Page:Macbeth (1918) Yale.djvu/110

98 values of objects (not merely their names) distinguishes dogs according to their worth; whereby each receives an individual title [as distinguished] from the bill or catalogue that writes them all down merely as dogs.

malice. This word often meant not ill-will, but the power to enforce one's will; and it was sometimes used with no evil sense. Thus the 'malice' of an army was its attacking power. Macbeth seems to mean simply his capacity for overcoming difficulties. So in line 32 'malice domestic' means not a spirit of disaffection, but the armed power of civil insurrection. But in either of these passages there may be also a shade of the more usual meaning of the word.

bond. This may mean Banquo's lease of life, referring to 'copy' in line 38; but more probably it means the promise of fate that Banquo's children should be kings.

The sense is: A feast does not seem freely given, unless the host often declares (vouches), while it is in progress, that 'tis given with welcome; mere feeding is best done at home; away from home, the sauce to meat is ceremony.

Macbeth means that, if the dead will not stay buried, our bones will be consumed by birds of prey, and only then will find their resting-place.

baby of a girl. The word 'baby' was sometimes used, even of a grown person, for 'pet' or 'darling.' A 'girl's pet' would be a molly-coddle. But possibly the whole phrase is merely an intensive expression for 'girl'; as we say 'chit of a child' or 'monster of a man.' There is room also for divers other conjectural interpretations.

strange to. 'Unfamiliar with,' hence 'uncertain of.' Macbeth means: You make me uncertain even of my own character (i.e.,