Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers. Now to the door, and stay there till we call. Was it not yesterday we spoke together? you, 2 How you were borne in hand; how crofs'd; the inftruments; Again, in The Hiftory of Graund Amoure and label Pucelle, &c. by Stephen Hawes, 1555: "That fo many monfters put to utterance." Again, and more appofitely, in the 14th book of Golding's tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis: “To both the parties as the length from battell for to reft, "And not to fight to utterance. Shakspeare uses it again in Cymbeline, A& III. fc. i. Now to the door, and stay there till we call.] reads "Now go to the door &c;" STEEVENS. The old copy but for the fake of verification I fuppofe the word go, which is underfood, may fafely be omitted. foregoing act: Will you to Scone? No coufin, I'll to Fife, Thus in the laft fcene of the In both thefe inftances go is mentally inserted. STEEVENS. 2 -pafs'd in probation with you, How you were borne in hand, &c.] The words with you, I regard as an interpolation, and conceive the paffage to have been originally given thus: Who wrought with them; and all things elfe, that might, To half a foul, and to a notion craz'd, Say, Thus did Banquo. 1. MUR. You made it known to us. MACB. I did fo; and went further, which is now Our point of fecond meeting. Do you find Your patience fo predominant in your nature, That you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd, 4 To pray for this good man, and for his iffue, "In our laft conference; pafs'd in probation how Pafs'd in probation is, I believe, only a bulky phrafe employed to fignify - proved. STEEVENS The meaning may be, “ paft in proving to you, how you were," &c. So, in Othello: fo prove it, That the probation bear no hinge or loop "To hang a doubt on." Perhaps after the words "with you," there should be a comma rather than a femicolon. The conftruction, however, may be different. "This I made good to you in our laft conference, palt &c. I made good to you, how you were borne," &c. bear in hand is, to delude by encouraging hope and holding out fair prospecs, without any intention of performance. MALOne. So, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: Yet I will bear a dozen men in hand, Το 4 Are you fo gofpell'd, ] Are you of that degree of precife virtue? Gofpeller was a name of contempt given by the Papists to the Lollards, the puritans of early times, and the precursors of proteftantifm. JOHNSON. So, in the Morality called Lufty Juventus, 1561: Again: "What, is Juventus become so tame "To be a newe gofpeller?" And yet ye are a great gospeller in the mouth. I believe, however, that gofpelled means no more than kept in obedience to that precept of the gospel, which teaches us to pray for thofe that despitefully use us. STEEVENS. Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave, And beggar'd yours for ever? 1. MUR. We are men, my liege. 5 MACB. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds,and grey hounds, mungrels,fpaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are cleped All by the name of dogs: the valued file? 6 5. We are men, my liege ] That is, we have the fame feelings as the reft of mankind, and, as men, are not without a manly refentment for the wrongs which we have fuffered, and which you have now recited. I should not have thought fo plain a paffage wanted an expla nation, if it had not been mistaken by Dr. Grey, who fays; "they don't answer in the name of Chriftians, but as men, whofe humanity would hinder them from doing a barbarous a&." This falfe iuterpretation he has endeavoured to fupport by the well-known line of That amiable fentiment does not appear very fuitable to a cutthroat. - They urge their manhood, in my opinion, in order to fhow Macbeth their willingness, not their averfion, to execute his orders. MALONE. Shoughs, Shoughs are probably what we now call fhocks, demiwolves, lycifca; dogs bred between wolves and dogs. JOHNSON. This fpecies of dogs is mentioned in Nash's Lenten Stuffe, &c. 1599. -a trundle-tail, tike or fhough or two. STEEVENS. 7 a the valued file --] In this fpeech the word file occurs twice, and feems iu both places to have a meaning different from its prefent use. The expreffion, valued file, evidently means, lift or catalogue of value. A ftation in the file, and not in the worft rank, may mean, a place in the lift of manhood, and not in the lowest place. But file feems rather to meau, in this place, a poft of honour; the first rank, in oppofition to the laft; a meaning which I have not obferved in any other place. JOHNSON. The valued file is the file or lift where the value and peculiar qualities of every thing is fet down, in contradiftin&ion to what he immediately mentions, the bill that writes them all alike. File, in the second inftance, is ufed in the fame fenfe as in this, and with a reference to it. Now if you belong to any class that deferves a place in the valued file of man, and are not of the lowest rank, the common herd of mankind, that are not worth diflinguishing from each other. Diftinguishes the fwift, the flow, the fubtle, That writes them all alike and fo of men. 2. MUR. And I another, 1. MUR. So weary with difafters, tugg'd with fortune, File and lift are synonymous, as in the laft a&t of this play: I have a file. Of all the gentry. Again, in Heywood's dedication to the fecond part of his Iron Age, 1632: to number you in the file and lift of my beft and choiceft well-wishers. This expreffion occurs more than once in The Beggars' Bush of Beaumont and Fletcher : 66 all ways worthy, "As elfe in any file of mankind." Shakspeare likewife has it in Meafure for Meafure: "The greater file of the fubje&t held the duke to be wife." In fhort, the valued file is the catalogue with prices annexed to it." STEEVENS. 9 And not] And was fupplied by Mr. Rowe for the fake of metre. STEEVENS. 2 So weary with difafters, tugg'd with fortune,] We fee the fpeaker means to say, that he is weary with ftruggling with adverse fortune. But this reading expreffes but half the idea; viz. of a man tugg'd and haled by fortune without making refiftance. To give the compleat thought, we should read: So weary with difaftrous tugs with fortune, 1 That I would fet my life on any chance, МАСВ. Both of you Know, Banquo was your enemy. 2. MUR. True, my lord. MACB. So is he mine: and in fuch bloody dif That every minute of his being thrufts This is well expreffed, and gives the reason of his being weary, because fortune always hitherto got the better. And that Shakspeare knew how to exprefs this thought, we have an inftance in The Winter's Tale: "Let myfelf and fortune Tug for the time to come. Befides, to be tugg'd with fortune, is fcarce English. WARBURTON. Tugg'd with fortune may be, tugg'd or worried by fortune. JOHNSON. I have left the foregoing note as an evidence of Dr. Warburton's propensity to needlefs alterations. Mr. Malone very juftly observes that the old reading is confirmed by the following passage in an Epiftle to Lord Southampton, by S. Daniel, 1603: 3 He who hath never warr'd with mifery, "Nor ever tugg'd with fortune and diftrefs." STEEVENS. in fuch bloody diftance, ] Distance, for enmity. 11 WARBURTON. By bloody diftance is here meant, such a distance as mortal enemies would ftand at from each other, when their quarrel must be determined by the fword. This fenfe feems evident from the continuation of the metaphor, where every minute of his being is reprefented as thrusting at the nearest part where life refides. STEEVENS. 4 For certain friends] For, in the prefent inftance, figuifies because of. So, in Coriolanus: Speak, good Cominius, "Leave nothing out for length.' STEEVENS. |