Vikram Seth - more questions

[Lawrence J. McCrea]

In message Fri, 21 Mar 1997 13:21:59 GMT,
  Jan.Dvorak at ff.cuni.cz (Jan Dvorak)  writes:

> 1. p. 1109 (Chapter 16.7, 2nd page)
>
> 	Amit's face grew troubled. 'It's better than spending my life doing
> the law like my father and grandfather before me. And the main reason is
> that I often like my work when it's done - it's just the doing that is so
> tedious. With a short poem there's the inspiration of course. But with
> this novel I have to whip myself to my desk - To work, to work, Macbeth
> doth shirk.'
>
> Now, does the sentence 'To work, to work, Macbeth doth shirk.' refer to
> any generally known piece of English literature?

The "quotation" is a parody of Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3 (line 30)-- "A drum,
a drum! Macbeth doth come." (spoken by one of the witches).

                                      Yours sincerely,
                                           Lawrence McCrea