust that seems as hot as
summer. Steevens.

Read-summer-seeding. The allusion is to plants; and the sense is," Avarice is a perennial weed; it has a deeper and more pernicious root than lust, which is a mere aunual, and lasts but for a summer, when it sheds its seed and decays."

Blackstone.

I have paid the attention to this conjecture which I think it deserves, by admitting it into the text. Steevens.

Summer-seeming is, I believe, the true reading. In Donne's Poems we meet with "winter-seeming." Malone.

Sir W. Blackstone's elegant emendation is countenanced by the following passages: Thus, in The Rape of Lucrece:

"How will thy shame be seeded in thine age, "When thus thy vices bud before thy spring?" And in Troilus and Cressida :

3

66

The seeded pride

"That hath to its maturity grown up
"In rank Achilles, must or now be cropp'd,
"Or, shedding, breed a nursery of evil

"To over-bulk us all." Henley.

-foysons - Plenty. Pope.

It means provisions in plenty. So, in The Ordinary, by Cartwright: "New forsons byn ygraced with new titles." The word was antiquated in the time of Cartwright, and is by him put into the mouth of an antiquary. Again, in Holinshed's Reign of King Henry VI, p. 1613: " fifteene hundred men,

and great foisin of vittels Steevens.

4 All these are portable,] Portable is, perhaps, here used for supportable. All these vices, being balanced by your vir tues, may be endured. Malone.

Portable answers exactly to a phrase now in use. Such fail ings may be borne with, or are bearable. Steevens.

With other graces weigh'd.

Mal. But I have none: The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perséverance, 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.5

5 Nay, had I power, I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.] Malcolm, I think, means to say, that if he had ability, he would change the general state of things, and introduce into hell, and earth, perpetual vexation, uproar, and confusion. Hell, in its natural state, being always represented as full of discord and mutual enmity, in which its inhabitants may be supposed to take the greatest delight, he proposes as the severest stroke on them, to pour the sweet milk of Concord amongst them, so as to render them peaceable and quiet, a state the most adverse to their natural disposition; while on the other hand he would throw the peaceable inhabitants of earth into uproar and confusion.

Perhaps, however, this may be thought too strained an interpretation. Malcolm, indeed, may only mean, that he will pour all that milk of human kindness, which is so beneficial to mankind, into the abyss, so as to leave the earth without any portion of it; and that by thus depriving mankind of those humane affections which are so necessary to their mutual happiness, he will throw the whole world into confusion. I believe, however, the former interpretation to be the true one.

In king James's first speech to his parliament, in March 1603-4, he says, that he had "suck'd the milk of God's truth with the milk of his nurse."

The following passage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which exhibits the reverse of this image, may be urged in favour of my first interpretation:

"If he, compact of jars, grow musical,

"We shall have shortly discord in the spheres." Malone. I believe, all that Malcolm designs to say is,-that, if he had power, he would even annihilate the gentle source or principle of peace: pour the soft milk by which it is nourished, among the flames of hell, which could not fail to dry it up.

Lady Macbeth has already observed that her husband was "too full of the milk of human kindness." Steevens.

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-scepter'd,
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,
Oftner upon her knees than on her feet,

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:8 But God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to the 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;

6 an untitled tyrant -] Thus, in Chaucer's Manciple's

Tale:

66

Right so betwix a titleles tiraunt

"And an outlawe."

Steevens.

Died every day she lived] The expression is borrowed from the sacred writings: "I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus, I die daily " Malone.

J. Davies, of Hereford, in his Epigram on-▲ proud lying Dyer, has the same allusion:

"Yet (like the mortifide) he dyes to live.” To die unto sin, and to live unto righteousness, are phrases em, ployed in our Liturgy. Steevens.

8 From over-credulous baste:] From over-hasty credulity.

Malone.