—to all, and him, we thirst, And hail to all.
Macbeth, being about to salute his company with a bumper, declares that he includes Banquo, though absent, in this act of kindness, and wishes health to all. Hail or heil for health was in such continual use among the good-fellows of ancient times, that a drinker was called a was-heiler, or a wisher of health, and the liquor was termed was-heil, because health was so often wished over it. Thus in the lines of Hanvil the monk,
Jamque vagante scypho, discincto gutture was-heil
Ingeminant was-heil: labor est plus perdere vini
Quam sitis.—
These words were afterwards corrupted into wassail and wassailer.
NOTE XXXII.
Macbeth.—Can such things be,
And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think, you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheek,
When mine is blanched with fear.
This passage, as it now stands, is unintelligible, but may be restored to sense by a very slight alteration:
—You make me strange
Ev'n to the disposition that I know.
Though I had before seen many instances of your courage, yet it now appears in a degree altogether new. So that my long acquaintance with your disposition does not hinder me from that astonishment which novelty produces.