Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Macb. Give me your favour: 3-my dull brain was wrought

With things forgotten.4 Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn

The leaf to read them.5-Let us toward the king.Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

Ban.

Very gladly..

Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not?

if they were as certayne," &c. Fenton's Tragical Discourses, 1579. Again, in Davison's Poems, 1621:

"Time's young bowres attend her still."

Again, in our author's 126th Sonnet.

2 —

"O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
"Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, bour

Malone.

we stay upon your leisure:] The same phraseology occurs in the Paston Letters, vol. iii, p. 80: 66 sent late to me a man ye which wuld abydin uppon my leysir," &c.

3

4

-favour:] i. e. indulgence, pardon.

my dull brain was wrought

Steevens.

Steevens.

With things forgatten.] My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. Johnson.

5

So, in Othello:

"Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,

"Perplex'd in the extreme."

where every day I turn

Steevens.

The leaf to read them.] He means, as Mr Upton has observed, that they are registered in the table-book of his heart. So Hamlet speaks of the table of his memory. Malone.

6 The interim having weigh'd it,] This intervening portion of time is also personified: it is represented as a cool impartial judge; as the pauser Reason. Or, perhaps, we should read-'th' interim. Steevens..

Those in commission yet return'd?

Mal.

My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die:8 who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died
As one that hath been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun.

There's no art,

To find the mind's construction in the face:1

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin!

I believe the interim is used adverbially: "you having weighed it in the interim." Malone.

7

Are not-] The old copy reads-Or not. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

8 With one that saw him die:] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds, in almost every circumstance, with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian. Such an allusion could not fail of having the desired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. Steevens.

9- · studied in his death,] Instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. Johnson.

His own profession furnished our author with this phrase. To be studied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. Malone.

So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study."

The same phrase occurs in Hamlet. Steevens.

1 To find the mind's construction in the face:] The construction of the mind is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to Shakspeare: it implies the frame or disposition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson seems to have understood the word construction in this place, in the sense of frame or structure; but the school-term was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning is

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less deserv'd;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay 2
Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children, and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honour.

Dun.

Welcome hither:

We cannot construe or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in King Henry IV, P. 11:

"Construe the times to their necessities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase:

"You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Cres sida:

"I'll decline the whole question.'

In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment asserted:

"In many's looks the false heart's history
"Is writ." Malone.

2 More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not say all, but more than all, i. e. the greatest recompense, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nibilo minus.

There is an obscurity in this passage, arising from the word all, which is not used here personally, (more than all persons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the speaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII:

"More than my all is nothing."

This line appeared obscure to Sir William D'Avenant, for he altered it thus:

3

"I have only left to say

"That thou deservest more than I have to pay. Malone.

servants;

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing -] From Scripture: "So when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." Henley.

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour

▲ Which do but what they should, by doing every thing Safe toward your love and honour.] Mr. Upton gives the word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially.

Read

Steevens.

"Safe (i. e. saved) toward you love and honour;" and then the sense will be-" Our duties are your children, and servants or vassals to yourthrone and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allusion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege bomage, to the king, was absolute, and without any exception; but simple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a saving of the allegiance (the love and bonour) due to the sovereign Sauf la foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy," as it is in Littleton And though the expression be somewhat stiff and forced, it is not more so than many others in this play, and suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere says, [in Fulius Cæsar :]

"When love begins to sicken and decay,
"It useth an enforced ceremony."

Blackstone.

A similar expression occurs also in the Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II, p. 245: " - ye shalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my consciense and worship savy'd." Steevens.

A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation:

"I'll speak it freely, always my obedience
"And love preserved unto the prince

So also the following words, spoken by Henry duke of Lancaster to king Richard II, at their interview in the castle of Flint (a passage that Shakspeare had certainly read and perhaps remembered): "My sovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your honour saved] to have againe restitution of my person, my landes, and heritage, through your favourable license." Holinshed's Chron. Vol. II.

Our author himself also furnishes us with a passage that likewise may serve to confirm this emendation. See The Winter's

Tale, Act IV, sc. iii:

"Save him from danger; do HIM love and honour." Again, in Twelfth Night:

"What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,
"That bonour sav'd may upon asking give?"

Again, in Cymbeline:

"I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing
"(Always reserv'd my boly duty) what

"His rage can do on me.'

To make thee full of growing."-Noble Banque,
That hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee,

And hold thee to my heart.

Ban.

The harvest is your own.

There if I grow,

Dun.
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow."-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The Prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,

Our poet has used the verb to safe in Antony and Cleopatra: best you saf'd the bringer

5

"Out of the host " Malone.

full of growing.-] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth. So, in Othello:

"What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" Malone. My plenteous joys,

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves

In drops of sorrow.]

lachrymas non sponte cadentes

"Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto;
"Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis
"Gaudia, quam lachrymis." Lucan, Lib. IX.

There was no English translation of Lucan before 1614.We meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale: "It seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears." It is likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing. Malone.

It is thus also that Statius describes the appearance of Argia and Antigone, Theb. III, 426:

Fiebile gavisa,

Steevens.

7 bence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the walls of the castle of Macbeth, at Inverness, are yet standing. Steevens,

The circumstance of Duncan's visiting Macbeth is supported by history; for, from the Scottish Chronicles, it appears that it was customary for the king to make a progress through his dominions every year. "Inerat ei [Duncano] laudabilis consuetudo regni pertransire regiones semel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. Lib. IV, c. xliv.