expressed in this combination of apostrophe and
reflection,—“ Out, out, brief candle! life's but
a walking shadow,"-is, that life is but a delu-
sive resemblance of an endurable substance, and
it is useless to withhold it from mingling at once
with the darkness to which it is so closely related,
that to it it is hastening, and to it it will go.
But the notion is pursued yet further, and the
poor player is but the shadow of the substance
or reality whose semblance he has assumed.
With the term dusty, the shadow has no affi-
nity; and by retaining this word, the otherwise
exquisitely preserved unity of thought would
consequently be destroyed. The careful reader
of Shakespeare must be so conversant with this
continuity of a metaphor, showing many phases,
and yet exhibiting through all one only spirit,
in whatever position they may be considered, as
to recognize at once the justice of this correc-
tion of the text. The epithet dusky is employed

7. 2219. The way to DUSKY death.] This | which it is lighting him. And the sensation. epithet is, in the old folio, written dusty; nor would the mere preservation of the propriety of the metaphor, by producing the antithesis of lighted and dusky, be sufficient warrant for alteration, although this is an argument of no light weight when the phraseology of Shakespeare is in question; and more especially where the force of the imagery is so materially increased by presenting the contrast, as it is here. But that the feeling which possesses Macbeth is, that light has effected nothing more for folly but only to light it on its way into darkness, (and that therefore dusky is the true reading) the turn of thought in which he pursues this soliloquy affords ample proof. Life, ending in darkness, has suggested to him the idea of connecting it with darkness as a shadow, a something akin to that blackness, to which it is prosecuting its way. The brief candle is the day,—the time that the day gives for life; and the living man is the shadow walk-in reference to death in King Richard III.: ing between this light and that dusky death to Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.'

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Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar and slave!

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so:
Within this three mile you may see it coming;

I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood

Do come to Dunsinane; "—and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.-Arm, arm, and out!—
If this which he avouches, does appear,

There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.

I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

And wish th' estate o' th' world were now undone.-
Ring the alarum bell:-Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

[Striking him.

[Exeunt.

Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.

Macb. My name's Macbeth.

Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title

More hateful to mine ear.

Macb. No, nor more fearful.

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword

I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. [They fight, and young SIWARD is slain.

Macb. Thou wast born of woman.

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,

Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.

Alarums. Enter MACDUFf.

Macd. That way the noise is:-Tyrant, show thy face:

If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine,

My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.

I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms

Are hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,

Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,

I sheathe again undeeded. There thou should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited: Let me find him, fortune!
And more I beg not.

Enter MALCOLM and SIWARD.

[Exit.

[Exit. Alarum.

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