NOTES.

ACT I.

Scene I.

1. The folios put a note of interrogation after ‘again.' Hanmer removed it.

2. burlyburly. We find in Cotgrave, 'Grabuge: f. A great coyle, stirre, garboyle, turmoyle, hurlyburly.' Shakespeare uses the word as an adjective Henry IV. v. i. 78, 'hurlyburly innovation.' It is formed by onomatopœa from 'hurly,' which is also found in our author, 2 Henry IV. iii. 1. 25: 'That with the hurly death itself awakes.'

So King John, iii. 4. 169:

Methinks I see this hurly all on foot.'

Hurly' is probably connected with the French burler, to howl or yell. The French word burluberlu meaning 'harum scarum,' is given by Littré as of unknown etymology. For many other examples of onomatopoea in English see Wheatley's Dictionary of Reduplicated Words, in the Transactions of the Philological Society, 1865. Familiar instances are 'hugger-mugger,' helter-skelter,' 'tittle-tattle,' all used by Shakespeare. Probably the nodern ‘hullabaloo' is a corruption of 'hurlyburly.' In speaking of Wat Tyler's rebellion, Holinshed (vol. ii. p. 1030) says: "But euery where else the commons kept such like stur, so that it was rightly called the hurling time, there were such hurly burlyes kept in euery place, to ye great daunger of ouerthrowing the whole state of all good gouernment in this land.' And in Dido Queen of Carthage, written by Marlowe and Nash (p. 265, ed. Dyce, 1858),

'I think it was the Devil's revelling night,
There was such hurly burly in the heavens.'

3. Graymalkin, otherwise spelt Grimalkin, means a grey cat.

'Malkin'

is a diminutive of Mary.' Maukin,' the same word, is still used in Scotland for a hare. The cat was supposed to be the form most commonly assumed by the familiar spirits of witches. Compare iv. I. I of this play:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.'

5. the set of sun. Compare Richard III. v. 3. 19:

The weary sun hath made a golden set.' We still use 'set' as a substantive in the compound sunset.'

9. Paddock, a toad. See Hamlet, iii. 4. 190:

'For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide?'

6

So in Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, published in 1584: Some say they [i. e. witches] can keepe divels and spirits in the likenesse of todes and cats.' Bk. i. ch. iv. In Cumberland toad-stools' are still called 'paddock-stools.' Cotgrave gives the word as equivalent to grenouille, a frog, and not to crapaud, a toad; and Chapman, in his Cæsar and Pompey, speaks of 'Paddockes, and todes and watersnakes.' Massinger also seems to use it for frog in A Very Woman, iii. 1. In Anglo-Saxon a toad is pad or pada. Minsheu gives also Padde'=' Bufo.' 'Paddock' is in its origin a diminutive from 'pad,' as hillock' from 'hill.'

There is some doubt as to the proper distribution of the dialogue here. The folios give the passage thus: All. Padock calls anon: faire is foule.... ayre,' which can scarcely be right, either in distribution or punctuation. 10. Anon, immediately. See I Henry IV. ii. I. 5:

'First Carrier. What, ostler?

Ostler. Anon, anon.'

II. The witches, whose moral sense is thoroughly perverted, who choose the devil for their master and do evil instead of good, love storm and rain as others love sunshine and calm.

Scene II.

A camp near Forres. This is Capell's designation of the place of Scene II. Rowe gave A Palace'; Theobald The Palace at Forres.' The folios have no indication of the place of each scene either in this or any other play. Holinshed mentions the appearance of the weird sisters to Macbeth as having taken place as he was on the road to join the king at Forres. See i. 3. 39.

In the stage direction the folios have a bleeding captaine,' but he is called a sergeant' in the third line of the scene. The word 'sergeant' is derived from the French sergent, Italian sergente, and they from Lat. serviens. So we have g for v in pioggia, abréger, alleggiare, alléger, &c. It originally meant a common foot-soldier. If 'sergeant' were pronounced as a trisyllable the metre of the line would be regular. But throughout this scene the measure is extremely irregular, owing doubtless in many cases to corruption of

the text.

