ACT V.

Scene I.

4. Ross, iv. 3. 185, mentioned that he had seen the tyrant's power a-foot.' We must suppose that Macbeth had taken the field to suppress the native rebels who were out,' iv. 3. 183, and that the arrival of their English auxiliaries had compelled him to retire to his castle at Dunsinane.

5. nightgown, dressing-gown. See ii. 2. 69; v. i. 61.

10. effects, practical manifestations, acts. Compare King Lear, ii. 4. 182: 'Thou better know'st

The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.'

Ib. watching, waking. So Romeo and Juliet, iv. 4. 8:

'You'll be sick to-morrow

For this night's watching.'

So also Holland's Pliny, xiv. 18: 'It is reported, that the Thasiens doe make two kinds of wine of contrary operations: the one procureth sleepe, the other causeth watching.' In the first line of this scene the word used

in our modern sense.

II. slumbery. A word not used elsewhere by Shakespeare. 12. actual performances. Compare Othello, iv. 2. 153:

Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,'

where actual deed' is opposed to thinking, as in this passage actual performances' to speaking.

19. Lo you.

'Lo' doubtless is a corruption of 'look.'

20. close, in concealment. So Julius Cæsar, i. 3. 131:

'Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.'

Compare the note on iii. 5. 7, of this play.

25. their sense is shut. This is Rowe's emendation.

The folios have

'their sense are shut,' and Sidney Walker would read their sense' are shut.' He refers to Sonnet, cxii. 10:

'That my adder's sense

To critic and to flatterer stopped are,'

where also he would indicate the plural by an apostrophe. Compare The Merchant of Venice, v. 1. 136:

'You should in all sense be much bound to him.'

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In nouns which end in a sibilant the singular form frequently does duty for the plural also (see our note on The Merchant of Venice, iv. I. 251), so that sense' might here stand for senses,' and the plural might be used as designating a property common to the two eyes. Compare Richard II. iv. 1. 315, and our note on the passage. But it is at least equally probable that 'are' is an error of the transcriber, whose ear was misled by the plural-sounding noun, or his eye caught by the 'are' of the preceding line. See however ii. 4. 14, and our note.

35. Hell is murky. Steevens says: She certainly imagines herself here talking to Macbeth, who (she supposes) has just said, "Hell is murky" (i.e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed), and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice.' We do not agree with

him. Her recollections of the deed and its motives alternate with recollections of her subsequent remorse and dread of future punishment. So in the following speeches her thoughts wander from Lady Macduff's fate back to the night of Duncan's murder, then on to the banquet scene, then recur to the first fatal crime, and so on.

36. afeard. See i. 3. 96. Rowe, as usual, changed it to afraid.' In his time the expression had ceased to be used except colloquially.

42. What, will these hands ne'er be clean? Perhaps Webster was thinking of this passage when he made Cornelia in her madness say:

'Here's a white hand:

Can blood be so soon wash'd out?'

(The White Devil, p. 45, ed. Dyce, 1857.) Certainly he had Hamlet, iv. 5. 175, in his mind when he made Cornelia say, a few lines before:

'There's rosemary for you;—and rue for you ;-
Heart's-ease for you.'

43, 44. You mar all with this starting. She is acting over again her part in the fourth scene of act iii. See particularly lines 60-68.

45. Go to, go to. An exclamation implying reproach and scorn. Compare Hamlet, i. 3. 112:

'Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.' See also St. James iv. 13, v. I. Elsewhere it implies encouragement to set about some work, like the French allons. See Genesis, xi. 3, 4, 7.

47. spoke. See note on i. 4. 3.

52, 53. sorely charged, heavily burdened, 'o'erfraught.' 'Sore,' like the Germ. schwer, A. S. sár, is here used in its original sense, as in Richard II. ii. 1. 265:

'We see the wind sit sore upon our sails.'

