Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first :-
A third is like the former :-Filthy hags!

Why do you fhew me this?-A fourth ?-Start, eyes! What! will the line ftretch out to the crack of

doom 7 ?

Another yet?-A feventh ?-I'll fee no more :---
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,

Which

eye, which dried up its humidity. Whence the Italian, abacinare, to blind. JOHNSON.

• In former editions :

and thy hair,

Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the firft:
A third is like the former :-

-]

As Macbeth expected to fee a train of kings, and was only enquir ing from what race they would proceed, he could not be furprised that the hair of the fecond was bound with gold like that of the first ; he was offended only that the second refembled the first, as the 'first refembled Banquo, and therefore said:

and thy air,

Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the firft. This Dr. Warburton has followed. JOHNSON.

7

to the crack of doom? -]

i. e. the diffolution of nature. Crack has now a mean fignification. It was anciently employ'd in a more exalted fenfe. So, in the Valiant Welchman, 1615:

"And will as fearless entertain this fight
"As a good confcience doth the cracks of Jove."

STEEVENS.

And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,] This method of juggling prophecy is again referred to in Measure for Measure, act II. fc. vii:

66

-and like a prophet,

"Looks in a glafs and fhews me future evils."

So, in an Extract from the Penal Laws against Witches, it is faid, that "they do answer either by voice, or elfe do fet before their eyes in glaffes, chryftal ftones, &c. the pictures or images of the perfons or things fought for." Among the other knaveries with which Face taxes Subtle in the Alchemift, this feems to be one: "And taking in of fhadows with a glass." Again, in Humor's Ordinarie, an ancient collection of fatires, no date:

"Shew you the devil in a chryftal glafs."

Spenfer has given a very circumftantial account of the glass which Merlin made for king Ryence, in the fecond canto of the

002

third

Which fhews me many more; and fome I fee, 9 That twofold balls and treble scepters carry : Horrible fight!-Now, I fee, 'tis true;

For the blood-bolter'd Banquo fmiles upon me,
And points at them for his. What? is this fo?
1 Witch. Ay, fir, all this is fo :-But why
Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?—
Come, fifters, chear we up his fprights,
And fhew the best of our delights;
I'll charm the air to give a found,
While you perform your antique round:
That this great king may kindly fay,
Our duties did his welcome pay.

[Mufick.

[The witches dance and vanish. Mach. Where are they? Gone?-Let this perní

cious hour

third book of the Faery Queen. A mirror of the fame kind was prefented to Cambufcan in the Squier's Tale of Chaucer.

STEEVENS.

9 That twofold balls and treble Scepters carry :] This was intended as a compliment to king James the first, who first united the two iflands and the three kingdoms under one head; whofe house too was said to be descended from Banquo. WARBURTON.

Of this last particular, our poet feems to have been thoroughly aware, having reprefented Banquo not only as an innocent, but as a noble character, whereas, according to history, he was confederate with Macbeth in the murder of Duncan. The flattery of Shakespeare, however, is not more grofs than that of Ben Jonfon, who has condescended to quote his majesty's book on Dæmonology, in the notes to the Mafque of Queens, 1609. STEEVENS.

I

the blood-bolter'd Banquo- -]

Gildon has ridiculously interpreted blood-bolter'd, in a thing he calls a Gloffary, to fignify fmear'd with dry blood; he might as well have faid with extreme unction. Blood-bolter'd means one whofe blood hath iffued out at many wounds, as flour of corn paffes through the holes of a fieve. Shakespeare ufed it to infinuate the barbarity of Banquo's murderers, who covered him with wounds. WARBURTON.

The fame idea occurs in Arden of Feversham, 1592: "Then ftab him, till his flesh be as a fieve. Again, in the Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell, 1613: "I'll have my body first bored like a fieve." STEEVENS.

Stand

Stand aye accurfed in the calendar 2!

Come in, without there!

Enter Lenox.

