—The Thane of Cawdor lives;
Why do you dress me in his borrow'd robes?
Rosse and Angus, who were the messengers that, in the second scene, informed the king of the assistance given by Cawdor to the invader, having lost, as well as Macbeth, all memory of what they had so lately seen and related, make this answer,
—Whether he was
Combin'd with Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and 'vantage, or with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not.
Neither Rosse knew what he had just reported, nor Macbeth what he had just done. This seems not to be one of the faults that are to be imputed to the transcribers, since, though the inconsistency of Rosse and Angus might be removed, by supposing that their names are erroneously inserted, and that only Rosse brought the account of the battle, and only Angus was sent to compliment Macbeth, yet the forgetfulness of Macbeth cannot be palliated, since what he says could not have been spoken by any other.
NOTE VII.
My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man,—
The single state of man seems to be used by Shakespeare for an individual, in opposition to a commonwealth, or conjunct body of men.
NOTE VIII.
Macbeth.—Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
I suppose every reader is disgusted at the tautology in this passage, time and the hour, and will, therefore, willingly believe that Shakespeare wrote it thus,