SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. DUN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not * Those in commission yet return'd? MAL. The emen ARE not] The old copy reads-Or not. dation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 5 With one that saw him die :] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds, in almost every circumstance, with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian. Such an allusion could not fail of having the desired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS. 6-studied in his death,] Instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. JOHNSON. His own profession furnished our author with this phrase. To be studied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALONE. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study." The same phrase occurs in Hamlet. STEEVENS. DUN. There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face": Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before, That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less de serv'd; That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine! only I have left to say, More is thy due than more than all can pay3. 8 7 To find the mind's construction in the face :] The ' construction of the mind' is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to Shakspeare: it implies the frame or disposition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson seems to have understood the word construction in this place, in the sense of frame or structure; but the schoolterm was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning is"We cannot construe or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face." So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : "Construe the times to their necessities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase: 66 These profound heaves "You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Cressida : "I'll decline the whole question." In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment asserted: "In many's looks the false heart's history "Is writ." MALONE. More is thy due than MORE THAN ALL can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not say all, but more than all, i. e. the greatest recompense, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus. There is an obscurity in this passage, arising from the word all, which is not used here personally, (more than all persons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the speaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII. : 65 More than my all is nothing." MACB. The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part Is to receive our duties: and our duties Are to your throne and state, children, and ser vants; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing9 Safe toward your love and honour 1. This line appeared obscure to Sir William D'Avenant, for he alrered it thus: 9 I have only left to say, "That thou deservest more than I have to pay." MALONE. - servants; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing -] From Scripture: So when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have done that which was our duty to do." HENLEY. Which do but what they should, by doing every thing SAFE TOWARD YOUR LOVE AND HONOUR.] Mr. Upton gives the word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially. STEEVENS. Read 66 Safe (i. e. saved) toward you love and honour;' and then the sense will be-" Our duties are your children, and servants or vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allusion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king, was absolute, and without any exception; but simple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a saving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the sovereign. Sauf la foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy," as it is in Littleton. And though the expression be somewhat stiff and forced, it is not more so than many others in this play, and suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere says, [in Julius Cæsar:] 66 "When love begins to sicken and decay, "It useth an enforced ceremony." BLACKSTONE. 66 A similar expression occurs also in the Letters of the Paston Family, vol. ii. p. 254: “—ye shalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my conscience and worshyp savy'd." STEEVENS. A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and DUN. Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour BAN The harvest is your own. DUN. There if I grow, My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow 3.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes, Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation : "I'll speak it freely, always my obedience "And love preserved unto the prince." So also the following words, spoken by Henry Duke of Lancaster to King Richard II. at their interview in the Castle of Flint, (a passage that Shakspeare had certainly read, and perhaps remembered): "My sovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your honour saved,] to have againe restitution of my person, my landes, and heritage, through your favourable licence." Holinshed's Chron. vol. ii. Our author himself also furnishes us with a passage that likewise may serve to confirm this emendation. See The Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. III. : "Save him from danger; do him love and honour." Again, in Twelfth-Night: "What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, Again, in Cymbeline: 2 "I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing Our poet has used the verb to safe in Antony and Cleopatra : best you saf'd the bringer 66 "Out of the host." MALONE. FULL of growing.] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth. So, in Othello : "What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" MALONE. 3 My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow.] lachrymas non sponte cadentes Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto; And you whose places are the nearest, know, Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter, But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine MACB. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you: I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful DUN. 5 My worthy Cawdor! MACB. The prince of Cumberland 3 !—That is a step, Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis There was no English translation of Lucan before 1614.-We meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale: "It seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears." It is likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado About Nothing. MALONE. It is thus also that Statius describes the appearance of Argia and Antigone, Theb. iii. 426: Flebile gavisæ--. STEEVENS. 4- hence to INVERNESS,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the walls of the castle of Macbeth, at Inverness, are yet standing. STEEVENS. The circumstance of Duncan's visiting Macbeth is supported by history; for, from the Scottish Chronicles, it appears that it was customary for the king to make a progress through his dominions every year. "Inerat ei [Duncano] laudabilis consuetudo regni pertransire regiones semel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. lib. iv. c. xliv. "Singulis annis ad inopum querelas audiendas perlustrabat provincias." Buchan. lib. vii. MALONE. 66 5 The prince of CUMBERLAND!] So, Holinshed, History of Scotland, p. 171: Duncan having two sonnes, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolme, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdome immediatlie after his decease. Mackbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he |