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So they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,

I cannot tell:

But I am faint, my gafhes cry for help.

DUN. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds;

They fmack of honour both :-Go, get him fur[Exit Soldier, attended.

geons.

Again, in the old play of King John, 1591, and applied, as here,

to ordnance:

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as harmless and without effect,

"As is the echo of a cannon's crack."

MALONE.

8 Doubly redoubled ftrokes &c.] So, in King Richard II:
"And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
"Fall," &c.

The irregularity of the metre, however, induces me to believe our author wrote→

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they were

"As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks,

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Doubly redoubling ftrokes upon the foe." STEEVENS.

9 Or memorize another Golgotha,] That is, or make another Golgotha, which should be celebrated and delivered down to pof. terity, with as frequent mention as the firft. HEATH.

The word memorize, which fome fuppofe to have been coined by Shakspeare, is used by Spenfer in a fonnet to lord Buckhurst fixed to his Paftorals, 1579:

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pre

"T. WARTON.

"In vaine I thinke, right honourable lord, By this rude rime to memorize thy name.' The word is likewise used by Drayton; and by Chapman, in his tranflation of the fecond book of Homer, 1598:

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which let thy thoughts be fure to memorize." And again, in a copy of verfes prefixed to Sir Arthur Gorges's tranflation of Lucan, 1514:

"Of them whofe acts they mean to memorize."

STEEVENS.

Who comes here?"

MAL.

Enter ROSSE."

The worthy thane of Roffe.

LEN. What a hafte looks through his eyes! So fhould he look,

That feems to speak things ftrange.'

9 Enter Roffe.] The old copy-Enter Roffe and Angus: but as only the thane of Roffe is fpoken to, or speaks any thing in the remaining part of this fcene; and as Duncan expreffes himfelf in the fingular number,

Whence cam'ft thou, worthy thane?

pre

Angus may be confidered as a fuperfluous character. Had his fent appearance been defigned, the King would naturally have taken fome notice of him. STEEVENS.

It is clear from a fubfequent paffage, that the entry of Angus was here defigned; for in fcene iii. he again enters with Roffe, and fays,

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We are fent

"To give thee from our royal mafter thanks." MALONE. Because Roffe and Angus accompany each other in a fubfequent fcene, does it follow that they make their entrance together on the prefent occafion? STEEVENS.

2 Who comes here?] The latter word is here employed as a diffyllable. MALONE.

Mr. Malone has already directed us to read-There-as a diffyllable, but without fupporting his direction by one example of fuch a practice.

I fufpect that the poet wrote

3

Who is't comes here? or-But who comes here? STEEVENS.

So fhould he look,

That feems to speak things ftrange.] The meaning of this paffage, as it now ftands, is, fo fhould he look, that looks as if he told things ftrange. But Roffe neither yet told ftrange things, nor could look as if he told them. Lenox only conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and therefore undoubtedly faid:

What a bafte looks through his eyes!

So fhould he look, that teems to speak things frange.

ROSSE.

God fave the king!

DUN. Whence cam'ft thou, worthy thane?

Rosse. From Fife, great king, Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,+

He looks like one that is big with fomething of importance; a metaphor fo natural that it is every day used in common discourse. JOHNSON.

Mr. M. Mafen obferves that the meaning of Lenox is, "So fhould he look, who feems as if he had ftrange things to speak." The following paffage in The Tempeft feems to afford no unapt comment upon this:

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pr'ythee, fay on:

"The fetting of thine eye and cheek, proclaim
"A marter from thee-."

Again, in King Richard II:

"Men judge by the complexion of the sky, &c.
"So may you, by my dull and heavy eye,

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My tongue hath but a heavier tale to fay." STEEVENS. That feems to speak things frange.] i. e. that feems about to fpeak ftrange things. Our author himself furnishes us with the beft comment on this paffage. In Antony and Cleopatra, we meet with nearly the fame idea:

"The business of this man looks out of him." MALONE.

flout the fky,] The banners may be poetically defcribed as waving in mockery or defiance of the fky. So, in K. Edward III. 1599:

"And new replenish'd pendants cuff the air,

"And beat the wind, that for their gaudinefs

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Struggles to kifs them.”

