As two spent swimmers, that do cling together

And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald-
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him-from the western isles

Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;

8. two] to Warb.

9. Macdonwald] Macdonnel FF3 F. Macdonel Pope +, Cap. Macdonal Johns.

11. villanies] Villaines FF3.

measure.

13. Of] With Han.

10

gallowglasses] Gallow glasses F FF Gallowgrosses F ̧.

is] was Pope, +.

8. spent] JENNENS. 'Tis probable Sh. wrote 'xpert, cutting off the e to make it Spent can here have no meaning; for the simile is drawn from two persons swimming for a trial of their skill, and as they approach near the goal, they are supposed to cling together and strive to hinder each other in their progress; an operation inconsistent with their being tired and spent, but well agreeing with their being expert in their art.

9. art] CLARENDON. That is, 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.'

9. Macdonwald] STEEVENS. Holinshed has Macdowald.

MALONE. So also the Scottish Chronicles. Sh. might have got the name from Holinshed's account of the murder of King Duff by Donwald.

10. to that] ABBOTT, 186. The radical meaning of to is motion towards. Hence addition. Further, motion with a view to,' 'for an end,' &c. This is, of course, still common before verbs, but the Elizabethans used to in this sense before nouns. In the present case 'For to that' to that end.

13. Of] ABBOTT, ? 171. Of is used not merely of the agent but also of the instrument. This is most common with verbs of construction, and of filling; because in construction and filling the result is not merely effected with the instrument, but proceeds out of it. We still retain of with verbs of construction and adjectives of fulness, but the Elizabethans retained of with verbs of fulness also, as in the present instance.

CLARENDON. Compare Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Bk. ii, 22, % 15: He is invested of a precedent disposition.'

13. kerns...gallowglasses] BoSWELL. The Galloglas succedeth the Horseman, and hee is commonly armed with a scull, a shirt of maile, and a Galloglas axe; his service in the field is neither good against horsemen, nor able to endure an encounter of pikes, yet the Irish do make great account of them. The Kerne ['Kernes.' COLLIER] of Ireland are next in request, the very drosse and scum of the country, a generation of villaines not worthy to live; these be they that live by robbing and spoyling the poor countreyman, that maketh him many times to buy bread to give unto them, though he want for himself and his poore children. These are they that are ready to run out with everie rebell, and these are the verie hags of hell, fit for nothing but for the gallows.'-Barnabie Riche's New Irish Prognostication, p. 37.

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,

14. damned quarrel ] Johns, damned quarry Ff, Pope, Theob. Sing. Knt,

Coll. Hal. Clarke. damped quarry Jack

son.

COLLIER. Boswell was not aware that this is only a reprint, with a different titlepage, of Riche's 'Description of Ireland,' 1610.

DYCE (Gloss). Jamieson gives 'Kerne. A foot-soldier armed with a dart or a skean.

"Then ne'er let the gentle Norman blude

Grow cald for highland Kerne."—[Scott's] Antiquary iii, 224.'

Again (sub Galloglach') he has 'Kerns is merely another form of cateranes.' HUNTER (ii, 165). The two following quotations seem to give a clearer account of them than we find at present in the notes:

'Coyne and liveri is this; there will come a Kerne or Galliglas, whiche be the Irish soldiers, to lie in the churl's house; whiles he is there he wil be master of the house, he wil not only have meat, but money also, allowed him, and at his departure the best things he shall see in the churl's house, be it linnen, cloth, a shirt, mantle, or such like. Thus the churl is eaten up, so that if dearth fall on the country where he dwelleth, he should be the first starved, not being master of his own.-A Letter sent by J. B., gentleman, unto his very friend, Master R. C., esquire, wherein is contained a large discourse of the peopling and inhabiting the country called Ardes, and other adjacent, in the North of Ireland, and taken in hand by Sir Thomas Smith, &c. 1572.'

In latter times, as Ware, Antiq. c. 12, p. 57, judiciously remarks, their foot [speaking of the Scots of the Milesian race, the ancient inhabitants of Ireland] were of two sorts, the heavy, and light armed; the first were called Galloglachs, armed with a helmet and coat of mail, bound with iron rings, and wore a long sword. They fought also with a most keen axe, after the manner of the Gauls, mentioned by Marcellinus; their light-armed infantry, called Keherns, fought with bearded javelins and short daggers, named skeyns.-Dissertation on the Antient History of Ireland, Dublin, 1753, p. 70. WHITE (Note on 2 Hen. VI: IV, ix, 26: I am inclined to think that the s is superfluous in Kernes,' and that Kern' or 'Kerne' is the plural form). In support whereof see these passages: These Curlewes are mountains full of dangerous passages, especially when the Kern take a stomach and a pride to enter into action,' &c.—The Glory of England, I, ch. xvii. The Description of Ireland. Then [in time of war] doe they retire under the covert of castles....lying altogether in one roome, both to prevent robberies of Kern and spoile by Wolves.'-Ibid. The name of Galliglas is [1610] in a manner extinct, but of Kern in great reputation, as serving them,' &c.-Ibid. 'They [the Irish] are desperate in revenge, and their Kerne think no man dead untill his head be off.'-Ibid.

