The arguments by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
This topick, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene, with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier, and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman, without great impatience.
She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duncan, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument Shakespeare, whose plan obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter.
NOTE XVII.
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' th' adage.
The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish but dares not wet her foot.
Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.
NOTE XVIII.
Will I with wine and wassel so convince.
To convince is, in Shakespeare, to overpower or subdue, as in this play:
—Their malady convinces
The great assay of art.
NOTE XIX.
—Who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
Quell is murder, manquellers being, in the old language, the term for which murderers is now used.
NOTE XX.
ACT II. SCENE II.
—Now o'er one half the world
(a)Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecat's offerings: and wither'd murther,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With (b)Tarquin's ravishing sides tow'rds his design
Moves like a ghost.—Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about;
And (c)take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.—
(a)—Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead.
That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden, in his Conquest of Mexico.
All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead,
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head:
The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,
And sleeping flowers beneath the night dews sweat.
Even lust and envy sleep!
These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately observed.
Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, that of a murderer.
(b)—Wither'd murder,
—thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing sides tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.—
This was the reading of this passage in all the editions before that of Mr. Pope, who for sides, inserted in the text strides, which Mr. Theobald has tacitly copied from him, though a more proper alteration might, perhaps, have been made. A ravishing stride is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing on his prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an image of secrecy and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the stealthy pace of a ravisher creeping into the chamber of a virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to murder, without awaking him; these he describes as moving like ghosts, whose progression is so different from strides, that it has been in all ages represented to be, as Milton expresses it,
Smooth sliding without step.
This hemistich will afford the true reading of this place, which is, I think, to be corrected thus:
—and wither'd murder,
—thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin ravishing, slides tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.
Tarquin is, in this place, the general name of a ravisher, and the sense is: Now is the time in which every one is asleep, but those who are employed in wickedness, the witch who is sacrificing to Hecate, and the ravisher, and the murderer, who, like me, are stealing upon their prey.
When the reading is thus adjusted, he wishes with great propriety, in the following lines, that the earth may not hear his steps.
(c) And take the present horror from the time.
Which now suits with it.—
I believe every one that has attentively read this dreadful soliloquy is disappointed at the conclusion, which, if not wholly unintelligible, is at least obscure, nor can be explained into any sense worthy of the author. I shall, therefore, propose a slight alteration,
—Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And talk—the present horror of the time!—
That now suits with it.—
Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by enumerating all the terrours of the night; at length he is wrought up to a degree of frenzy, that makes him afraid of some supernatural discovery of his design, and calls out to the stones not to betray him, not to declare where he walks, nor to talk.—As he is going to say of what, he discovers the absurdity of his suspicion, and pauses, but is again overwhelmed by his guilt, and concludes that such are the horrours of the present night, that the stones may be expected to cry out against him:
That now suits with it.
He observes in a subsequent passage, that on such occasions stones have been known to move. It is now a very just and strong picture of a man about to commit a deliberate murder, under the strongest convictions of the wickedness of his design.
NOTE XXI.
SCENE IV.
Len. The night has been unruly; where we lay
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i'th'air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confused events,
New-hatch'd to the woeful time.
The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night:
Some say, the earth was fev'rous, and did shake.
These lines, I think, should be rather regulated thus:
—prophesying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events.
New-hatch'd to th'woeful time, the obscure bird
Clamour'd the live-long night. Some say, the earth
Was fev'rous and did shake.
A prophecy of an event new-hatch'd, seems to be a prophecy of an event past. The term new-hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen should be new-hatch'd to the woeful time is very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the perpetration of this horrid murder.
NOTE XXII.
—Up, up, and see
The great doom's image, Malcolm, Banquo,
As from your graves rise up.—
The second line might have been so easily completed, that it cannot be supposed to have been left imperfect by the author, who probably wrote,
—Malcolm! Banquo! rise!
As from your graves rise up.—
Many other emendations, of the same kind, might be made, without any greater deviation from the printed copies, than is found in each of them from the rest.
NOTE XXIII.
