He was sent before to provide food for the king and suite as the harbinger provided lodging. See Cowel, Law Interpreter, s.vv. 'Pourveyor' and 'Harbinger.' The accent is here on the first syllable.

23. bolp. We have this form, Richard II. v. 5. 62. 26. in compt, accountable, subject to account.

Your servants hold their

children and servants, themselves and their property, accountable. See Timon of Athens, ii. 1. 35:

Take the bonds along with you,

And have the dates in compt,'

i.e. keep an account of the dates,

28. return, render.

• our

as a dissyllable and

30. To scan this line we must pronounce 'towards' as a monosyllable. Instances of each are common. 31. By your leave, bostess. Here Duncan gives his hand to Lady Macbeth and leads her into the castle.

Scene VII.

Enter a Sewer. 'Sewer' is derived from the French essayeur, and meant originally one who tasted of each dish to prove that there was no poison in it. Afterwards it was applied to the chief servant who directed the placing of the dishes upon the table. In Palsgrave, Eclaircissement de la Langue Française, we have the verb thus: I sewe at meate. Je taste.' So again in Holinshed, vol. ii. p. 1129, col. 2, 'the Esquier that was accustomed, to sew and take the assay before Kyng Richarde.' Some have supposed sewer' to be derived from escuyer. What is included in the word service' may be illustrated by the following stage-direction from Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness: Enter Butler and Jenkin with a table-cloth, bread, trenchers and salt.'

3. trammel up, entangle as in a net. Cotgrave gives Trammell, or net for Partridges,' and again Traineller. Larkes.' The idea is followed up by the word 'catch.'

6

Tramail: m. A
To trammel for

4. surcease. The etymological connection of this word with 'cease' is apparent only, not real. Cease' is derived from cesser, but surcease' 'from sursis, and that from surseoir. Surcease' is a legal term meaning the arrest or stoppage of a suit, or superseding a jurisdiction. As a substantive it is found here only in Shakespeare. He twice uses the verb 'surcease,' both times in the sense of cease.' 6 The general sense of the passage has been much disputed, some taking 'his' in line 4 to refer to assassination,' others to Duncan. Johnson proposed to invert the words, and read' With his success, surcease.' Staunton interprets 'success' to mean merely sequel,' a sense which the word had (though comparatively rarely) in Shakespeare's time. We are inclined to agree with Elwin that 'his' refers to consequence,' and that Macbeth's meaning is: If the murder could prevent its consequence, and by the arrest of that consequence secure success.' In this case his' would be used, as it so often is, in reference to a neuter noun. Compare, e. g., Romeo and Juliet, iv. I. 97:

'For no pulse Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.'

H

6. But here, only here, in this life only.

Ib. shoal. This is Theobald's emendation for the folio reading 'schoole,' the same word differently spelt. Human life is compared to a narrow strip

of land in an ocean:

6 A narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,

The past, the future, two eternities.' (Moore.)

Tieck, retaining 'school,' takes 'bank' in the sense of bench and supposes the speaker to be comparing this life to school-time as a preparation for the life to come. He thinks that the same train of thought is indicated in 'teach' and taught,' lines 8 and 9.

7. jump, risk, hazard. See Cymbeline, v. 4. 188: 'Jump the after inquiry on your own peril.'

8. that, so that.

See i. 2. 58; iv. 3. 6.

10. this, omitted by Pope for the metre's sake. Mason would read 'thus': indeed it is popularly so quoted.

II. Commends, offers, presents. Pope audaciously altered it to 'Returns.' Compare All's Well that Ends Well, v. 1. 31:

Since you are like to see the king before me,

Commend the paper to his gracious hand.'

Ib. ingredients. So Pope and all editors since his time. The folios, both here and iv. I. 34, have ingredience,' and it is not unlikely that Shakespeare so wrote the word, using it in the sense of compound,' 'mixture.'

17. faculties, powers, prerogatives of office. The Greek equivalent is yépa. The word is still used in the old sense in Ecclesiastical Law. See Henry VIII. i. 2. 73, where Wolsey says: 'If I am

Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know

My faculties nor person.'

Ib. meek, meekly. Shakespeare frequently uses the adjective where we should use the adverb.

18. clear, guiltless. See Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 3. 123: 'If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it.'

