1 Enter Murderers. L. Macd. I hope, in no place so unsanctified, He's a traitor. What, you egg! [Stabbing him. Young fry of treachery! Son. He has killed me, mother; Run away, I pray you. [Dies. (Exit Lady MACDUFF, crying murder, and pursued by the Murderers. SCENE III. England. A Room in the King's Palace. Enter Malcolm and MACDUFF.? Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty. Macd. Let us rather What I believe, I'll wail ; 3 1 “Shag-eared villain.” It has been suggested that we should read shag-haired, an abusive epithet frequent in our old plays. Hair being formerly spelled heare, the corruption would easily arise. 2 This scene is almost literally taken from Holinshed's Chronicle, which is in this part an abridgment of the chronicle of Hector Boece, as translated by John Bellenden. From the recent reprints of both the Scottish and English chroniclers, quotations from them become the less necessary; they are now accessible to the reader curious in tracing the Poet to his sources of information. 3 i. e. befriend. 2 What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. something You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb, To appease an angry god. Macd. I am not treacherous. But Macbeth is. I have lost my hopes. Mal. Perchance, even there, where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child, (Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,) Without leave-taking ?-I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonors, But mine own safeties.—You may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think. Macd. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dares not check thee !—Wear thou thy wrongs; 1 “ You may deserve of him through me.” The old copy reads discerne. The emendation was made by Theobald. In the subsequent part of the line something is wanted to complete the sense. There is no verb to which wis dom can refer. Steevens conjectured that the line might originally have run thus : - but something To offer,” &c. ? A good mind may recede from goodness in the execution of a royal commission. 3 « Virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be counterfeited by villany." Thy title is affeered ! 1-Fare thee well, lord. Be not offended; What should he be ? Not in the legions I grant him bloody, But there's no bottom, none, 2 3 1 To affeer is a law term, signifying to assess or reduce to certainty. 2 i. e. immeasurable evils. 3 Luxurious, lascivious. 4 Sudden, passionate. Macd. Boundless intemperance With this, there grows, This avarice ? All these are portable, The king-becoming, 3 none. Sir W. Blackstone proposed to read summer-seeding, which was adopted by Steevens; but the meaning of the epithet may be,“ lust as hot as summer.” In Donne's Poems, Malone has pointed out its opposite winter-seeming: 2 Foysons, plenty. 3 Portable answers to a phrase now in use. Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable. VOL. III. 31 Acting in many ways. Nay, had l power, I should I O Scotland! Scotland! Fit to govern! Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts To thy good truth and honor. 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. Unknown to woman; never was forsworn; Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; At no time broke my faith; would not betray I am yet 1 “With an untitled tyrant.” Thus in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale “Right so betwix a titleless tiraunt And an outlawe.” 2 Credulous haste, overhasty credulity. |