As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald 4 (Worthy to be a rebel; for, to that, 5 Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied; The old copy has-Doubtfull-fo that my addition confifts of but a fingle letter. STEEVENS. 4 --Macdonwald__) Thus the old copy. According to Holinshed we should read - Macdowald. STEEVENS. So also the Scottish Chronicles. However, it is poffible that Shakspeare might have preferred the name that has been fubftituted, as better founding. It appears from a subsequent scene that he had attentively read Holinshed's account of the murder of king Duff, by Donwald, Lieutenant of the castle of Fores; in consequence of which he might, either from inadvertence or choice, have here written Macdonwald. MALONE. *--to that, &c.] i. e. in addition to that. So, in Troilus and Cressida, A& I. fc. i: "The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, The foldier who describes Macdonwald, seems to mean, that, in addition to his affumed character of rebel, he abounds with the numerous enormities to which man, in his natural state, is liable. 6 from the western ifles STEEVENS. Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied; Whether supplied of, for Supplied from or with, was a kind of Grecism of Shakspeare's expreffion; or whether of be a corruption of the editors, who took Kernes and Gallowglasses, which were only light and heavy armed foot, to be the names of two of the western island's, I don't know. Hinc conjecturæ vigorem etiam adjiciunt arma quædam Hibernica, Gallicis antiquis fimilia, jacula nimirum peditum levis armaturæ quos Kernos vocant, nec non fecures & loricæ ferrecæ peditum illorum gravioris armaturæ, quos Galloglaffios appellant. Waræi Antiq. Hiber. cap. vi. WARBURTON. Of and with are indiscriminately used by our ancient wri ters. So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Perform'd of pleasure by your son the prince." And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, ' 1 Again, in God's Revenge against Murder, hift. vi: "Sypontus in the mean time is prepared of two wicked gondaliers," &c. Again, in The History of Helyas Knight of the Sun, b. 1. no date: "-he was well garnished of spear, sword, and armoure," &c. These are a few out of a thousand instances which might be brought to the same purpose. Kernes and Gallowglasses are characterized in the Legend of Roger Mortimer. See The Mirror for Magiftrates : "the Gallowglass, the Kerne, " Yield or not yield, whom so they take, they flay." STEEVENS. The old copy has Gallow-groffes. Corre&ed by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,] The old copy hasquarry; but I am inclined to read quarrel. Quarrel was formerly used for cause, or for the occasion of a quarrel, and is to be found in that sense in Holinshed's account of the story of Macbeth, who, upon the creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, says the hiftorian, that he had a just quarrel to endeavour after the crown. The sense therefore is, Fortune smiling on his execrable cause, &c. JOHNSON. The word quarrel occurs in Holinshed's relation of this very fact, and may be regarded as a sufficient proof of its having been the term here employed by Shakspeare: "Out of the western ifles there came to Macdowald a great multitude of people, to affift him in that rebellious quarrel." Besides, Macdowald's quarry (i. e. game) must have confifted of Duncan's friends, and would the speaker then have applied the epithet-damned to them? and what have the smiles of fortune to do over a carnage, when we have defeated our enemies? Her business is then at an end. Her smiles or frowns are no longer of any consequence. We only talk of these, while we are pursuing our quarrel, and the event of it is uncertain. STEEVENS. The reading proposed by Dr. Johnson, and his explanation of it, are ftrongly supported by a passage in our author's King John: "--And put his cause and quarrel Again, in this play of Macbeth : "--and the chance, of goodness, "Be like our warranted quarrel." Here we have warranted quarrel, the exact oppofite of damned quarrel, as the text is now regulated. L 8 Show'd like a rebel's whore: But all's too weak: For brave Macbeth, (well he deferves that name,) Difdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which fmok'd with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the flave; And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, 2 Lord Bacon, in his Essays, uses the word in the same sense : Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. MALONE. 