8 And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him To his home before us: Fair and noble hoftefs, We are your gueft to-night. LADY M. Your fervants ever 9 Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own. DUN. 8 [ Exeunt. -his great love, Sharp as his fpur,] So, in Twelfth Night, A& III. fc. iii: 9 Your fervants ever, &c.] The metaphor in this fpeech is taken from the Steward's compting houfe or audit-room. In compt, means, Jubject to account. The fenfe of the whole is: We, and all who belong to us, look upon our lives and fortunes not as our own properties, but as things we have received merely for your use, and for which we must be accountable whenever you pleafe to call us to our audit; when, like faithful flewards, we shall be ready to answer your fummons, by returning you what is your own. STEEVENS. SCENE VII.. The fame. A Room in the Caftle. 3 Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the flage, a fewer, and divers fervants with dishes and fervice. Then enter MACBETH. MACB. If it were done, when'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: If the affaffination 5 3 Enter ——a fewer,] I have reftored this ftage-direction from the old copy. The office of a fewer was to place the difhes in order at a feaft. His chief mark of diftinction was a towel round his arm. So, in Ben Jonfon's Silent Woman; “ -clap me a clean towel about you, like a fewer." Again: "See, fir Amorous has his towel on already. [He enters like a fewer."] STEEVENS. 4 If it were done, &c.] A fentiment parallel to this occurs in The Proceedings against Garnet in the Powder Plot. "It would have been commendable, when it had been done, though not before. FARMER. 5 If the affaffination &c.] Of this foliloquy the meauing is not very clear; 1 have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus: "If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and executed, were done and ended without any following effects, it would then be beft to do it quickly: if the murder could terminate in itself, and reftrain the regular courfe of confequences, if its fuccefs could fecure its furceafe, if, being once done fuccessfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance and enquiry, so that this blow might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to fuffer; if this could be my condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of temporal exiftence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future ftate. But this is one of thofe cafes in which judgement is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our present life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example. JOHNSON Could trammel up the confequence, and catch, 6 We are told by Dryden, that " Ben Jonson in reading some bom. baft speeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horrour. - Perhaps the prefent paffage was one of those thus depretiated. Any perfon but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the tranfcendent beauties of this fublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's greatest work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into ftrong shudders" and blood-freezing "agues," by its interefting and highwrought fcenes, than to have been offended by any imaginary hardness of its language; for fuch, it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour. That there are difficult paffages in this tragedy, cannot be denied; but that there are "fome bombaft fpeeches in it, which are not to be underflood," as Dryden afferts, will not very readily be granted to him. From this affertion however, and the verbal alterations made by him and Sir W. D'Avenant in fome of our author's plays, I think it clearly appears that Dryden and the other poets of the time of Charles II. were not very deeply fkilled in the language of their predeceffors, and that Shakspeare was not fo well understood fifty years after his death, as he is at this day. MALONE. 6 Could trammel up the confequence, and catch, With his furceafe, fuccefs; ] I think the reasoning requires that we should read: A trammel is a net in which either birds or fifhes are caught. So, in The Ife of Gulls, 1633 : "Each tree and fhrub wears trammels of thy hair." Surceafe is ceffation, ftop. So, in The Valiant Welchman, 1615: Surceafe brave brother: Fortune hath crown'd our brows. His is ufed inftead of its, in many places. STEEVENS. The perfonal pronouns are fo frequently ufed by Shakspeare, instead of the impersonal, that no amendment would be neceffary in this paffage, even if it were certain that the pronoun his refers to affaffination, which seems to be the opinion of Johnson and Steevens; but I think it more probable that it refers to Duncan; and that by his furceafe Macbeth means Duncan's death, which was the objec of his contemplation. M. MASON. His certainly may refer to affaffination, (as Dr. Johnson by his propofed alteration feems to have thought it did,) for Shakspeare very frequently ufes his for its. But in this place perhaps his refers to Duncan; and the meaning may be, If the affaffination, at the 8 Might be the be-all and the end-all here, fame time that it puts an end to the life of Duncan, could procure me unalloyed happiness, promotion to the crown unmolested by the compunctious vifitings of confcience, &c. To ceafe often fignifies in these plays, to die. So, in All's Well that ends Well: Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease." I think, however, it is more probable that his is used for its, and that it relates to affaffination. MALONE. 7 —Shoal of time,] This is Theobald's emendation, undoubtedly right. The old edition has fchool, and Dr. Warburton shelve. JOHNSON. By the Shoal of time our author means the fhallow ford of life, between us and the abyfs of eternity. STEEVENS. We'd jump the life to come. So, in Cymbeline, A& V. fc. iv: or jump the after-enquiry on your own peril. 66 STEEVENS. "We'd jump the life to come," certainly means, We'd hazard or run the risk of what might happen in a future ftate of being. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: Our fortune lies Again, in Coriolanus: To jump a body with a dangerous phyfick, "That's fure of death without it." See note on this paffage, A& III. fc. i. MALONE. Bloody infructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor:] So, in Bellenden's translation of He&or Boethius: "He [Macbeth was led be wod furyis, as ye nature of all tyrannis is, quhilks canqueffis landis or kingdomes be wrangus titil, ay full of hevy thocht and dredour, and traifting ilk man to do fielik crueltes to hym, as he did afore to othir." MALONE. - This even-handed juffice- Mr. M. Mafon obferves that we might more advantageously read 2 Thus even-handed justice, &c. STEEVENS. The old reading I believe to be the true one, because Shakspeare has very frequently used this mode of expreffion. So, a little Commends the ingredients3 of our poifon'd chalice 6 5 lower:- "Befides, this Duncan, &c. Again, in K. Henry IV. "That this fame child of honour and renown, MALONE. 3 Commends the ingredients- Thus in a fubfequent scene of this play: "I with your horfes fwift, and fure of foot, This verb has many fhades of meaning. It feems here to fignify offers, or recommends. STEEVENS. To our own lips.] Our poet, apis Matina more modoque, would ftoop to borrow a Tweet from any flower, however humble in its fituation. "The pricke of confcience (fays Holinfhed) caufed him ever to feare, left he should be ferved of the fame cup as he had minister'd to his predeceffor. STEEVENS. 5 Hath borne his faculties fo meek,] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARBURTON. "Duncan (fays Holinfhed) was foft and gentle of nature. And again: Macbeth fpoke much against the king's foftness, and overmuch flackness in punishing offenders. STEEVENS. The deep damnation] So, in Adolfull Difcourse of a Lord and a Ladie, by Churchyard, 1593: I should not have thought this little coincidence worth noting, had I not found it in a poem which it fhould feem, from other paffages, that Shakspeare had read and remembered. STEEVENS. |