20. taking off. So iii. 1. 104, and King Lear, v. 1. 65:

'Let her who would be rid of him devise

His speedy taking off.'

Similarly in v. 8. 36, to 'go off' is a euphemism for to ‘be killed.'

22. cherubim. This reading, first proposed by Jennens, is received by most modern editors. The folios have cherubin,' which Shakespeare uses in several other places, but always in the singular, as e. g. Othello, iv. 2.63: 'Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin.'

But in this passage the plural is unquestionably required by the sense. Το read cherubins,' which is the form always found in Coverdale's Bible, or ' cherubims,' that of the Authorized Version, would make the verse, already too full of sibilants, almost intolerable to the ear. The only objection to 'cherubim' is that Shakespeare was not likely to know that this was the proper Hebrew plural. The idea was probably suggested by Psalms xviii. 10, He rode upon the cherubins and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind.' (Prayer Book Version.) For the same idea, compare Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2. 28-31:

SC. 7.]

MACBETH.

'A winged messenger of heaven

When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.'

23. sightless, invisible. See i. 5. 47.

GENERAL LIBRARY

University of MICHIGAN

25. tears shall drown the wind. See Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4. 55: 'Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind.'

25-28. Macbeth says that he has nothing to goad him on to the deed,— nothing to stimulate his flagging purpose, like the private wrongs which he urges upon the murderers of Banquo,-but mere ambition, which is like one who, instead of leaping into the saddle, leaps too far and falls on the other side. The passage supplies a good example of confusion of metaphors. If the sentence be complete, the other' must be taken to mean the other side,' a not unnatural ellipsis, but one for which we can adduce no example. Hanmer reads on the other side,' which makes both sense and metre complete. Rowe prints 'on th' other ,' as if the sentence were interrupted by the entrance of Lady Macbeth. Mason conjectured on the rider,' and Bailey on the earth.' For itself' in the previous line Singleton_guessed 'its sell,' i. e. 'its saddle.' The word 'sell' occurs frequently in Fairfax's Tasso, as e. g. Bk. vi. st. 32:

That he nor shook nor stagger'd in his sell.'

32. bought, purchased, acquired. See Richard II. i. 3. 282: 'Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,'

and The Merchant of Venice, ii. 9. 43:

'O that estates, degrees, and offices

Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer !'

33. Golden opinions. See As You Like It, i. I. 6: 'Report speaks goldenly of his profit.'

34. would. We say 'should' in this sense, as in iv. 3. 23, 194, of this play, and in Bacon, Essay xxxiii. Of Plantations, ‘Making of bay salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience.' See our note on

Richard II. iv. I. 232, 233.

35, 36. Compare King John, iv. 2. 116, 117:

39. afeard.

'O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
Where hath it slept?'

See i. 3. 96.

45. the adage. Given thus in Heywood's Proverbs, 1562 (p. 28, ed. Spenser Soc.): The cat would eate fyshe, and would not wet her feete.' There is a form of the same proverb in Low Latin:

'Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.'

47. do more. So Rowe. The folio has no more.' Mr. Hunter would
retain 'no more' and make Lady Macbeth say' Who dares no more is none.'
But then,' which follows, seems more appropriate to the first clause of an
indignant remonstrance, if we adopt Rowe's emendation. Compare Measure
for Measure, ii. 4. 134, 135:
'Be that you are,

That is, a woman: if you be more, you're none.'
Ib. beast is of course used in opposition to man,' spoken of by Macbeth.
Mr. Collier's MS. Corrector's boast' is utterly inadmissible.

48. break, disclose, communicate. Compare Much Ado about Nothing,

i. I. 311;

And I will break with her and with her father.'

And again in line 328:

Then after to her father will I break.'

52. adhere, i. e. cohere,' which Pope inserted in the text. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 1. 62: But they do no more adhere and keep place together than the hundredth psalm to the tune of Green Sleeves.' See also Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 86.

58. the brains. We should now say its brains,' but the' is found not unfrequently for the possessive pronoun. Compare the version of Lev. xxv. 5 in the Bishops' Bible: That which groweth of the owne accord of thy harvest, thou shalt not reape.' And Bacon, Advancement of Learning, i. 4. § 1: 'For we see that it is the manner of men to scandalize and deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue.'

