FullReads

Birthdom for birthright is formed by the same analogy with masterdom in this play, signifying the privileges or rights of a master.

Perhaps it might be birth-dame for mother; let us stand over our mother that lies bleeding on the ground.

NOTE XL.

Malcolm.
Now we’ll together; and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel!

The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should, at least, be pointed thus:

–And the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [pro justicia divina,] answerable to the cause.

But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,

–and the chance, O goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

This some of his transcribers wrote with a small o, which another imagined to mean of. If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, and O! thou sovereign goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to our cause.

NOTE XLI.

ACT V. SCENE III.

Macbeth.
Bring me no more reports, let them fly all,
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman?–
–fly false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures.

In the first line of this speech, the proper pauses are not observed in the present editions.

Bring me no more reports–let them fly all–

Tell me not any more of desertions–Let all my subjects leave me–I am safe till, etc.

The reproach of epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective, uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury.

NOTE XLII.

Macbeth.
I have liv’d long enough: my way of life
Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf.

As there is no relation between the way of life, and fallen into the sear, I am inclined to think, that the W is only an M inverted, and that it was originally written, my May of life.

I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days, but I am without those comforts that should succeed the sprightliness of bloom, and support me in this melancholy season.

NOTE XLIII.

SCENE IV.

Malcolm.
‘Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

The impropriety of the expression advantage to be given, instead of advantage given, and the disagreeable repetition of the word given in the next line incline me to read,

–where there is a’vantage to be gone,
Both more and less have given him the revolt.

Advantage or ‘vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, signified opportunity.

More and less is the same with greater and less. So in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the more and the less.

NOTE XLIV.

SCENE V.

Macbeth.--Wherefore was that cry?

Seyton. The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth. She should (a)have, died hereafter:

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of (b)recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow.--