Page images
PDF
EPUB

Doct. Gosto, gosto; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged, irs odt he

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct, Well, well, well,

[ocr errors]

Gent. Pray God, it be, sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale: I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doct. Even so ? mole of engianti bat)) Lady M. To, bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, conre, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone: To bed, to bed, to bed. Exit LADY MACBETH.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad; Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine, than the physician.-
God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her:-So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent.

Good night, good doctor. [Exeunt.

4 'My mind she has mated. Mated, or amated, from matté, old French, signified to overcome, confound, dismay, or make

SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX and Soldiers. to, ute Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes
Would, to the bleeding, and the grim alarm,
Excite the mortified man2.7654

Ang.
Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his bro-
ther?

Len. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son,

And many unrough youths, that even now t Protest their first of manhood.

Ment. did and odonto What does the tyrant? Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:

[ocr errors]

Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,

[ocr errors]

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

Ang.

Now does he feel

afraid. The word is to be found in Bullokar's Expositor, 1616: in Cotgrave's French Dictionary; and in Philips' World of Words. Philips distinguishes it as an old word, or obsolete; and derives it from the Saxon; but, I believe, without foundation.

1 Duncan had two sons by his wife, who was the daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumberland. HOLINSHED, I

By the mortified man is meant a religious man; one who has mortified his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it; an ascetic. So in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606: 'He like a mortified hermit

It sits.'

And in Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1:

'My loving lord, Dumain is mortified;

The grosser manner of this world's delights

He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves."

And many unrough youths. This old expression means smooth-faced, unbearded. See the Tempest:

till new born chins

Be rough and razorable.

His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment.

Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil, and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there!

Cath.

Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
Meet we the medecins of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

Len.

Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt, marching.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all! Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

1

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm; Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequence, have pronounc'd me thus: Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman, Shall e'er have power upon thee.- Then fly, false thanes,

And mingle with the English epicures1:

i. e. when all the faculties of the mind are employed in selfcondemnation.

5 The medecin, the physician. In the Winter's Tale, Camillo is called by Perdita 'the medecin of our house.'

1 Shakspeare derived this thought from Holinshed :-'The Scottish people before had no knowledge nor understanding of fine fare or riotous surfeit; yet after they had once tasted the sweet poisoned bait thereof, &c. 'those superfluities which came into the realme of Scotland with Englishmen -Hist. of Scotland, p. 179.

Vol. IV.

13

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg2 with doubt, nor shake with fear.
Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon3!"
Where gott'st thou that goose look?
Serv. There is ten thousand-

Machi

Serv.

Geese, villain?
*Soldiers, sir.

Macb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch4? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear5. What soldiers, whey-face? Serv. The English force, so please you.

Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton! I am sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:

This word,

2 To sag, or swag, is tó hang down by its own weight, or by an overload, ord, which signifies a base (3-cream-fac'd loon.' abject fellow, is now only used in Scotland; it was formerly common in England, but spelt lown, and is justly considered by Horne Tooke as the past participle of to low or abase. Lout has the same origin.

4 Patch, an appellation of contempt, signifying fool or low

wretch.

i. e. they infect others who see them with cowardice. In King Henry V. the King says to the conspirators, 'Your cheeks are paper.

6 Sear is dry, withered. We have the same expression and sentiment in Spenser's Pastorals :d seare.

Also my lustful leaf is drie and seare.'

For way of life' Johnson would read May of life; in which he was followed by Steevens and others, Warburton contended for the original reading, and was followed by Mason. At a subacquent period Steevens acquiesced in the propriety of the old reading, way of life, which he interprets, with his predecessors, course or progress. Malone followed the same track. The fact is that these ingenious writers have mistaken the phrase, which is neither more nor less than a simple paraphrasis for life. A few examples will make this clear:

If that when I was mistress of myself,
And in my way of youth clear and untainted.

Massinger's Roman Actor.

And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare

not.

Seyton!-

Enter SEYTON.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure?
Macb.

What news more?

[ocr errors]

Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was re

ported.

Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack d.

Give me my armour.
Sey.

Macb. I'll put it on.

"Tis not needed yet.

Send out more horses, skirr the country round;

In way of youth I did enjoy one friend.'

i. e. in my youth.

'So much nobler

Shall be your way of justice.'

i. e. your justice.

A very Woman,

Thierry and Theodoret.

Queen of Corinth.

"He shall be found, and such a way of justice inflicted

on him?'

i. e. such justice.

Thus ready for the way of life or death,

I wait the sharpest blow.

i. e. for life or death..

Is there no other way of mercy,

Pericles.

But I must needs to the Tower? King Henry VIII. This note I have abridged from Mr. Gifford's edition of Massinger, vol. iv. p. 309. 'I should have been contented with fewer examples (says that excellent critic), had not my respect for Shakspeare made me desirous of disencumbering his page, by ascertaining beyond the possibility of cavil the meaning of an expression so long and so laboriously agitated. To return to Macbeth the sere and yellow leaf is the commencement of the winter of life or of old age; to this he has attained, and he laments, in a strain of inimitable pathos and beauty, that it is unaccompanied by those blessings which render it supportable. As his manhood was without virtue, so he has now before him the certain prospect of an old age without honbur.'

i. e. scour the country round.

« PreviousContinue »