Macbeth.—Here, lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood; And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature, For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore.—
An unmannerly dagger, and a dagger breech'd, or as in some editions breach'd with gore, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor can it be imagined that Shakespeare would reproach the murderer of his king only with want of manners. There are, undoubtedly, two faults in this passage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,
—Daggers
Unmanly drench'd with gore.—
I saw drench'd with the king's Mood the fatal daggers, not only instruments of murder but evidences of cowardice.
Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have substituted for it by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent inspection.
Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines, by substituting goary blood for golden blood, but it may easily be admitted, that he who could on such an occasion talk of lacing the silver skin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.
It is not improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech, considered in this light, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as if consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.
NOTE XXIV.
ACT III. SCENE II.
Macbeth.—Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that, which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he,
Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My genius is rebuk'd; (a)as, it is said,
Anthony's was by Cæsar. He chid the sisters,
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 'tis so,
For Banquo's issue have I 'fil'd my mind;
For them, the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the (b)common enemy of man,
To make them kings,—the seed of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
(c)And champion me to th' utterance!—
(a)—As, it is said,
Anthony's was by Cæsar.
Though I would not often assume the critick's privilege, of being confident where certainty cannot be obtained, nor indulge myself too far, in departing from the established reading; yet I cannot but propose the rejection of this passage, which, I believe, was an insertion of some player, that, having so much learning as to discover to what Shakespeare alluded, was not willing that his audience should be less knowing than himself, and has, therefore, weakened the author's sense by the intrusion of a remote and useless image into a speech bursting from a man wholly possessed with his own present condition, and, therefore, not at leisure to explain his own allusions to himself. If these words are taken away, by which not only the thought but the numbers are injured, the lines of Shakespeare close together without any traces of a breach.
My genius is rebuk'd. He chid the sisters.
(b)—The common enemy of man.
It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a sentiment to its original source, and, therefore, though the term enemy of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some may be pleased with being informed, that Shakespeare probably borrowed it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is known to have read.
That this remark may not appear too trivial, I shall take occasion from it to point out a beautiful passage of Milton, evidently copied from a book of no greater authority: in describing the gates of hell, Book ii. v.879, he says,
—On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
In the history of Don Bellianis, when one of the knights approaches, as I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges.
(c)—Come fate into the list, And champion me to th' utterance.—
This passage will be best explained by translating it into the language from whence the only word of difficulty in it is borrowed. Que la destinée se rende en lice, et qu'elle me donne un défi à l'outrance. A challenge or a combat a l'outrance, to extremity, was a fixed term in the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an odium internecinum, an intention to destroy each other, in opposition to trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest was only for reputation or a prize. The sense, therefore, is, Let fate, that has fore-doomed the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own decrees, which I will endeavour to invalidate, whatever be the danger.
NOTE XXV.
Macbeth. Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men;
As hounds, and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demy-wolves are cleped
All by the name of dogs.
Though this is not the most sparkling passage in the play, and though the name of a dog is of no great importance, yet it may not be improper to remark, that there is no such species of dogs as shoughs mentioned by Caius De Canibus Britannicis, or any other writer that has fallen into my hands, nor is the word to be found in any dictionary which I have examined. I, therefore, imagined that it is falsely printed for slouths, a kind of slow hound bred in the southern parts of England, but was informed by a lady, that it is more probably used, either by mistake, or according to the orthography of that time, for shocks.
NOTE XXVI.
Macbeth.—In this hour, at most,
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o'th'time,
The moment on't; for't must be done to-night,
And something from the palace.—
What is meant by the spy of the time, it will be found difficult to explain; and, therefore, sense will be cheaply gained by a slight alteration.—Macbeth is assuring the assassins that they shall not want directions to find Banquo, and, therefore, says,
I will—
Acquaint you with a perfect spy o'th'time.
Accordingly a third murderer joins them afterwards at the place of action.
Perfect is well instructed, or well informed, as in this play,
Though in your state of honour I am perfect.
Though I am well acquainted with your quality and rank.
NOTE XXVII.
SCENE IV.
2 Murderer. He needs not to mistrust, since he delivers Our offices and what we have to do, To the direction just.
Mr. Theobald has endeavoured unsuccessfully to amend this passage, in which nothing is faulty but the punctuation. The meaning of this abrupt dialogue is this: The perfect spy, mentioned by Macbeth in the foregoing scene, has, before they enter upon the stage, given them the directions which were promised at the time of their agreement; and, therefore, one of the murderers observes, that, since he has given them such exact information, he needs not doubt of their performance. Then, by way of exhortation to his associates, he cries out,
—To the direction just.
