SCENE II. Fife. A Room in Macduff's Cafile. Enter Lady MACDUFF, her fon, and Rosse. L. MACD. What had he done, to make him fly the land? ROSSE. You must have patience, madam. He had none : L. MACD. His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.* ROSSE. You know not, Whether it was his wifdom, or his fear. L. MACD. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His manfion, and his titles, in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not; He wants the natural touch:' for the poor wren,* The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Our fears do make us traitors.] i. e. our flight is confidered as an evidence of our guilt. STEEVENS. 3 natural touch:] Natural fenfibility. He is not touched with natural affection. JOHNSON. So, in an ancient MS. play, intitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy: How fhe's beguil'd in him! "There's no fuch natural touch, search all his bofom." STEEVENS. the poor wren, &c.] The fame thought occurs in the third part of K. Henry VI: 66 doves will peck, in fafety of their brood. STEEVENS, Her young ones in her neft, against the owl. ROSSE. My dearest coz', I pray you, school yourself: But, for your husband, He is noble, wife, judicious, and best knows The fits o'the season. I dare not speak much fur ther: But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, 5 The fits o'the feafon.] The fits of the feafon fhould appear to be, from the following paffage in Coriolanus, the violent disorders of the feafon, its convulfions: 66 — but that "The violent fit o'th' times craves it as phyfick." STEEVENS. Perhaps the meaning is, what is most fitting to be done in every conjuncture. ANONYMOUS. when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves;] i. e. we think ourselves innocent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourfelves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters it to, And do not know't ourselves : But fure they did know what they said, that the state esteemed them traitors. WARBURTON. Rather, when we are confidered by the state as traitors, while at the fame time we are unconscious of guilt: when we appear to others fo different from what we really are, that we feem not to know ourselves. MALONE. From what we fear,] To hold rumour fignifies to be governed by the authority of rumour. WARBURTON. I rather think to hold means, in this place, to believe, as we say, I hold fuch a thing to be true, i. e. I take it, I believe it to be jo. Thus, in K. Henry VIII: Did you not of late days hear, &c. "1. Gen. Yes, but held it not." But float upon a wild and violent fea, Each way, and move.—I take my leave of you: Shall not be long but I'll be here again: Things at the worst will cease, or elfe climb upward To what they were before.-My pretty coufin, Bleffing upon you! L. MACD. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherlefs. ROSSE. I am fo much a fool, fhould I stay longer, It would be my difgrace, and your discomfort: I take my leave at once. L. MACD. [Exit ROSSE. Sirrah, your father's dead;" And what will you do now? How will you live? SON. As birds do, mother. L. MACD. The fenfe of the whole paffage will then be: The times are cruel when our fears induce us to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumoured or reported abroad; and yet at the fame time, as we live under a tyrannical government where will is fubftituted for law, we know not what we have to fear, because we know not when we offend. Or: When we are led by our fears to believe every rumour of danger we hear, yet are not confcious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed with thofe fears. A paffage like this occurs in K. John: "Poffefs'd with rumours, full of idle dreams, "Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear." This is the best I can make of the paffage. STEEVENS. 8 Each way, and move.-] Perhaps the poet wrote-And each way move. If they floated each way, it was needlefs to inform us that they moved. The words may have been cafually tranfpofed, and erroneously pointed. STEEVENS. 9 Sirrah, your father's dead;] Sirrah in our auther's time was not a term of reproach, but generally ufed by mafters to fervants, parents to children, &c. So before, in this play, Macbeth fays to his fervant, "Sirrah, a word with you: attend thofe men our pleasure?" MALONE. L. MACD. Poor bird! thou'dft never fear the net, nor lime, The pit-fall, nor the gin. SON. Why fhould I, mother? Poor birds they are not fet for. My father is not dead, for all your faying. L. MACD. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father? SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband? L. MACD. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. SON. Then you'll buy 'em to fell again. L. MACD. Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and yet i'faith, With wit enough for thee. SON. Was my father a traitor, mother? SON. What is a traitor? L. MACD. Why, one that fwears and lies. L. MACD. Every one that does fo, is a traitor, and must be hang'd. SON. And muft they all be hang'd, that fwear and lie? L. MACD. Every one. SON. Who muft hang them? L. MACD. Why, the honeft men. SON. Then the liars and fwearers are fools: for there are liars and fwearers enough to beat the honeft men, and hang up them. L. MACD. Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father? SON. If he were dead, you'd weep for him: if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father. L. MACD. Poor prattler! how thou talk'ft! Enter a Meffenger. MESS. Blefs you, fair dame! I am not to you known, Though in your state of honour I am perfect." I doubt, fome danger does approach you nearly: will take a homely man's advice, If you Be not found here; hence, with your little ones. Which is too nigh your perfon. Heaven preferve you! I dare abide no longer. 2 [Exit Meffenger. in your fate of honour I am perfect.] i. e. I am perfectly acquainted with your rank of honour. So, in the old book that treateth of the Lyfe of Virgil, &c. bl. 1. no date: when Virgil faw, he looked in his boke of negromancy, wherein which he was perfit." Again, in The Play of the four P's, 1569: "Pot. Then tell me this: Are you perfit in drinking? 3 To do worse to you, were fell cruelty,] To do warfe is to let her and her children be destroyed without warning. JOHNSON. Mr. Edwards explains thefe words differently." To do warfe to you (fays he) fignifies,-to fright you more, by relating all the circumftances of your danger; which would detain you fo long that you could not avoid it. To do worfe to you, not to disclose to you the perilous fituation you The meaning, however, may be, are in, from a foolish apprehenfion of alarming you, would be fell cruelty. Or the meffenger may only mean, to do more than alarm you by this difagreeable intelligence,-to do you any actual and bodily harm, were fell cruelty. MALONE. |