See note on ii. 4. 3. We have an expression identical in meaning with that in the text, Henry V. i. 2. 283:

'His soul

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly with them.'

55. the dignity of the whole body, i. e. of course, the queenly rank of the lady herself.

57. Pray God it be, i.e. be well.

59. those which.

line or feminine.

61. nightgown.

'Which is frequent with a personal antecedent, mascu

See ii. 2. 69; v. I. 5.

63. on's. See King Lear, i. 4. 114: Why, this fellow has banished two on's daughters.' Compare 'on't,' i. 3. 42; iii. 1. 113, 130. So 'on' for 'of,' i. 3. 84.

75. the means of all annoyance, all means by which she might do herself harm. Annoyance' was used in a stronger sense than it is now. Com

pare King John, v. 2. 150:

'And like an eagle o'er his aery towers,

To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.'

So also annoy,' Richard III. v. 3. 156.

77. mated, deadened, bewildered. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) has: Mater. To mate, or giue a mate vnto; to dead, amate, quell, subdue, ouercome.' The

word, originally used at chess, from the Arabic sbáb mát, 'the king is dead,' whence our check-mate,' became common in one form or other in almost all European languages. Our author uses it several times; e.g. Comedy of Errors, v. i. 281:

'I think you are all mated or stark mad.'

See Bacon, Essay xv. p. 58: 'Besides, in great oppressions, the same things, that provoke the patience, doe withall mate the courage.' 'Mate,' to match, is of Teutonic origin. Both senses of the word are played upon, Comedy of Errors, iii. 2. 54: Not mad, but mated.' We have the form 'amated' in Fairfax's Tasso, Bk. xi. st. 12:

Upon the walls the Pagans old and young

Stood hush'd and still, amated and amazed.'

Scene II.

I. power. See iv. 3. 185.

2. His uncle Siward. See note, iv. 3. 134.

3. Revenges. Used in the plural frequently by Shakespeare, whether meaning feeling or act. For the former, see Timon of Athens, v. 4. 32:

'If thy revenges hunger for that food

Which nature loathes.'

For the latter, v. 4. 37, of the same play:

For those that were, it is not square to take

On those that are, revenges.'

We have other similar plurals, as rages,' 'loves,' Timon of Athens, v. 4. 16. 17. See also 'loves,' v. 8. 61 of the present play.

Ib. their dear causes, the causes which respectively touch each so nearly, the murder of Malcolm's father and of Macduff's wife and children. For 'dear' in this sense, compare Richard III. ii. 2. 77 :

'Was never widow had so dear a loss.'

And King John, i. I. 257:

'Thou art the issue of my dear offence.'

And see our note on Richard II. i. 3. 151.

4. alarm, call to arms. Compare Hamlet, iii. 4. 120:
'And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,

Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands an end.'

And Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 171:

'Arming to answer in a night alarm.'

See also the note on 'alarum'd,' ii. 1. 53. For the epithet 'bleeding,' compare Richard II. iii. 3. 94:

The purple testament of bleeding war.'

But it is more startling to find it joined with alarm,' which is only the prelude to battle. The whole of the line 'Would .... alarm' was omitted by mistake in the second and following folios.

5. the mortified man. Theobald explained this to mean 'the man who has abandoned himself to despair, who has no courage or resolution left;' but Warburton suggested a more probable meaning, a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it and all the

affairs of it; an ascetic.' This is the explanation commonly received, and Johnson (Dict. s. v.) quotes the passage to illustrate the sense he gives to 'mortify,' viz. to macerate or harass, in order to reduce the body to compliance with the mind.' We have the word in this sense, Love's Labour's Lost, i. I. 28:

'Dumain is mortified:

The grosser manner of these world's delights

He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves.' Compare also King Lear, ii. 3, 15, where 'mortified' means deadened with cold and hunger.' But in the present passage such a sense seems scarcely forcible enough. May it not mean the dead man'? mortified' in the literal sense. So Erasmus, on the Creed, Eng. tr. fol. 81a: Christ was mortified and killed in dede as touchynge to his fleshe: but was quickened in spirite.' In the following, Henry V. i. 1. 26, 'mortified,' though figuratively applied, does not mean 'subdued by a course of asceticism :'

'The breath no sooner left his father's body,

But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too.

