True, my lord. Know, Banquo was your enemy. 2 Mur. Macb. So is he mine: and in such bloody distance,1 That every minute of his being thrusts We shall, my lord, Perform what you command us. 1 Mur. Macb. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most, Though our lives I will advise you where to plant yourselves: SCENE II. The same. Another Room. Enter For a few words. 1 Bloody distance' is mortal enmity. Serv. Madam, I will. Lady M. [Exit. Nought's had, all's spent, Where our desire is got without content: How now, my lord? why do you keep alone, Macb. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it; Both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep That shake us nightly: Better be with the dead, In restless ecstacy. Duncan is in his grave, Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, Lady M. Come on, gentle my lord; Macb. So shall I, love; And so, I pray, be you: let your remembrance' Makes wing to the rooky wood :14 confirms this explanation. Many of Shakspeare's al 2 i. e. the exact time when you may look out or lie in lusions are to legal customs. wait for him. That I require a clearness." 11 That is, the beetle borne along the air by its shards or scaly wings. Steevens had the merit of first showing that shard or sherd was the ancient word for a scale or 'Always remembering that I must stand clear of sus- outward covering, a case or sheath; as appears from the picion." 4 Sorriest, most melancholy. 5 The first folio reads peuce; the second folio place. 6 Ecstacy, in its general sense, signifies any violent following passage cited by him from Gower's Confessio Amantis, b. vi. fol. 139: She sigh, her thought a dragon tho, emotion or alienation of the mind. The old dictionaries | And again in book v. speaking of a serpent:— render it a trance, a dampe, a crampe. 7 Remembrance is here employed as a quadrisyl lable. & Present him eminence, do him the highest honour. 9 The sense of this passage (though clouded by metaphor, and perhaps by omission) appears to be as follows:-'It is a sign that our royalty is unsafe, when it must descend to flattery, and stoop to dissimulation.' The present arrangement of the text is by Malone, 10 Ritson has justly observed, that Nature's copy' alludes to copyhold tenure, in which the tenant holds an estate for life, having nothing but the copy of the rolls of his lord's court to show for it. A life-hold tenure may well be said to be not eternal. The subsequent speech of Macbeth, in which he says, Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond.' 'He was so sherded all about, 12 i. e. blinding: to seel up the eyes of a hawk was to Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray.' 14 By the expression, light thickens, Shakspeare means that it is growing dark. Thus, in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess : Fold your flocks up, for the air 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Already his great course hath run.' Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, has:the welkin thicks apace.' Notwithstanding Mr. Steevens's ingenious attempts to explain the rooky wood otherwise, it surely means no Lady M. My royal lord, You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold, That is not often vouch'd while 'tis a making, Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, a Servant with a "Tis given with welcome: To feed were best at 2 Mur. 3 Mur. Torch preceding them. 1 Mur. Stand to't. Let it come down. [Assaults BANQUO. Ban. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly; Thou may'st revenge._ O slave! [Dies. Fleance and Servant escape.3 3 Mur. Who did strike out the light? 1 Mur. Was't not the way? 3'Mur. There's but one down: the son is fled. 2 Mur. We have lost best half of our affair. 1 Mur. Well, let's away, and say how much is done. SCENE IV. A Room of State in the Palace. A Banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSSE, LENOX, Lords, and Attend ants. Macb. You know your own degrees, sit down: at first4 And last, the hearty welcome. Lords. Thanks to your majesty. Our hostess keeps her state; but, in best time, Lady M. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends; For my heart speaks, they are welcome. Enter first Murderer, to the door home; From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it. Mach. Sweet remembrancer Now, good digestion wait on appetite, May it please your highness, sit? [The Ghost of BANQUO rises, and sits in MACBETH's place. Macb. Here had we now our country's honour roof'd, Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present; Rosse. His absence, sir, Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your high Mach. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' Banquo, who was equally concerned with Macbeth in thanks: thing more than the wood inhabited by rooks. The poet has shown himself a close observer of nature, in marking the return of these birds to their nest-trees when the day is drawing to a close. I See note on King Richard III. Act iv. Se. 1. 2 i. e. they who are set down in the list of guests, and expected to supper. 3 Fleance, after the assassination of his father, fled into Wales, where, by the daughter of the prince of that country, he had a son named Walter, who afterwards became Lord High Steward of Scotland, and from thence assumed the name of Sir Walter Steward. From him, in a direct line, King James I. was descended; in compliment to whom Shakspeare has chosen to describe the murder of Duncan, as innocent of that crime. 4At first and last." Johnson, with great plausibility, proposes to read, To first and last.' 5Keeps her state,' continues in her chair of state A state was a royal chair with a canopy over it. 6 "Tis better thee without than he within,' that is, am better pleased that the blood of Banque should be o.. thy face than in his body. He is put for him. 7.With twenty trenched gashes on his head.' From the French trancher, to cut. 8 Macbeth betrays himself by an overacted regard for Banquo, of whose absence from the feast he affects to complain, that he may not be suspected of knowing the cause, though at the same time he very unguardedly drops an allusion to that cause. May I seems to imply here a wish, not an assertion. 