Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD.

Siw. This way, my lord;-the castle's gently render'd: The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;

The noble thanes do bravely in the war;

The day almost itself professes yours,

And little is to do.

SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the plain.

Enter MACBETH.

Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

Macd.

Enter MACDUff.

Turn, hell-hound, turn!

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.

Macd.

I have no words,

My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain

Than terms can give thee out!

Macb.

[They fight.

Thou losest labour:

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.

And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb.
Untimely ripp'd.

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!

And be these juggling fiends no more believ❜d,

That palter with us in a double sense;

That keep the word of promise to our ear,

And break it to our hope (120)-I'll not fight with thee.

Macd. Then yield thee, coward,

And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:

We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit

"Here

may you see the tyrant."

I will not yield,

Macb.
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last :-before my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries "Hold, enough!"

[Exeunt, fighting.

Retreat. Flourish.(121) Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, ROSS, LENNOX, ANGUS, CAITHNESS, MENTEITH, and Soldiers.

So

Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.

Si. Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,

great a day as this is cheaply bought.

Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

Ross. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:

He only liv'd but till he was a man ;

The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.

Ross. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then

It hath no end.

Mal.

And that I'll spend for him.

Siw.

He's worth more sorrow,

He's worth no more:

They say he parted well, and paid his score:

And So, God b' wi' him!-Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head on a pole.

Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands Th' usurper's cursed head: the time is free:

I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,-
Hail, King of Scotland!

All.

Hail, King of Scotland! [Flourish.

Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,

And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls,-the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,-
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen,—
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands.
Took off her life;-this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place :
So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

"1. I come, Gray-Malkin.

All. Padock calls anon: faire is foule," &c.

but surely it is evident that the author intended only the concluding couplet to be spoken in chorus.

P. 6. (3)

"Say to the king thy knowledge of the broil"

The folio has "Say to the King, the knowledge," &c.—Corrected by Walker, Crit. Exam, &c. vol. ii. p. 232.

So the second folio.-The first folio has "Gallowgrosses," &c.-" Read, with Pope, was supplied: the corruption was caused by 'Do' just above."

W. N. LETTSOM.

P. 6. (5)

66

The folio has "

And fortune, on his damnèd quarrel smiling,

Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:"

on his damned Quarry smiling," &c. ; but, long before Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector was heard of, most of the editors had agreed that “quarrel" is the genuine reading.-"The word quarrel," observes Steevens, occurs in Holinshed's relation of this very fact, and may be regarded as a sufficient proof of its having been the term here employed by Shakespeare : Out of the westerne Iles there came vnto him [Makdowald] a great multitude of people, offering themselues to assist him in that rebellious quarell.' Hist. of Scotland, p. 265, ed. 1808."—" Again in this play [p. 57]," says Ma

lone,

"and the chance of goodness

Be like our warranted quarrel !

Here we have warranted quarrel, the exact opposite of damned quarrel." On this passage Boswell has a note, which would almost seem to have been written in ridicule of the commentators: he suggests that here “quarry" may mean "arrow," and that there may be no more objection to the expression, “Fortune smiling on a warrior's quarry [i.e. arrow]," than to "Fortune

smiling on a warrior's sword.”—Mr. Knight, who retains "quarry" in the sense of prey, says; "the 'damned quarry' is the doomed army of kernes and gallowglasses, who, although fortune deceitfully smiled on them, fled before the sword of Macbeth, and became his quarry-his prey." How, on earth, could "his" mean Macbeth's? surely it must have escaped Mr. Knight that the name of Macbeth has not yet been mentioned in this scene!-Mr. Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c. p. 250) is also a defender of the old lection; "The epithet 'damned' is inapplicable to quarrel in the sense which it here bears of condemned [which sense I am convinced it does not bear here]. Mr. Collier himself says that quarry 'gives an obvious and striking meaning much more forcible than quarrel." The note by Mr. Collier ad l. to which Mr. Singer approvingly refers is; "His damned quarry, i.e. His army doomed, or damned, to become the 'quarry' or prey of his enemies,” -as forced an explanation as well can be; for “his quarry” could only signify- - HIS OWN quarry or prey. (Indeed, a defence of "quarry" is nothing new according to Heath, in his Revisal, 1765, here "it means the slaughter and depredations made by the rebel. THUS in the same play [p. 59],

'to relate the manner,

Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.""

Now, if the two passages are to be considered a parallel, and “his quarry” means "the slaughter and depredations made by the rebel," must we not understand "the quarry of these murder'd deer" to mean "the quarry made by these murder'd deer"?)-1865. "Read, with Pope, but all too weak.'" W. N. LETTSOM.

The folio has "Which neu'r shooke hands;" the "Which" being evidently repeated, by a mistake of the scribe or compositor, from the commencement of the third line above.

So Pope. In the folio both the sense and metre are imperfect,-the line ending with the word "thunders."-The editor of the second folio printed "Thunders breaking."-" Perhaps, 'burst' would be better [than 'break']. (Or was the word 'threat' ?)" Walker's Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 250.

P. 6. (8)

"So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,
Discomfort swells."

"I have not disturbed the text here, as the sense does not absolutely require it; though Dr. Thirlby prescribes a very ingenious and easy correction ;

'So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd come,

Discomfort well'd.'

THEOBALD.—

Hence Capell printed "Discomfort wells."-See note 75 on The First Part of King Henry IV. vol. iv. p. 298.