5. Here again the metre is imperfect.

6. Say to the king the knowledge, tell the king what you know. Sidney Walker proposed to read thy knowledge'; but this is not necessary.

Ib. broil would not now be used of a great battle. The word has degenerated in meaning since Shakespeare's time. Compare Othello, i. 3. 87: And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle.' See also I Henry IV. i. I. 3.

7. Doubtful it stood. For the metre's sake Pope read 'Doubtful long it stood'; Steevens, 1793, Doubtfully it stood.'

8. The construction here is abrupt, though the sense is clear enough. Warburton read:

'As to spent swimmers . . . .

And Mr. Keightley supposes that a line has dropped out.

9. choke their art, i. e. drown each other by rendering their skill in swimming useless. 'Choke' was anciently used of suffocation by water as well as by other means. See Mark v. 13: 'The herd ran violently down a

steep place into the sea

and were choked in the sea.'

Ib. Macdonwald. So the first folio. The other folios have 'Macdonnell.' He is called by Holinshed Macdowald.'

10. to that, to that end.

13. Of, altered by Hanmer to With.' He and other editors, Pope especially, thought themselves justified in changing whatever was not sanctioned by the usage of their own day. Compare Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Bk. ii. 22. § 15: 'He is invested of a precedent disposition.' We should now say "invested with.'

Ib. kerns and gallowglasses. This is from Holinshed. Kerns were lightarmed troops, having only darts, daggers or knives; the gallowglasses had helmet, coat of mail, long sword and axe. See our note on Richard II. ii. 1.

156. The two are mentioned together in 2 Henry VI. iv. 9. 26:

'A puissant and a mighty power

Of gallowglasses and stout kerns.'

14. quarrel. This is an emendation first adopted in the text by Hanmer, and suggested independently by Warburton and Johnson. The folios have 'quarry,' which Knight retains, explaining damned quarry' to mean 'doomed prey'; i. e. the army of Macdonwald, on which fortune smiled deceitfully while betraying them, like Delilah, to their enemies. Fairfax, in his Translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, uses quarry' as well as ' quarrel,' for the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow. The word 'quarrel' occurs in Holinshed's account, and is doubtless the right word here.

15. Show'd, appeared. See Merchant of Venice, iv. I. 196: 'And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice.'

See also i. 3. 54 of this play.

Ib. all's too weak. We should have expected all was too weak.' The abbreviation 's for was' is not used elsewhere by Shakespeare, nor does the use of the historic present, preceded and followed by past tenses, seem at all probable. Pope cut the knot by reading all too weak.'

19. minion, i. e. mignon, darling. See Tempest, iv. 1. 98: 'Mars's hot minion is return'd again,'

and King John, ii. 1..392:

'Fortune shall cull forth

Out of one side her happy minion.'

So Fairfax, Tasso, Bk. ix. st. 81:

A gentle page

The soldan's minion, darling and delight.'

And Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Bk. i. 4. § 4: 'Adonis, Venus' minion.' 20, 21. Till he faced the slave; Which ne'er, &c. There is some incurable corruption of the text here. For 'Which' Pope reads Who,' Capell 'And.'

21. For shook bands, Mr. J. Bullock suggests' slack'd hand.' As the text stands, the meaning is, Macdonwald did not take leave of, nor bid farewell to, his antagonist till Macbeth had slain him. For shake hands' in this

sense, compare Lyly's Euphues, p. 75, ed. Arber: You haue made so large profer of your seruice, and so faire promises of fidelytie, that were I not ouer charie of mine honestie, you woulde inueigle me to shake bandes with chastitie'. But it is probable that some words are omitted, and that 'Macbeth' is the antecedent to Which.' It is scarcely necessary to remark that by Shakespeare and his contemporaries which' is frequently used with a masculine or feminine antecedent.

