SC. I. 1 WITCH. Ay, sir, all this is so:-But why [Musick. The Witches dance, and vanish. MACB. Where are they? Gone?-Let this pernicious hour Stand aye accursed in the calendar! 1-- Come in, without there! wickshire. I seize this opportunity to offer my best acknowledgment for his remarks, which were obligingly conveyed to me by his son, the late Reverend and amiable Henry Homer, who favoured the world with editions of Sallust and Tacitus, the elegance of which can only be exceeded by their accuracy. STEEVENS. 7-cheer we up his sprights,] i. e. spirits. So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Lib. II: "Hold thou my heart, establish thou my sprights." STEEVENS. I'll charm the air to give a sound,] The Hecate of Middleton says, on a similar occasion: 9 "Come, my sweete sisters, let the air strike our tune, -your antique round: and The Witches dance, and vanish.] These ideas, as well as a foregoing one "The weird sisters, hand in hand," might have been adopted from a poem, intitled Churchyard's Dreame, 1593: "All hand in hand they traced on "A tricksie ancient round; "And soone as shadowes were they gone, "And might no more be found." STEEVENS. 1 Stand aye accursed in the calendar!] In the ancient almanacks the unlucky days were distinguished by a mark of reprobation. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: без LEN What's your grace's will? MACB. Saw you the weird sisters? LEN. MACB. Came they not by you? LEN No, my lord. No, indeed, my lord. word, Macduff is fled to England. MACB. LEN. Ay, my good lord. Fled to England? MACB. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread ex- The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, Unless the deed go with it: From this moment, "Within the wizard's book, the kalender, STEEVENS. Infected be the air whereon they ride;] So, in the first part of Selimus, 1594: "Now Baiazet will ban another while, "And vtter curses to the concaue skie, "Which may infect the regions of the ayre." TODD. Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits :] To anticipate is here to prevent, by taking away the opportunity. JOHNSON. The very firstlings-] Firstlings, in its primitive sense, is the first produce or offspring. So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613: The firstlings of my hand. And even now To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise; Seize upon upon Fife; give to the edge o'the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool: But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen? Come, bring me where they are. "The firstlings of their vowed sacrifice." [Exeunt. Here it means the thing first thought or done. The word is used again in the prologue to Troilus and Cressida : "Leaps o'er the vant and firstlings of these broils." STEEVENS. • That trace his line.] i. e. follow, succeed in it. Thus, in a poem interwoven with A Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Cautels: &c. translated out of French &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] 4°. 1578: They trace the pleasant groves, "And gather floures sweete-." Again, in Sir Arthur Gorges' translation of the third Book of Lucan, 1614: "The tribune's curses in like case The old copy reads That trace him in his line. The metre, however, demands the omission of such unnecessary expletives. STEEVENS. • But no more sights!] This hasty reflection is to be considered as a moral to the foregoing scene: "Tu ne quæsieris scire (nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi STEEVENS. SCENE II. Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle. Enter Lady MACDUFF, her Son, and Rosse. L. MACD. What had he done, to make him fly the land? ROSSE. You must have patience, madam. He had none: L. MACD. His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors." ROSSE. You know not, Whether it was his wisdom, or his fear. L. MACD. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles, in a place 7 Our fears do make us traitors.] i. e. our flight is considered as an evidence of our treason. STEEVENS. -natural touch.] Natural sensibility. He is not touched with natural affection. JOHNSON. So, in an ancient MS. play, intitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy: 9 66 How she's beguil'd in him! "There's no such natural touch, search all his bosom." STEEVENS. the poor wren, &c.] The same thought occurs in The Third Part of King Henry VI: doves will peck, in safety of their brood. Offering their own lives in their young's defence?" STEEVENS. The most diminutive of birds, will fight, ROSSE My dearest coz', I pray you, school yourself: But, for your hus band, He is noble, wise, 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;2 when we hold rumour From what we fear,3 yet know not what we fear; 'The fits o'the season.] The fits of the season should appear to be, from the following passage in Coriolanus, the violent disorders of the season, its convulsions: "The violent fit o'th' times craves it as physick." STEEVENS. Perhaps the meaning is,-what is most fitting to be done in every conjuncture. ANONYMOUS. when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves;] i. e. we think ourselves innocent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourselves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters it to→→→ And do not know't ourselves: But sure they did know what they said, that the state esteemed them traitors. WARBURTON. Rather, when we are considered by the state as traitors, while at the same time we are unconscious of guilt; when we appear to others so different from what we really are, that we seem not to know ourselves. MALONE. when we hold rumour From what we fear,] To hold rumour signifies to be governed by the authority of rumour. WARBURTON. I rather think to hold means, in this place, to believe, as we say, I hold such a thing to be true, i. e. I take it, I believe it to be so. Thus, in King Henry VIII: |