I have almost flipt the hour. Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you; Macb. The labour we delight in, phyficks pain. This is the door. Macd. I'll make fo bold to call, For 'tis my limited service". Lea. Goes the king hence to-day? Macb. He does: he did appoint fo. [Exit MACDUFF. Len. The night has been unruly: Where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down and, as they fay, Lamentings heard i'the air; ftrange fcreams of death; And prophefying, with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time: The obfcure bird Clamour'd 4 The labour we delight in, phyficks pain.] So, in the Tempeft: 5 For 'tis my limited fervice.] Limited, for appointed. WARE. See Vol. V. p. 112, n. 8. MALONE. • And propbefying, with accents terrible, Of dire combuftion, and confus'd events, New batch'd to the woeful time:] New batch'd relates, not to the laft antecedent, confus'd events, but to prophecying, which in the metaphor holds the place of the egg. The events are the fruit of such hatching. STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson obferves, that " a prophecy of an event_new-batcb'd feems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new-batch'd is a wry expreffion." The conftruction fuggefted by Mr. Steevens meets with the firft objection. Yet the following paffage in which the fame imagery is found, inclines me to believe that our author meant, that new batch'd thould be referred to events, though the events were yet to come. Allowing for his ufual inaccuracy with refpect to the active and paffive participle, the events may be faid to be the batch and brood of time." See King Henry IV. P. II: "The which obferv'd, a man may prophesy, "With a near aim, of the main chance of things "Such things become the batch and brood of time.” Hene Elamour'd the live-long night: fome fay, the earth Mach. 'Twas a rough night. Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it. Re-enter MACDUFF. Macd. O horrour! horrour! horrour! Tongue, nor heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee! Macb. Len. What's the matter? Macd. Confufion now hath made his mafter-piece! The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o'the building. Macb. What is't you fay? the life? Len. Mean you his majefty? Macd. Approach the chamber, and deftroy your fight See, and then speak yourselves.-Awake! awake!- Here certainly it is the thing or event, and not the prophecy, which is the 7 • fome fay, the earth Was feverous, and did fake.] So, in Coriolanus: ❝ as if the world "Was feverous, and did tremble." STEEVENS. 8 Tongue, nor beart, Cannot conceive, &c.] The ufe of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more strongly, is very common in our author. So, in Julius Cæfar, A&t III. fc. i; there is no harm "Intended to your person, nor to no Roman elfe." STEEVENS. 23 A.s As from your graves rife up, and walk like fprights, Enter Lady MACBETH. Lady M. What's the bufinefs, That fuch a hideous trumpet calls to parley The fleepers of the house Macd. O, gentle lady, speak, speak.— 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition in a woman's ear, [Bell rings. Would murder as it fell '.-O Banquo! Banquo! Enter 9-this borrour!] Here the old edition adds, ring the bell, which Theobald rejected, as a direction to the players. He has been followed by Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnfon. Shakspeare might think a repetition of the command to ring the bell neceffary, and I know not how an editor is authorized to reject that which apparently makes a part of his author's text. STEEVENS. The fubfequent hemiftich-" What's the business?"-which completes the metre of the preceding line, without the words "Ring the bell," affords, in my opinion, a ftrong prefumptive proof that these words were only a marginal direction. It should be remembered that the ftage directions were formerly often couched in imperative terms: "Draw a knife;" "Play mufick;" "Ring the bell;" &c. In the original copy we have here indeed alfo-Bell rings, as a marginal direction; but this was inferted, I imagine, from the players mifconceiv. ing what Shakspeare had in truth fet down in his copy as a dramatick direction to the property-man, ("Ring the bell.") for a part of Macduff's fpeech; and, to diftinguish the direction which they inferted, from the fuppofed words of the fpeaker, they departed from the usual imperative form. Throughout the whole of the preceding scene we have conftantly an imperative direction to the prompter: "Knock within,” I fuppofe, it was in confequence of an imperfect recollection of this hemiftich, that Mr. Pope, having in his preface charged the editors of the first folio with introducing ftage-directions into their author's text, in fupport of his affertion quotes the following line: "My queen is murder'd :-ring the little bell." a line that is not found in any edition of thefe plays that I have met with, nor, I believe, in any other book. MALONE. The repetition in a woman's ear, Would murder as it fell.] So, in Hamlet: 66 He would drown the stage with tears, "And cleave the general ear with horrid speech," Enter BANQUO. Our royal mafter's murder'd! Lady M. Woe, alas! What, in our house?? Ban. Too cruel, any where. Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX. Macb. Had I but dy'd an hour before this chance, All is but toys renown, and grace, is dead; Enter MALCOLM and DON ALBAIN. Don. What is amifs? Macb. You are, and do not know it: The fpring, the head, the fountain of your blood Macd. Your royal father's murder'd. Again, in the Puritan, 1607: “ The punishments that shall follow you in this world, would with borrour kill the ear should hear them related." MALONE. 2 What, in our boufe ?] This is very fine. Had she been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its aggravating circumftances, would naturally have affected her. As it was, her business was to appear highly difordered at the news. Therefore, like one who has her thoughts about her, the feeks for an aggravating circumstance, that might be fuppofed most to affect her perfonally; not confidering, that by placing it there, the difcovered rather a concern for herself than for the king. On the contrary, her husband, who had repented the act, and was now labouring under the horrors of a recent murder, in his exclamation, gives all the marks of forrow for the fact itself. WARBURTON. 3 Had I but dy'd an hour before this chance, I bad liv'd a blessed time;] So, in the Winter's Tale i 66 "If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd Z 4 Mal. Mal. O, by whom? Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't: Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood*, So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found Upon their pillows; they ftar'd, and were distracted; No man's life was to be trufted with them. Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them. Macd. Wherefore did you fo? Macb. Who can be wife, amaz'd, temperate, and fu rious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man; Out-ran the paufer reafon.-Here lay Duncan, And 4 - badg'd with blood,] I once thought that our author wrotebatb'd; but badg'd is certainly right. So, in the fecond part of King Henry VI: 5 "With murder's crimson badge." MALONE. - their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found Upon their pillows;] This idea, perhaps, was taken from the Mas of Lawes Tale, 1. 5027. Tyrwhitt's edit. "And in the bed the blody knif he fond." STEEVENS. His filver fkin lac'd with his golden blood,] Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of thefe lines by fubftituting geary blood for golden blood; but it may cafily be admitted that he who could on fuch an occafion talk of lacing the filver fkin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot. It is not improbable, that Shakspeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and diffimu. lation, to fhew the difference between the ftudied language of hypocrify, and the natural outcries of fudden paffion. This whole fpeech fo confidered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it confifits entirely of antithefis and metaphor. JOHNSON. To gild any thing with blood is a very common phrafe in the old plays, So, Heywood, in the fecond part of his Iron Age, 1632: we have gilt our Greekish arms "With blood of our own nation." Shakspeare repeats the image in King John; |