59. We fail! The folio prints We faile?' the note of interrogation being used as it frequently is for a note of exclamation: Lady Macbeth refuses to entertain the idea of failure. Capell puts a full stop at 'fail,' but this would give a sense not calculated to strengthen Macbeth's wavering purpose. 60. But, only.

Ib. screw your courage to the sticking-place, that is, to the point at which it will remain firm. The metaphor is from some engine or mechanical contrivance. A similar figure is found in Coriolanus, i. 8. II:

Wrench up thy power to the highest.'

And again, Twelfth Night, v. 1. 125, 126:

And that I partly know the instrument

That screws me from my true place in your favour.'

Compare also Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 22-25:

'But this Antenor,

I know, is such a wrest in their affairs

That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage.'

As a wrest' is an instrument for tuning a harp, this last-quoted passage lends some probability to Steevens's interpretation of the metaphor before us, that it is derived from the screwing up the chords of string instruments to their proper degree of tension.'

6

63. The two chamberlains are borrowed from the account given by Holinshed of the murder of King Duff by Donwald and his wife eighty years before Duncan's time (p. 208). See the Preface.

64. wassail, derived from the Anglo-Saxon waes bael, 'be of health.' This, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, was the salutation used by Rowena to Vortigern in presenting a cup of wine. (The story is also told in Verstegan, A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, &c. p. 127, ed. 1605.) The King was instructed to reply Drinc hael.' Hence' wassail' came to mean drinking of healths, revelry, and afterwards 'drink' itself. Here it means 'revelry.' Ib. convince, i. e. overpower,' from the Latin convincere. Compare iv. 3. 142:

6

'Their malady convinces

The great assay of art.'

So in Hall's Chronicle, Richard III. fol. 33 a, 'Whyle the two forwardes thus mortallye fought, eche entending to vanquish and conuince the other.'

65-67. By the old anatomists (Vigo, fol. 6 b. ed. 1586) the brain was divided into three ventricles, in the hindermost of which they placed the memory. That this division was not unknown to Shakespeare we learn from Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 70, 'A foolish, extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions : these are begot in the ventricle of memory.' The third ventricle is

the cerebellum, by which the brain is connected with the spinal marrow and the rest of the body: the memory is posted in the cerebellum like a warder or sentinel to warn the reason against attack. When the memory is converted by intoxication into a mere fume (compare The Tempest, v. 1.67:

"The ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason,')

then it fills the brain itself, the receipt or receptacle of reason, which thus becomes like an alembic or cap of a still. For 'fume' compare Cymbeline, iv. 2. 301:

A bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,

Which the brain makes of fumes.'

And Dryden's Aurengzebe:

'Power like new wine does your weak brain surprise,

And its mad fumes in hot discourses rise.'

See also Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 1. 24:

Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,

Keep his brain fuming.'

66. receipt, receptacle. See Matthew ix. 9, 'sitting at the receipt of custom,' and Bacon, Essay xlvi. Fountaines I intend to be of two natures: the one, that sprinckleth or spouteth water; the other a faire receipt of

water.'

67. limbec is derived by popular corruption from alembic,' a word adopted from the language of the Arabian alchemises of Spain into all the languages of Europe. The word is formed from al, the Arabic definite article, and the Greek äußig, used by Dioscorides in the sense of the cap of a still, into which the fumes rise before they pass into the condensing vessel. ancient form is now superseded. figure of it may be seen in Chambers's Encyclopædia, art. Alembic. The word limbec' is used by Milton, Paradise Lost, iii. 605, and by Fairfax, Tasso, Bk. iv. st. 75:

'This streaming nectar fell,

'Still'd through the limbeck of her diamond eyes.'

The Italian form is limbico.

The

68. a death. The indefinite article may be used here because it is only a kind of death, a sleep, which is meant. Compare Winter's Tale, iv. 2.3: ''Tis a sickness denying thee anything: a death to grant this.'

70. put upon, attribute to falsely. Compare Twelfth Night, v. 1. 70: 'But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.'

71. spongy. Compare The Merchant of Venice, i. 2. 108, I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge.'

72. quell, as a substantive, is found only here. It means 'murder.' 'Quell'