9 i. e. as speedily as thought can be exerted. Lady M You shall offend him, and extend his passion;1 Macb. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you? Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. Ere human statute purg'd the general weal; I do forget:- all; Then I'll sit down:-Give me some wine, fill full : I'll drink to the general joy of the whole table, Ghost rises. And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss ; Would, he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all." Lords. Our duties, and the pledge. Macb. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Lady M. Macb. What man dare, I dare: With most admir'd disorder. Can such things De, Rosse. What sights, my lord? Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; Question enrages him: at once, good night:- Len. Good night, and better health Attend his majesty! Lady M. A kind good night to all! [Exeunt Lords and Attendants. Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood; Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have, By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brougnt forth The secret'st man of blood.-What is the night? Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. Mach. How say'st thou,14 that Macduff denies Lady M. Think of this, good peers, Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other; 1 i. e. prolong his suffering, make his fit longer. 3 Impostors to true fear." Warburton's learning serves him not here; his explanation is erroneous. Malone idly suggests that to may be used for of. Mason has hit the meaning, though his way of accounting for it is wrong. It seems strange that none of the commentators should be aware that this was a form of elliptic expression, commonly used even at this day, in the phrase 'this is nothing to them,' i. e. in comparison to them. 4 The same thought occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. viii. :- 'Be not entombed in the raven or the kight. 5 Shakspeare uses to muse for to wonder, to be in amaze. 6 That is, we desire to drink' all good wishes to all. 7 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes.' Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, explains Speculation, the inward knowledge or beholding of a thing.' Thus, in the 115th Psalm:-'Eyes have they, but see not.' 3 Hyrcan for Hyrcanian was the mode of expression at that time. 9 Pope changed inhabit, the reading of the old copy, to inhibit, and Steevens altered then to thee, so that in the late editions this line runs : "If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me The baby of a girl.' To inhibit is to forbid, a meaning which will not suit With the context of the passage. The original text is Returning were as tedious as go o'er: sufficiently plain, and much in Shakspeare's manner. 'Dare me to the desert with thy sword; if then I do not meet thee there; if trembling I stay in my castle, or any habitation; if I then hide my head, or dwell in any place through fear, protest me the baby of a girl. If it had not been for the meddling of Pope and others, this passage would have hardly required a note. 10 Overcome us,' pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer's cloud passes unregarded. 11 i. e. possess. 12 You strike me with amazement, make me scarce know myself, now when I think that you can behold such sights unmoved,' &c. 13 i. e. auguries, divinations; formerly spelt augures, as appears by Florio in voce augurio. By understood relations, probably, connected circumstances relating to the crime are meant. I am inclined to think that the passage should be pointed thus: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak In all the modern editions we have it erroneously augurs. Magot-pie is the original name of the magpie: stories such as Shakspeare alludes to are to be found in Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and in Goulart's Admirable Histories. 14 i. e. what say'st thou to this circumstance? Thus, in Macbeth's address to his wife, on the first appearance of Banquo's ghost!- behold! look! lo! how say you " Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use:- 1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate? you look Hec. Have I not reason, beldames, as you are, Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth, In riddles and affairs of death; And I, the mistress of your charms, Meet me i' the morning; thither he Your vessels, and your spells, provide, Great business must be wrought ere noon: There hangs a vaporous drop profound;" Is mortal's chiefest enemy. Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c.' Hark, I am call'd; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. [Exit. 1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Enter LENOx and another Lord. Was pitied of Macbeth;-marry, he was dead :--- For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late. find The son of Duncan, Lord. Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights; Len. Sent he to Macduff? Lord. He did: and with an absolute, Sir, not I, The cloudy messenger turns me his back, And hums; as who should say, You'll rue the time That clogs me with this answer. Len. And that well might Len. My former speeches have but hit your Under a hand accurs'd!12 thoughts, Which can interpret further: only, I say, 1 i. e. examined nicely. 2 You lack the season of all natures, sleep.' Johnson explains this, You want sleep, which seasons or gives the relish to all natures. Indiget somni vita condimenti. So in All's Well that Ends Well: ''Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.' It has, however, been suggested that the meaning is, You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require.' I incline to the last interpretation. 