But float upon a wild and violent sea, Each way, and move.-I take my leave of you: Shall not be long but I'll be here again: Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.- My pretty cousin, L. MACD. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless. L. MACD. [Exit Rosse. Sirrah, your father's dead': And what will you do now? How will you live? SON. As birds do, mother. L. MACD What, with worms and flies ? SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they. L. MACD. Poor bird! thou'dst never fear the net, nor lime, The pit-fall, nor the gin. fears to believe every rumour of danger we hear, yet are not conscious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed with those fears." A passage like this occurs in King John: "Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams, "Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear." This is the best I can make of the passage. STEEVENS. 4 Each way, and move.-] Perhaps the poet wrote—“ And each way move." If they floated each way, it was needless to inform us that they moved. The words may have been casually transposed, and erroneously pointed. STEEVENS. Perhaps Shakspeare used it as a substantive: as a man in quitting a room is familiarly said to " make a move," or as we say he "makes a move," at chess or backgammon. ANONYMOUS. S SIRRAH, your father's dead ;] Sirrah, in our author's time, was not always a term of reproach, but sometimes used by masters to servants, parents to children, &c. So before, in this play, Macbeth says to his servant, Sirrah, a word with you: attend those men "Our pleasure?" So Gabriel Harvey writes to Spenser: "But hoe I pray you, gentle sirra, a word with you more." MALONE. SON. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying. L. MACD. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father? SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband? L. MACD. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again. L. MACD. Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and yet i' faith, With wit enough for thee. SON. Was my father a traitor, mother? SON. What is a traitor? L. MACD. Why, one that swears and lies. L. MACD. Every one that does so, is a traitor, and must be hanged. SON. And must they all be hanged, that swear and lie? L. MACD. Every one. SON. Who must hang them? L. MACD. Why, the honest men. SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men, and hang up them. L. MACD. Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father? SON. If he were dead, you'd weep for him: if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father. L. MACD. Poor prattler! how thou talk'st. Enter a Messenger. MESS. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known, Though in your state of honour I am perfect". I doubt, some danger does approach you nearly: will take a homely man's advice, If you Be not found here; hence, with your little ones. you! I dare abide no longer. L. MACD. I have done no harm. Heaven preserve [Exit Messenger. Whither should I fly? But I remember now I am in this earthly world; where, to do harm, To say, I have done no harm ?--What are these faces ? Enter Murderers. MUR. Where is your husband? 66 6 - in your state of honour I am PERFECT.] i. e. I am perfectly acquainted with your rank of honour. So, in the old book that treateth of the Lyfe of Virgil, &c. bl. 1. no date: - which when Virgil saw, he looked in his boke of negromancy, wherein he was perfit." Again, in The Play of the four P's, 1569: "Pot. Then tell me this: Are you perfit in drinking? 7 To do WORSE to you, were fell cruelty.] To do worse is to let her and her children be destroyed without warning. JOHNSON. "To do worse Mr. Edwards explains these words differently. to you (says he) signifies,-to fright you more, by relating all the circumstances of your danger; which would detain you so long that you could not avoid it." The meaning, however, may be, "To do worse to you," not to disclose to you the perilous situation you are in, from a foolish apprehension of alarming you, would be fell cruelty. Or the Messenger may only mean, to do more than alarm you by this disagreeable intelligence,-to do you any actual and bodily harm, were fell cruelty. MALONE. If to fright you thus seem savage, how fell must be the cruelty of those who seek your destruction. BOSWELL. L. MACD. I hope, in no place so unsanctified, Where such as thou may'st find him. MUR. He's a traitor. SON. Thou ly'st, thou shag-ear'd villain". MUR. What, you egg? [Stabbing him. Young fry of treachery? SON. Run away, I pray you. 8 - He has killed me, mother: [Dies. [Exit Lady MACDUFF, crying murder, and pursued by the Murderers. SHAG-EAR'D villain.] Perhaps we should read shaghair'd, for it is an abusive epithet very often used in our ancient plays, &c. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, Part II. 1630:"a shag-haired cur." Again, in our author's King Henry VI. Part II. like a shag-haired crafty Kern." Again, in Sir Arthur Gorge's translation of Lucan, 1614: : "That shag-haired Caicos tam'd with forts." And Chapman, in his translation of the seventh book of Homer, 1598, applies the same epithet to the Greeks. Again, in the spurious play of King Leir, 1605 : "There she had set a shaghayr'd murdering wretch." Again, in Barnaby Googe's version of Palingenius, 1561: "But sore afraid was I to meete "The shagheard horson's horne." It may be observed, that, in the seventh Iliad of Homer, the κάρη κόμοωντες Αχαιοί are rendered by Arthur Hall, 1581, "-peruke Greekes." And by Chapman, 1611, "-shag-haird Greekes." STEEVENS. This emendation appears to me extremely probable. In King John, Act V. we find "unhear'd sauciness" for "unhair'd sauciness;" and we have had in this play hair instead of air. Hair was formerly written heare. Hence perhaps the mistake. So, in Ives's Select Papers, chiefly relating to English Antiquities, No. 3, p. 133: “ and in her heare a circlet of gold richely garnished." In Lodge's Incarnate Devils of the Age, 4to. 1596, we find in p. 37, “ shag-heard slave," which still more strongly supports Mr. Steevens's emendation. However, as flap-ear'd is used as an epithet of contempt in The Taming of the Shrew, and prick-ear'd in Henry V. the old copy may be right. MALONE. Mr. Steevens's emendation will be further confirmed by a reference to one of our Law Reporters. In 23 Car. I. Ch. Justice Rolle said it had been determined that these words, "Where is that long-locked, shag-haired murdering rogue?" were actionable. Aleyn's Reports, p. 61. REED. 5 SCENE III. England. A Room in the King's Palace. Enter MALCOLM and MACDUff. MAL. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty. 8 Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF.] The part of Holinshed's Chronicle which relates to this play, is no more than an abridgment of John Bellenden's translation of The Noble Clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, 1541. For the satisfaction of the reader, I have inserted the words of the first mentioned historian, from whom this scene is almost literally taken :-" Though Malcolme was verie sorrowfull for the oppression of his countriemen the Scots, in manner as Makduffe had declared, yet doubting whether he was come as one that ment unfeinedlie as he spake, or else as sent from Makbeth to betraie him, he thought to have some further triall, and thereupon dissembling his mind at the first, he answered as followeth : "I am trulie verie sorie for the miserie chanced to my countrie of Scotland, but though I have never so great affection to relieve the same, yet by reason of certaine incurable vices, which reign in me, I am nothing meet thereto. First, such immoderate lust and voluptuous sensualitie (the abhominable fountain of all vices) followeth me, that if I were made King of Scots, I should seek to defloure your maids and matrones, in such wise that my intemperancie should be more importable unto you than the bloudie tyrannie of Makbeth now is. Hereunto Makduffe answered: This surelie is a very euil fault, for manie noble princes and kings have lost both lives and kingdomes for the same; neverthelesse there are women enow in Scotland, and therefore follow my counsell. Make thy selfe kinge, and I shall conveie the matter so wiselie, that thou shalt be satisfied at thy pleasure in such secret wise, that no man shall be aware thereof. "Then said Malcolme, I am also the most avaritious creature in the earth, so that if I were king, I should seeke so manie waies to get lands and goods, that I would slea the most part of all the nobles of Scotland by surmized accusations, to the end I might injoy their lands, goods and possessions; and therefore to shew you what mischiefe may insue on you through mine unsatiable covetousnes, I will rehearse unto you a fable. There |