8 Show'd like a rebel's whore :) I suppose the meaning is, that fortune, while she smiled on him, deceived him. Shakspeare probably alludes to Macdowald's first successful action, elated by which he attempted to pursue his fortune, but loft his life. Like valour's minion, MALONE. Carv'd out his paffage, till he fac'd the slave;) The old copy reads Like valour's minion, carv'd out his paffage As an hemistich must be admitted, it seems more favourable to the metre that it should be found where it is now left. Till he fai'd the slave, could never be designed as the beginning of a verse, af harmony were at all attended to in its construction. STEEVENS. Like valour's minion,] So, in King John: "-fortune shall cull forth, "Out of one fide, her happy minion." MALONE. * And ne'er shook hands, &c. The old copy reads - Which nev'r. STEEVENS. Mr. Pope, instead of which, here and in many other places, reads who. But there is no need of change. There is scarcely wae of our author's plays in which he has not used which for who. Sơ, in The Winter's Tale: " -the old shepherd, which stands by," &c. MALONE. The old reading-Which never, appears to indicate that fome antecedent words, now' irretrievable, were omitted in the playhoufe manuscript; unless the compofitor's eye had caught which from a foregoing line, and printed it instead of And. Which, in the present instance, cannot well have been fubftituted for who, Because it will refer to the flave Macdonel, instead of his conqueror Macbeth. STEEVENS: 3 Till he unfeam'd him from the nave to the chops,3 DUN. O, valiant coufin! worthy gentleman! 3-he unfeam'd him from the nave to the shops, We seldom hear of fuch terrible cross blows given and received but by giants and miscreants in Amadis de Gaule. Besides, it must be a strange aukward stroke that could unrip him upwards from the navel to the chops. But Shakspeare certainly wrote: --be unfeam'd him from the nape to the chops. i. e. cut his skull in two; which might be done by a Highlander's "O! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of The word unfeamed likewife becomes very proper; and alludes to the future which goes cross the crown of the head in that diretion called the futura fagittalis; and which, confequently, must be opened by such a stroke. It is remarkable, that Milton, who in his youth read and imitated our poet much, particularly in his Comus, was mifled by this corrupt reading. For in the manufcript of that poem, in Trinity-College library, the following lines are read thus: "Or drag him by the curls, and cleave his scalpe An evident imitation of this corrupted passage. But he alter'd it with better judgement to: to a foul death "Gurs'd as his life." WARBURTON. The old reading is certainly the true one, being justified by a paffage in Dido Queene of Carthage, by Tho. Nash, 1594: "Then from the navel to the throat at once "He ript old Priam." So likewife in an ancient MS. entitled The boke of huntyng, that is cleped Mayfter of Game: Cap. V. "Som mem haue sey hym litte a man fro the kne up to the breft, and fle hym all ftarke dede at o ftrok." STEEVENS. Again, by the following paffage in an unpublished play, entitled The Witch, by Thomas Middleton, in which the same wound is defcribed, though the stroke is reversed: "Draw it, or I'll rip thee down from neck to NAVEL, ! 3 SOLD. As whence the fun 'gins his reflexion Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break; So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come, Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark: No fooner justice had, with valour arm'd, 3 As whence the fun 'gins his reflection - ) The thought is expreffed with some obscurity, but the plain meaning is this: As the fame quarter, whence the blessing of day-light arises, Sometimes fends us, by a dreadful reverse, the calamities of storms and tempests; so the glorious event of Macbeth's victory, which promised us the comforts of peace, was immediately fucceeded by the alarming news of the Norweyan invapon. The natural history of the winds, &c. is foreign to the explanation of this passage. Shakspeare does not mean, in conformity to any theory, to say that storms generally come from the east. If it be allowed that they sometimes issue from that quarter, it is sufficient for the purpose of his comparison. STEEVENS. The natural history of the winds, &c. was idly introduced on this occafion by Dr. Warburton. Sir William Davenant's reading of this paffage, in an alteration of this play, published in quarto, in 1674, affords a reasonably good comment upon it: "But then this day-break of our victory "Serv'd but to light us into other dangers, "That spring from whence our hopes did seem to rise." MALONE. thunders break ;) The word break is wanting in the oldeft copy. The other folios and Rowe read breaking. Mr. Pope madethe emendation. STEEVENS. Break, which was suggested by the reading of the second folio, is very unlikely to have been the word omitted in the original copy. It agrees with thunders;-but who ever talked of the breaking of a ftorm? MALONE. The phrafe, I believe, is sufficiently common. Thus Dryden in All for Love, &c. A& I: "the Roman camp "Hangs o'er us black and threat'ning, like a florm Discomfort Swells.) Discomfort the natural opposite to comfort. 1 |