CLARENDON (Note on Rich. II: II, i, 156). The derivation of the word Kern is doubtful, perhaps from cearn, 'man,' in old Gaelic and Irish (Webster). Spenser, p. 370, uses kerne' as plural: The Irish hubub, which their kerne use at their first encounter.' Ware (Antiq. of Ireland, p. 31) says that the kerns were light-armed, having only darts, daggers, or knives, while the gallowglasses had helmet, coat of mail, long sword, and axe.

[See V, vii, 17. Ed.]

13. is] LETTSOM. Read, with Pope, was;' the corruption was caused by 'Do' just above.

14. quarrel] JOHNSON. I am inclined to read quarrel, which was formerly used for cause, or for the occasion of a quarrel.

STEEVENS. This word occurs in Holinshed's relation of this very fact, and may be regarded as sufficient proof of its having been the term here employed by Sh. [See Appendix, p. 360. ED.] Besides Macdonwald's quarry (i. e. game) must have con

Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:

all's] all Pope, +, Lettsom.

15

15. a rebel's] the rebel's Han. sisted of Duncan's friends, and would the speaker then have applied the epithet damned to them?

MALONE. Again in this play, IV, iii, 137, 'our warranted quarrel; the exact opposite of damned quarrel. Bacon in his Essays uses the word in the same sense: Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will.'

BOSWELL. It should be recollected, however, that quarry means not only game, but also an arrow, an offensive weapon. We might say without objection 'that For

tune smiled on a warrior's sword.'

DYCE. This note of Boswell's would almost seem to have been written in ridicule of the commentators.

HEATH. Quarry here means the slaughter and depredations made by the rebel. Thus in IV, iii, 206, Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,' &c.

DYCE. If the passage in IV, iii, 206 is to be considered as parallel with the present, and 'his quarry' means 'the slaughter and depredations made by the rebel,' must we not understand the quarry of these murder'd deer' to mean 'the quarry made by these murder'd deer'?

STRUTT. Quarry signifies that harvest of spoil which Macdonwald with his own hand was reaping in the field of battle.

KNIGHT. We conceive that quarry is the word used by Sh. We have it in the same sense in Cor. I, i, 202; the 'damned quarry' being the doomed army of kernes and gallowglasses, who, although fortune deceitfully smiled on them, fled before the sword of Macbeth and became his quarry-his prey.

DYCE. How, on earth, could his' mean Macbeth's? Surely, it must have escaped Knight that the name of Macbeth has not yet been mentioned in this scene! Singer (Sh. Vindicated, &c. p. 250) is also a defender of the old lection: The epithet "damned" is inapplicable to quarrel in the sense which it here bears of condemned' [which I am convinced it does not bear here]. Collier himself says that quarry 'gives an obvious and striking meaning much more forcible than quarrel.' The note by Collier ad 1. to which Singer approvingly refers, is 'His damned quarry, i. e. His army doomed, or damned, to become the "quarry" or prey of his enemies,' as forced an explanation as well can be, for his quarry' could only signify HIS OWN quarry or prey.

ELWIN, Fortune smiled, not upon Macdonwald's quarry, which would necessarily denote his foe, but upon his quarrel only; and the deceitful smile that she thus bestowed upon an illegal cause calls forth the aptly opprobrious epithet that is applied to her. No explanation can justify the denomination of Macdonwald's army as his own quarry.

COLLIER (Note on Cor. I, i, 202). 'Quarry' generally means a heap of dead game, and Bullokar, in his English Expositor' (as quoted by Malone), 1616, says also that 'a quarry among hunters signifieth the reward given to hounds after they have hunted, or the venison which is taken by hunting.'

CLARENDON. Fairfax, in his trans. of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, uses 'quarry' as well as 'quarrel' for the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow.

15. Show'd] MALONE. The meaning is that Fortune, while she smiled on him, deceived him.

For brave Macbeth,-well he deserves that name,—
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion, carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

19. Like...minion] One line, Steev. Var. Sing. Dyce, Walker, Sta. The rest of the line lost, Ktly conj.

carved] Rowe ii. carv'd Ff. 20. he] he had Pope, +, (—Johns.) Cap.

slave;] slave, with Vengeance at his side Ktly conj.

