The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be, [Exit. DUN. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so va liant"; And in his commendations I am fed ; ; It is a banquet to me. Let us after him, of Kenneth, to be Lord of Cumbir, "yt he mycht be y' way the better cum to ye crown after his faderis deid." Two of the nobles said, it was in the power of Kenneth to make whom he pleased Lord of Cumberland; and Malcolm was accordingly appointed. "Sic thingis done, King Kenneth, be advise of his nobles, abrogat y auld lawis concerning the creation of yair king, and made new lawis in manner as followes: 1. The king beand decessit, his eldest son or his eldest nepot, (notwithstanding quat sumevir age he be of, and youcht he was born efter his faderis death, sal succede ye croun," &c. Notwithstanding this precaution, Malcolm, the eldest son of Kenneth, did not succeed to the throne after the death of his father; for after Kenneth, reigned Constantine, the son of King Culyne. To him succeeded Gryme, who was not the son of Constantine, but the grandson of King Duffe. Gryme, says Boethius, came to Scone, "quhare he was crownit by the tenour of the auld lawis." After the death of Gryme, Malcolm, the son of King Kenneth, whom Boethius frequently calls Prince of Cumberland, became King of Scotland; and to him succeeded Duncan, the son of his eldest daughter. These breaches, however, in the succession, appear to have been occasioned by violence in turbulent times; and though the eldest son could not succeed to the throne, if he happened to be a minor at the death of his father, yet, as by the ancient laws the next of blood was to reign, the Scottish monarchy may be said to have been hereditary, subject however to peculiar regulations. MALONE. 6 True, worthy Banquo; HE IS FULL SO VALIANT;] i. e. he is to the full as valiant as you have described him. We must imagine, that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding lines, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium supposed to have been bestowed on him by Banquo, the reply of Duncan refers. STEEVENS. SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in MACBETH'S Castle. Enter Lady MACBETH, reading a letter. LADY M. They met me in the day of success; and I have learned by the perfectest report", they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves-air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor; by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time, with, Hail, king that shalt be! This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness; that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell. Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis'd:-Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness, The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly, That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false, And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'd'st have, great Glamis9, 7 by the perfectest report,] By the best intelligence. 8 JOHNSON. MISSIVES from the king,] i. e. messengers. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: Did gibe my missive out of audience." STEEVENS. That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it ; And that which rather thou dost fear to do', Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither, 9 thou'd'st have, great Glamis, That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have IT; And that, &c.] As the object of Macbeth's desire is here introduced speaking of itself, it is necessary to read: 66 thou'd'st have, great Glamis, “That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have me.” JOHNSON. And that which rather thou dost fear to do,] The construction, perhaps, is, thou would'st have that, [i. e. the crown,] which cries unto thee, "thou must do thus, if thou would'st have it, and thou must do that which rather," &c. Sir T. Hanmer, without necessity, reads-" And that's what rather-." The difficulty of this line and the succeeding hemistich seems to have arisen from their not being considered as part of the speech uttered by the object of Macbeth's ambition. As such they appear to me, and I have therefore distinguished them by Italicks. MALONE. This regulation is certainly proper, and I have followed it. STEEVENS. 2 That I may POUR MY SPIRITS in thine ear ;] I meet with the same expression in Lord Sterline's Julius Cæsar, 1607: 3 "Thou in my bosom us'd to pour thy spright." MALONE. the GOLDEN ROUND, Which fate and metaphysical aid doth SEEM To have thee crown'd withal.] For seem, the sense evidently directs us to read seek. The crown to which fate destines thee, and which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem. JOHNSON. So, in Act IV.: "And wears upon his baby brow the round Metaphysical, for supernatural. But "doth seem to have thee crown'd withal," is not sense. To make it so, it should be supplied thus: "doth seem desirous to have." But no poetic licence Enter an Attendant. ATTEN. The king comes here to-night. LADY M. Thou'rt mad to say it: ATTEN. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming: One of my fellows had the speed of him; would excuse this. An easy alteration will restore the poet's true reading : doth seem "To have crown'd thee withal." i. e. they seem already to have crowned thee, and yet thy disposition at present hinders it from taking effect. WARBURTON. The words, as they now stand, have exactly the same meaning. Such arrangement is sufficiently common among our ancient writers. STEEVENS. I do not concur with Dr. Warburton, in thinking that Shakspeare meant to say, that fate and metaphysical aid seem to have crowned Macbeth. Lady Macbeth means to animate her husband to the attainment of " the golden round," with which fate and supernatural agency seem to intend to have him crowned on a future day. So, in All's Well That Ends Well, vol. x. p. 328 : 66 66 Our dearest friend Prejudicates the business, and would seem "To have us make denial." 66 There is, in my opinion, a material difference between-" To have thee crown'd,” and To have crown'd thee;" of which the learned commentator does not appear to have been aware. Metaphysical, which Dr. Warburton has justly observed, means supernatural, seems, in our author's time, to have had no other meaning. In the English Dictionary, by H. C. 1655, Metaphysicks are thus explained: Supernatural arts." MALONE. 66 To have thee crowned, is to desire that you should be crowned. So, by an idiom of our language which is in common use, but which it is not, perhaps, easy to account for, I had rather, means I would rather: "I had rather be a dog and bay the moon "Than such a Roman." And such, I think, is evidently the meaning of the passage quoted from All's Well That Ends Well. BOSWELL. Give him tending, LADY M. He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse, [Exit Attendant. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 3 The raven himself is hoarse,] Dr. Warburton reads: The raven himself's not hoarse." 66 to Yet I think the present words may stand. The messenger, says the servant, had hardly breath "to make up his message; which the lady answers mentally, that he may well want breath, such a message would add hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird, whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness. JOHNSON. The following is, in my opinion, the sense of this passage: 'Give him tending; the news he brings are worth the speed that made him lose his breath. [Exit Attendant.] "Tis certain now-the raven himself is spent, is hoarse by croaking this very message, the fatal entrance of Duncan under battlements.' my Lady Macbeth (for she was not yet unsexed) was likelier to be deterred from her design than encouraged in it by the supposed thought that the message and the prophecy (though equally secrets to the messenger and the raven) had deprived the one of speech, and added harshness to the other's note. Unless we absurdly suppose the messenger acquainted with the hidden import of his message, speed alone had intercepted his breath, as repetition the raven's voice; though the lady considered both as organs of that destiny which hurried Duncan into her meshes. FUSELI. Mr. Fuseli's idea, that the raven has croaked till he is hoarse with croaking, may receive support from the following passage in Romeo and Juliet: 66 make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine "With repetition of my Romeo's name." Again, from one of the Parts of King Henry VI. : "Warwick is hoarse with daring thee to arms." 4 Come, COME, you spirits STEEVENS. -] For the sake of the metre I have ventured to repeat the word-come, which occurs only once in the old copy. All had been added by Sir William D'Avenant, to supply the same deficiency. STEEVENS. 5-mortal thoughts,] This expression signifies not the |