Len. What's your grace's will?

Macb. Saw you the weird fifters ?
Len. No, my lord.

Macb. Came they not by you?

Len. No, indeed, my lord.

Mach. Infected be the air whereon they ride; And damn'd, all those that truft them!-I did hear The galloping of horse: Who was❜t came by? Len. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,

Macduff is fled to England.

Macb. Fled to England?
Len. Ay, my good lord.

Mach. 3 Time, thou anticipat'ft my dread exploits : The flighty purpofe never is o'er-took,

Unless the deed go with it: From this moment,
The very firftlings of my heart fhall be

4

The firftlings of my hand. And even now

2 Stand aye accurfed in the calendar!]

In the ancient almanacs the unlucky days were distinguished by a mark of reprobation. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635:

66

henceforth let it stand

"Within the wizard's book, the kalender,
"Mark'd with a marginal finger to be chosen
By thieves, by villains, and black murderers."

66

STEEVENS.

3 Time, thou anticipat'ft my dread exploits :] To anticipate is here to prevent, by taking away the opportunity. JOHNSON,

4 The very firftlingsFirflings in its primitive fenfe is the first produce or offspring. So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613: "The firfilings of their vowed facrifice." Here it means the thing first thought or done. Shakefpeare uses the word again in the prologue to Troilus and Creffida: "Leaps o'er the vant and firflings of thefe broils."

STEEVENS.

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

The castle of Macduff I will furprife;

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o'the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate fouls
That trace him in his line 5. No boafting like a fool;
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool:

But no more fights!-Where are thefe gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.

SCENE II.

Enter Macduff's wife, her fon, and Roffe.

[Exeunt.

L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly the land?

Roffe. You must have patience, madam,

L. Macd. He had none:

His flight was madness; When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.

Roffe. You know not,

Whether it was his wifdom, or his fear.

L. Macd. Wifdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His manfion, and his titles, in a place

From whence himself does fly? He loves us not; He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren 7,

5 That trace him &c.]

The

i. e. follow, fucceed him. So, in fir A. Gorges' tranflation of the third book of Lucan:

"The tribune's curfes in like cafe,
"Said he, did greedy Craffus trace."

6 --natural touch:-] Natural fenfibility. with natural affection. JOHNSON.

7

STEEVENS.

He is not touched

the poor wren, &c.] The fame thought occurs in the third part of K. Henry VI:

doves will peck, in fafety of their brood.
"Who hath not feen them (even with thofe wings
"Which fometimes they have us'd in fearful flight)

"Make

The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her neft, against the owl.
All is the fear, and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.

Roffe. My dearest coz',

I pray you, fchool yourself: But, for your husband, He is noble, wife, judicious, and best knows

The fits o'the season . I dare not speak much further:

But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour

From

"Make war with him that climb❜d unto their nest, Offering their own lives in their young's defence?" STEEVENS.

66

The fits o'the feafon.

-]

The fits of the feafon fhould appear to be, from the following paffage in Coriolanus, the violent diforders of the feafon, its convulfions:

9

"The violent fit o'th' times craves it as phyfic."

when we are traitors,

And do not know ourselves;]

STEEVENS.

i. e. we think ourselves innocent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourfelves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters it to :

And do not know't ourselves:

But fure they did know what they said, the state esteemed them traitors. WARBURTON.

when we hold rumour

From what we fear,-]

To hold rumour fignifies to be governed by the authority of rumour. WARBURTON.

I rather think to hold means in this place, to believe, as we fay, I hold fuch a thing to be true, i. e. I take it, I believe it to be fo. Thus, in K. Hen. VIII:

66

Did you not of late days hear, &c.

66 1 Gen. Yes, but held it not.'

The sense of the whole paffage will then be: The times are cruel when our fears induce us to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumour'd or reported abroad; and yet at the fame time, as we live under a tyrannical government where will is fubftituted for law, we

04

know