21.

Which ne'er] Rowe ii.

2 3'

20

Which

nev'r FFF. Which never F, Rowe i, Ktly. Who ne'er Pope, +. And ne'er Cap. Steev. Sing. Dyce ii. When he ne'er Nicholson.*

RITTER. Compare King John III, i, 56.
Macbeth disdained her, and conquered not by her aid, but as valour's minion.

Because Fortune dallied with the rebels

15. all's too weak] HUNTER. It should be 'all-too-weak,' an old idiom expiring in the time of Sh.; that is, Fortune was all too-weak, a connection which is lost in the present reading.

SINGER (ed. 2). Milton has all-to-ruffled, where all-to is merely augmentative. I doubt whether change is necessary here, as the old reading is perfectly intelligible. WHITE. As, a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head and all-to brake his scull.'-Judges ix, 53.

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

19. Like...minion] MITFORD. We consider Disdaining fortune' and 'like valour's minion' to be two readings of the same line. The latter was written on the margin opposite to that line, and, by the blunder of the printer, was inserted below. We also think this marginal reading to be Sh.'s second and better thought, and that it ought to stand in the place of Disdaining fortune.'

20. Till...slave] ELWIN (p. iii). The abrupt curtness of a verse brings the recital to a sudden check, where the progress of the combatant is temporarily arrested by the opposition of a potent foe; graphically imaging this phase of the action recounted, and indicating the fitting pause to be there observed by the narrator.

ABBOTT, 511. Single lines with two or three accents are frequently interspersed amid the ordinary verses of five accents. In the present instance this irregular line is explained by the haste and excitement of the speaker. This is also illustrated by line 42 in this same scene.

21. Which ne'er] DYCE (ed. 1). If 'Which' be right, it is equivalent to 'Who' (i. e. Macbeth).

DYCE (ed. 2). Which' in the Folio was evidently repeated, by a mistake of the scribe or compositor, from the commencement of the third line above.

CLARENDON. There is some incurable corruption of the text here.

6

21. shook hands] CLARENDON. Mr J. Bullock suggests, And ne'er 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

Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
Dun. O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

22. nave] nape Warb. Han. H. Rowe.

22

chaps] Reed (1803). chops Ff.

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 handes with chastitie.' But it is probable that some words are omitted, and that Macbeth' is the antecedent to 'Which.'

22. nave] WARBURTON. We seldom hear of such terrible blows given and received but by giants and miscreants in Amadis de Gaule. Besides, it must be a strange awkward stroke that could unrip him upwards from the navel to the chaps. Sh. certainly wrote nape.

H. ROWE. I should have been sorry if any of my puppets had used 'nave' for 'nape.' The rage and hatred of Macbeth (odium internecinum) is here finely depicted by his not shaking hands with Macdonel, or even wishing him farewell' when dying.

STEEVENS. The old reading is certainly the true one, being justified by a passage in Dido, Queene of Carthage, by T. Nash, 1594: Then from the navel to the throat at once He ript old Priam.' So likewise in an ancient MS. entitled The Boke of Huntyng that is cleped Mayster of Game, cap. v.: Som men haue sey hym slitte a man fro the kne up to the brest, and slee hym all starke dede at o strok.'

BOSWELL. In Shadwell's Libertine: I will rip you from the navel to the chin. KEMBLE (Essay in Answer to Remarks, &c. p. 16, note, 1817). That wounds may be thus inflicted is clear on the authority of a very ancient, and of a very modern writer:

Vedi come storpiato è Maometto:
Dinanzi a me sen'va piangendo Ali,

Fesso nel volto dal mento al ciuffetto.'-Dante. Inferno, c. xxviii, v. 31.

Charles Ewart, sergeant of the Scots Greys, in describing his share in the battle of Waterloo, thus writes in a letter dated Rouen, June 18th, 1815: ‘— after which I was attacked by one of their lancers, who threw his lance at me, but missed the mark, by throwing it off with my sword by my right side; then I cut him from the chin upwards, which went through his teeth,' &c.-The Battle of Waterloo, &c. By. a Near Observer, 1816.

MAGINN (Sh. Papers, p. 172). If we adopt Warburton's emendation the action could hardly be termed unseaming; and the wound is made intentionally horrid to suit the character of the play.

CLARENDON. This word is not found, so far as we know, 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. Steevens's citation from Nash gives great support to the old reading.

24. cousin] CLARENDON. Macbeth and Duncan were first cousins, being both grandsons of King Malcolm.