3 The editions previous to Theobald's read:'We're but young indeed.' The initiate fear is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by hard use or frequent repetition of it. 4 Shakspeare has been unjustly censured for introducing Hecate among the vulgar witches, and consequent ly for confounding ancient with modern superstitions. But the poet has elsewhere shown himself well acquainted with the classical connexion which this deity had with witchcraft. Reginald Scot, in his discovery, mentions it as the common opinion of all writers, that witches were supposed to have nightly meetings with Herodias and the Pagan gods,' and that 'in the night time they ride abroad with Diana, the goddess of the Pagans, &c. Their dame or chief leader seems always to have been an old Pagan, as 'the Ladie Sibylla, Minerva, or Diana.' 5 Steevens remarks that Shakspeare's mythological knowledge on this occasion appears to have deserted him; for as Hecate is only one of the three names be Lord. I'll send my prayers with him! [Exeunt. longing to the same goddess, she could not properly be employed in one character to catch a drop that fell from her in another. In a Midsummer Night's Dream, however, the poet was sufficiently aware of her threefold capacity :-'fairies, that do run By the triple Hecat's team.' The vaporous drop profound seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment. 6 Slights are arts, subtle practices. 7 This song is to be found entire in The Witch, by Middleton. 8 Who cannot want the thought;' &c. The sense requires who can want the thought ; but it is probably a lapse of the poet's pen. 9 Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives.' The construction is:-Free our feasts and banquets from bloody knives.' 10 Johnson says, 'Free may be either honours freely bestowed, not purchased by crimes; or honours without slavery, without dread of a tyrant. I have shown in a note on Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4. that free mean pure, chaste, consequently unspotted, which may be its meaning here. Free also meant noble. See note on the Second Part of King Henry VI. Act iii. Sc. 1. 11 Exasperate, for exasperated. " 12 The construction is, to this our country, suffering under a hand accursed.' 3 Witch. Harper cries:-'Tis time, 'tis time. 1 Witch. Round about the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw.- All. Double, double toil and trouble; 2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake, All. Double, double toil and trouble; 3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; Witch's mummy; maw and gulfs Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat; and slips of yew, Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab : Add thereto a tiger's chaudron," For the ingredients of our cauldron. All. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble. 2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. Enter HECATE, and the other three Witches. Hec. O, well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i' the gains. And now about the cauldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring, Enchanting all that you put in. 1Enter the three Witches.' Dr. Johnson has called the reader's attention to the judgment with which Shakspeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions.' 2 Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.' The urchin or hedgehog, like the toad, for its solitariness, the ugliness of its appearance, and from a popular belief that it sucked or poisoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic system; and its shape was sometimes supposed to be assumed by mischievous elves. Hence it was one of the plagues of Caliban in che Tempest. 3 Coldest stone. The old copy reads cold stone;" the emendation is Steevens's. Mr. Boswell thinks that the alteration was unnecessary. 4 Sweltered. This word is employed to signify that the animal was moistened with its own cold exudations. 5 The blind-worm is the slow-worm. 6 Gulf, the throat. SONG.10 Black spirits and white, 2 Witch. By the pricking of my thumbs,'' Something wicked this way comes:Open, locks, whoever knocks. Enter МАСВЕТН. the entire stanza is found in The Witch, by Middleton, and is there called 'A charme Song about a Vessel.' 11 By the pricking of my thumbs. It is a very ancient superstition, that all sudden pains of the body, and other sensations which could not naturally be accounted for, were presages of somewhat that was shortly to happen. 12 i. e. foaming, frothy. 13 i. e. laid flat by wind or rain. 14 Topple, tumble. 15 Germens, seeds which have begun to sprout or germinate. 16 Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten Her nine farrow.' Shakspeare probably caught this idea from the laws of Kenneth II. king of Scotland:-If a sow eate hir pigges, let hyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr flesh.'-Holinshed's History of Scot land, ed. 1577, p. 181. 17 Deftly is adroitly, dexterously. 7 To ravin according to Minshew is to devour, to eat greedily. Ravin'd, therefore, may be glutted with 18 The armed head represents symbolically Macprey. Unless, with Malone, we suppose that Shak-beth's head cut off and brought to Malcolm by Macduff. speare used ravin'd for ravenous, the passive participle for the adjective. In Horman's Vulgaria, 1519, occurs Thou art a ravenar of delycatis.' 8 Sliver is a common word in the north, where it means to cut a piece or slice. 9 i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common use in books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1597, is a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron. 10 Black spirits and white.' The original edition of this play only contains the two first words of this song; The bloody child is Macduff, untimely ripped from his mother's womb. The child, with a crown on his head and a bough in his hand, is the royal Malcolm, who urdered his soldiers to hew them down a bough, and bear it before them to Dunsinane. 19 Silence was necessary during all incantations. 20 Spirits thus evoked were supposed to be impatient of being questioned. 21 Harp'd, touched on a passion as a harper touches a string. |