Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

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 flate, children, and servants; Which do but what they should, by doing every

thing 9

Safe toward your love and honour.*

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 V111:

" More than my all is nothing."

This line appeared obfcure to Sir William Davenant, for he altered it thus:

" I have only left to say,

"That thou deserveft more than I have to pay."

9 fervants;

MALONE.

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.

2

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" Safe (i. e. faved) 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 abfolute and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a foving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the fovereign. "Sauf la foy que jeo doy a noftre feignor le roy, as it is in Littleton. And though the expreffion be fomewhat stiff and forced, it is not more fo than many others in this play, and suits well with the fituation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere says, [in Julius Cæfar:]

"When love begins to ficken and decay,

" It afeth an enforced ceremony." BLACKSTONE.

[ocr errors]

DUN.

Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. 3 - Noble Banquo,
That haft no less deferv'd, nor must be known
No less to have done fo, let me infold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.

BAN.

The harvest is your own.

There if I grow,

A fimilar expreffion occurs alfo in the Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II. p. 245. "-ye shalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my confciense and worshyp Savy'd." STEEVENS.

A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation: "I'll speak it freely, always my obedience

" And love preferved unto the prince."

So also the following words spoken by Henry Duke of Lancafter to King Richard II. at their interview in the Castle of Flint (a paffage that Shakspeare had certainly read and perhaps remembered):

My fovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your honour faved), to have againe reftitution of my perfon, 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 Vol. IX. p. 1561 "Save him from danger; do HIM love and honour.”

Again, in Tavelfth Night:

"What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,
"That honour fav'd may upon asking give?'

Again, in Cymbeline:

" I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing

[ocr errors]

(Always referv'd my holy duty) what

"His rage can do on me."

Our poet has used the verb to safe in Antony and Cleopatra:

3

"beft you faf'd the bringer

"Out of the hoft." MALONE.

--full of growing. -- ] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfe&,

complete in thy growth. So, in Othello :

"What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?"

MALONE.

DUN.

My plenteous joys,

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of forrow. 4-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our eftate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm ; whom we name hereafter,
The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, invest him only,

But figns of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all defervers. From hence to Inverness,5
And bind us further to you.

1

MACB. The reftis labour, which is not us'd for

you:

I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;

So, humbly take my leave.

DUN.

4 My plenteous joys,

My worthy Cawdor!

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of forrow.]

lachrymas non sponte cedentes
Effudit, gemitusque expreffit pedore læto;
Non aliter manifesta potens abfcondere mentis
Gaudia, quam lachrymis. Lucan. lib. ix.

There was no English tranflation of Lucan before 1614.-Wc meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale: “It seem'd forrow 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.

5

"

hence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, that the walls of the caftle of Macbeth at Inverness are yet standing. STEEVENS.

The circumftance of Duncan's visiting Macbeth is supported by hiftory; 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 confuetudo regni pertranfire regiones semel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. Lib. IV. c. xliv.

VOL. XI.

E

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,

[ocr errors][merged small]

" Singulis annis ad inopum querelas audiendas perluftrabat provincias." Buchan. Lib. VII. MALONE.

6 The prince of Cumberland! - ) So, Holinshed, Hift. of Scotland, p. 171: "Duncan having two sonnes, &c. he made the elder. of them, called Malcolme, prince of Cumberland, as it were thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdome immediatlie after his deceafe. Mackbeth forely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope fore hindered, (where, by the old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that should fucceed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of bloud unto him should be admitted,) he began to take counsel how he might ufurpe the kingdome by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter), for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might, in time to come, pretend unto the crowne."

The crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. When a fucceffor was declared in the life-time of a king (as was often the cafe), the title of Prince of Cumberland was immediately bestowed on him as the mark of his designation. Cumberland was at that time held by Scotland of the crown of England, as a fief.

STEEVENS.

The former part of Mr. Steevens's remark is supported by Bellendeu's Tranflation of Hector Boethius: "In the mene tyme Kyng Duncane maid his fon Malcolme Prince of Cumbir, to fignify yt he fuld regne eftyr hym, quhilk wes gret displeseir to Makbeth; for it maid plane derogatioun to the thrid weird promittit afore to hym be this weird fifteris. Nochtheles he thoct gif Duncane were flane, he had maist rycht to the croun, because he wes nereft of blud yairto, be tenour of ye auld lavis maid eftir the deith of king Fergus, quhen young children wer unabel to govern the croun, the nerreft of yair blude sal regne." So alfo Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Hift. lib. vii.

Duncanus e filia Sibardi reguli Northumbrorum, duos filios genuerat. Ex iis Milcolumbum, vixdum puberem, Cumbriæ præfecit. Id factum ejus Macbethus molestius, quam credi poterat, tulit, eam videlicet moram fibi ratus injectam, ut, priores jam magistratus (juxta vifum nocturnum) adeptus, aut omnino a regno excluderetur, aut eo tardius potiretur, cum præfectura Cumbriæ velut aditus ad fupremum magiftratum SEMPER effet habitus." It has been

=

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desfires:
The eye wink at the hand! yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to fee.

[ Exit.

DUN. True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant;"

no.

asserted by an anonymous writer [Mr. Ritson] that
the crown of
Scotland was always hereditary, and that it should feem from the
play that Malcolm was the first who had the title of Prince of Cum-
berland." An extract or two from Hedor Boethius will be furfi
cient relative to these points. In the tenth chapter of the eleventh
book of his Hiftory we are informed, that fome of the friends of
Kenneth III. the eightieth king of Scotland, care among the
bles, defiring them to choose Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, to be
Lord of Cumbir, "yt he mycht be yt way the better cum to ye crown
after his faderis deid." Two of the nobles said, it was in the power
of Kenneth to make whom he pleased Lord of Cumberland; and
Malcolm was accordingly appointed. " Sic thingis done, king
Kenneth, be advise of his nobles, abrogat ye auld lawis concerning
the creation of yair king, and made new lawis in manner as fol.
lowes: 1. The king beand deceffit, his eldest fon or his eldeft
nepot, (notwithstanding quhat sumevir age he be of, and youcht he
was born efter his faderis death, fal fuccede ye croun," &c. Not-
withftanding this precaution, Malcolm, the eldest son of Kenneth,
did not fucceed to the throne after the death of his father; for after
Kenneth reigned Conftantine, the son of king Culyne. To him
fucceeded Gryme, who was not the fon of Conftantine, but the
grandson of king Duffe. Gryme, says Boethius, came to Scone,
" qubare he was crownit by the tenour of the auld lawis." After
the death of Gryme, Malcolm, the son of king Kenneth, whom
Boethius frequently calls Prince of Cumberland, became king of
Scotland; and to him fucceeded Duncan, the son of his eldeft
daughter.

These breaches, however, in the succession appear to have been occafioned by violence in turbulent times, and though the eldest son could not fucceed to the throne, if he happened to be a minor at the death of his father, yet, as by the ancient laws the next of blood was to reign, the Scottish monarchy may be faid to have been hereditary, fubject however to peculiar regulations. MALONE.

7 True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant;) i. c. he is to the

« AnteriorContinuar »