The fenfe of the paffage, however, collectively taken, is this.Where the triumphant flutter of the Norweyan ftandards ventilates or cools the foldiers who had been heated through their efforts to fecure fuch numerous trophies of victory. STEEVENS.

Again, in King John:

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Mocking the air with colours idly fpread."

This paffage has perhaps been misunderstood. The meaning feems to be, not that the Norwevan banners proudly infulted the fky; but that, the standards being taken by Duncan's forces, and fixed in the ground, the colours idly flapped about, ferving only to cool the conquerors, initead of being proudly difplayed by their former poffefors. The line in K. John, therefore, is the most perfect comment on this. MALONE.

And fan our people cold."

Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Affifted by that most difloyal traitor

The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict :
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof,"
Confronted him with felf-comparifons,7
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: And, to conclude,
The victory fell on us ;-

DUN.

ROSSE. That now

Great happiness!

Sweno, the Norways' king, craves compofition; Nor would we deign him burial of his men,

5 And fan our people cold.] In all probability fome words that rendered this a complete verfe, have been omitted; a lofs more frequently to be deplored in the prefent tragedy, than perhaps in any other of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

6 Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof,] This paffage may be added to the many others, which fhow how little Shakfpeare knew of ancient mythology. HENLEY.

Our author might have been misled by Holinfhed, who, p. 567, fpeaking of King Henry V. fays-" He declared that the goddesse of battell, called Bellona," &c. &c. Shakspeare, therefore, hastily concluded that the Goddess of War was wife to the God of it.

Lapt in proof, is, defended by armour of proof. STEEVENS.

7 Confronted him with felf-comparisons,] By him, in this verse, is meant Norway; as the plain conftruction of the English requires. And the affiftance the thane of Carudor had given Norway, was underhand; (which Roffe and Angus, indeed, had difcovered, but was unknown to Macbeth;) Cawdor being in the court all this while, as appears from Angus's fpeech to Macbeth, when he meets him to falute him with the title, and infinuates his crime to be lining the rebel with hidden help and 'vantage.

with felf-comparifons,] i. e. gave him as good as he brought, fhew'd he was his equal. WARBURTON.

8 That now

Sweno, the Norways' king,] The prefent irregularity of metre induces me to believe that-Sweno was only a marginal reference,

Till he difburfed, at Saint Colmes' inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUN. No more that thane of Cawdor fhall deceive

Our bofom intereft:-Go, pronounce his death,"
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSSE. I'll fee it done.

DUN. What he hath loft, noble Macbeth hath

won.

[Exeunt.

injudiciously thrust into the text; and that the line originally ftood thus:

That now the Norways' king craves compofition. Could it have been neceffary for Roffe to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway? STEEVENS.

8 ·Saint Colmes' inch,] Colmes is to be confidered as a diffyllable.

Colmes-inch, now called Inchcomb, is a fmall ifland lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to St. Columb; called by Camden Inch Colm, or The Ifle of Columba. Some of the modern editors, without authority, read

Saint Colmes'-kill Isle:

but very erroneously; for Colmes' Inch, and Calm-kill, are two different iflands; the former lying on the eastern coaft, near the place where the Danes were defeated; the latter in the western seas, being the famous Iona, one of the Hebrides.

Holinfhed thus relates the whole circumftance: “ The Danes that efcaped, and got once to their hips, obteined of Makbeth for a great fumme of gold, that fuch of their friends as were flaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' Inch. In memorie whereof many old fepultures are yet in the faid Inch, there to be feene graven with the armes of the Danes." Inch, or Infbe, in the Irish and Erfe languages, fignifies an ifland. See Lhuyd's Archeologia. STEEVENS. 9 - pronounce his death,] The old copy, injuriously to metre, reads

-pronounce his prefent death. STEEVENS.

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