Both senses are combined in Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. 324:
'I here discard my sickness.

Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up
My mortified spirit.'

If the mortified man' really means the dead,' the word 'bleeding'in the former line may have been suggested by the well-known superstition that the corpse of a murdered man bled afresh in the presence of the murderer. It is true that this interpretation gives an extravagant sense, but we have to choose between extravagance and feebleness. The passage, indeed, as it stands in the text, does not read like Shakespeare's.

8. file, list, or muster-roll. See note, iii. I. 94.

10. unrough, unbearded. Not used elsewhere by Shakespeare. But compare King John, v. 2. 133:

This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,'

where' unhair'd' is Theobald's excellent emendation for the unheard' of the folios. And The Tempest, ii. 1. 250:

Till new-born chins

Be rough and razorable.'

II. protest, proclaim, display publicly. Compare Much Ado about Nothing, v. I. 149:

'Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice.'

And see iii. 4. 105 of the present play.

Ib. their first of manhood. Compare 'my near'st of life,' iii. I. 117. 13. lesser. Here an adverb. We have had it as an adjective, i. 3. 65. So we find worser' an adverb, Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 5. 90:

'I cannot hate thee worser than I do.'

As an adjective, The Tempest, iv. I. 27: Our worser genius.'

15. We have the same metaphor in Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 30: 'And buckle in a waist most fathomless

With spans and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons.'

The distemper'd cause' is the disorganized party, the disordered body over which he rules. Instead of being like a well-girt man,' ev¿wvos ȧvýp, full of vigour, his state is like one in dropsy. We have the same metaphor more elaborated in 2 Henry IV. iii. 1. 38 sqq.:

'King. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom

How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger, near the heart of it.

War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd;' &c.

Instead of 'cause,' Sidney Walker, and, independently of him, Mr. Collier's MS. Corrector, suggested course,' which has been adopted both by Mr. Singer and Mr. Dyce.

18. minutely revolts, revolts occurring every minute. This adjective is not again used by Shakespeare.

Ib. upbraid, frequently used with accusative of things as well as of persons. Compare Troilus and Cressida, iii. 2. 198: Upbraid my falsehood.' And Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 385:

'As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
That I have done for you.'

Ib. faith-breach. Not again found in Shakespeare. Macbeth's treasonable usurpation of Duncan's office, to whom he was bound in fealty, is now tacitly upbraided by his own lieges, who revolt from him.

19. in command. For this use of 'in,' compare iv. 3. 20.

20-22. The same figure is employed, i. 3. 145.

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22, 23. blame. . . to recoil. We have blame' with the same construction, The Taming of the Shrew, iii. 2. 27:

'I cannot blame thee now to weep.

23. pester'd, hampered, troubled, embarrassed. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives: 'Empestrer. To pester, intricate, intangle, trouble, incomber.' The first sense of the word appears to be to hobble a horse, or other animal, to prevent it straying.' So Milton, Comus, 7:

'Confined and pester'd in this pinfold here.'

Hence used of any continuous annoyance.

Ib. recoil. See iv. 3. 19, and note.

27. medicine. It may be doubted whether medicine' is here to be taken in its modern sense, as the following line inclines us to believe, or according to most commentators, in the sense of physician,' like the French médecin. The word occurs in this sense applied to Helena in All's Well that Ends Well, ii. 1. 75:

And in Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 598, Florizel calls Camillo the 'medicine of our house.' Florio, Worlde of Wordes, has: Medico: a medicine, a phisition, a leach.' Minsheu (Spanish Dict.), 1599, and Cotgrave, 1611, only recognise