22. nave is, so far as we know, not found in any other passage for 'navel.' Though the two words are etymologically connected, their distinctive difference of meaning seems to have been preserved from very early times, nafu being Anglo-Saxon for the one and nafel for the other. Hanmer, on Warburton's suggestion, read 'nape' for 'nave'; but a passage quoted by Steevens, from Dido Queen of Carthage, gives great support to the old reading:

6

Then from the navel to the throat at once

He ript old Priam.' (Act ii. p. 258, ed. Dyce, 1858.) 24. Cousin. Macbeth and Duncan were first cousins, being both grandsons of King Malcolm.

25. As thunder and storm sometimes come from the East, the quarter from which men expect the sunrise, so out of victory a new danger springs. Ib. 'gins, begins. See v. 5. 49.

27. spring, source.

28. Discomfort swells. So the folios. Pope reads Discomfort swell'd'; Johnson, Discomforts well'd'; Capell, Discomfort wells.' 'Swells' seems

6

the best word, indicating that, instead of a fertilizing stream, a desolating flood had poured from the spring.

30. skipping is an epithet appropriate enough to the rapid movements of the light-armed kerns.

31. Norweyan. So the folio. The spelling is the same i. 3. 95. In Holinshed it is Norwaygian.'

31. surveying vantage. We have the same phrase, in a somewhat different sense, in Richard III. v. 3. 15:

'Let us survey the vantage of the field.'

In the present passage 'surveying' must be equivalent to 'perceiving.' 33, 34. This speech of Duncan's is printed as prose in the folio. The verse may be made regular by pronouncing 'captains' 'capitains,' as in 3 Henry VI. iv. 7. 30:

'A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded.' Sidney Walker proposed Our captains twain.'

36. sooth, truth. So v. 5. 40, and Henry V. iii. 6. 151, 'To say the sooth.' 37. So they in the folios begins the next line. It seems more harmonious to make it end line 37. In either case we must have an Alexandrine. 37. overcharged with cracks is an awkward phrase, such as grammarians dignify with the title metonymy. The effect is put for the cause,

'cracks' for charges.'

38. Compare Richard II. i. 3. 80:

And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.'

40. memorize, render famous. Compare Henry VIII. iii. 2. 52: 'From her

Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall

In it be memorized.'

Ib. Golgotha. See Mark xv. 22. with the skulls of the dead.

Here it means a battle-field strewn

41. tell. Rowe first marked by a dash that the sense is left imperfect. The folios have a colon.

42. So well. We should say 'As well.' Compare Cymbeline, i. 4. 3: 'Expected to prove so worthy as since he hath been allowed the name of.'

44. Exit Sergeant, attended. There is no stage-direction here in the folio. 45. Who. Pope reads But who.'

Ib. thane, from the Anglo-Saxon þegen, literally, a servant, and then technically, the king's servant, defined to be an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, inferior in rank to an eorl and ealdorman' (Bosworth). Ultimately the rank of thegn become equivalent to that of eorl.

46. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, v. I. 50:

The business of this man looks out of him.'

And in the present play iii. I. 127:

"Your spirits shine through you.'

47. That seems to speak things strange, whose appearance corresponds with the strangeness of his message. Compare i. 5. 27 of this play. For 'seems' various conjectures have been made, as 'teems,'' comes,'' seeks,' 'deems'; but no change is required. For the general sense compare Richard II. iii. 2. 194:

'Men judge by the complexion of the sky

The state and inclination of the day:
So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.'

49. flout, mock. See Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 327:
'Why will you suffer her to flout me thus ?'

Perhaps Gray had this passage in this mind when he wrote:
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,
Confusion on thy banners wait,

Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing

They mock the air with idle state.'

Malone says, quoting King John, v. I. 72,

Mocking the air with colours idly spread,'

'The meaning seems to be, not that the Norweyan banners proudly insulted the sky; but that, the standards being taken by Duncan's forces, and fixed in the ground, the colours idly flapped about, serving only to cool the conquerors, instead of being proudly displayed by their former possessors.' 'flout the sky' seems better suited to the banners of a triumphant or defiant host. Mr. Keightley reads:

'Where the Norweyan banners

Did flout the sky and fan our people cold.'

50. The folio reads

'Norway himself with terrible numbers'

But

as one line. Pope reads with numbers terrible.' The arrangement in the