Now nothing remains but that we conform exactly to Macbeth's directions.
NOTE XXVIII.
SCENE V.
Macbeth. You know your own degrees, sit down: At first and last, the hearty welcome.
As this passage stands, not only the numbers are very imperfect, but the sense, if any can be found, weak and contemptible. The numbers will be improved by reading,
—sit down at first,
And last a hearty welcome.
But for last should then be written next. I believe the true reading is,
You know your own degrees, sit down—To first
And last the hearty welcome.
All of whatever degree, from the highest to the lowest, may be assured that their visit is well received.
NOTE XXIX
Macbeth.—There's blood upon thy face.
[—To the murderer, aside at the door.]
Murderer. 'Tis Banquo's then.
Macbeth. 'Tis better thee without, than he within.
The sense apparently requires that this passage should be read thus:
'Tis better thee without, than him within.
That is, I am more pleased that the blood of Banquo should be on thy face, than in his body.
NOTE XXX.
Lady Macbeth. O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear: [Aside to Macbeth. This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said, Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts, Impostures to true fear, would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool.
As starts can neither with propriety nor sense be called impostures to true fear, something else was undoubtedly intended by the author, who, perhaps, wrote,
—These flaws and starts,
Impostures true to fear, would well become
A woman's story.—
These symptoms of terrour and amazement might better become impostors true only to fear, might become a coward at the recital of such falsehoods, as no man could credit, whose understanding was not weakened by his terrours; tales, told by a woman over a fire on the authority of her grandam.
NOTE XXXI.
Macbeth.—Love and health to all! Then I'll sit down: give me some wine, fill full:— I drink to the general joy of the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all.—
Though this passage is, as it now stands, capable of more meanings than one, none of them are very satisfactory; and, therefore, I am inclined to read it thus:
—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.
NOTE XXXIII.
It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood,
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs, that understand relations, have
By magpies, and by choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.—
In this passage the first line loses much of its force by the present punctuation. Macbeth having considered the prodigy which has just appeared, infers justly from it, that the death of Duncan cannot pass unpunished;
It will have blood:—
then, after a short pause, declares it as the general observation of mankind, that murderers cannot escape:
—they say, blood will have blood.
Murderers, when they have practised all human means of security, are detected by supernatural directions:
Augurs, that understand relations, &c.
By the word relation is understood the connexion of effects with causes; to understand relations as an augur, is to know how those things relate to each other, which have no visible combination or dependence.
NOTE XXXIV.
SCENE VII.
Enter Lenox and another Lord.
As this tragedy, like the rest of Shakespeare's, is, perhaps, overstocked with personages, it is not easy to assign a reason, why a nameless character should be introduced here, since nothing is said that might not, with equal propriety, have been put into the mouth of any other disaffected man. I believe, therefore, that in the original copy, it was written, with a very common form of contraction, Lenox and An. for which the transcriber, instead of Lenox and Angus, set down, Lenox and another Lord. The author had, indeed, been more indebted to the transcriber's fidelity and diligence, had he committed no errours of greater importance.
NOTE XXXV.
As this is the chief scene of enchantment in the play, it is proper, in this place, to observe, with how much judgment Shakespeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions:
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
The usual form in which familiar spirits are reported to converse with witches, is that of a cat. A witch, who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakespeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the spirit of one of those witches was Grimalkin; and when any mischief was to be done, she used to bid Rutterkin go and fly; but once, when she would have sent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the countess of Rutland, instead of going or flying, he only cried mew, from whence she discovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not universal, but limited, as Shakespeare has taken care to inculcate:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced, were melancholy, fits, and loss of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakespeare's witches:
Weary sev'n nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
It was, likewise, their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have, to this day, many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Shakespeare has, accordingly, made one of his witches declare that she has been killing swine; and Dr. Harsenet observes, that, about that time, "a sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft."
Toad, that under the cold stone,
Days and nights hast thirty-one,
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
Toads have, likewise, long lain under the reproach of being by some means accessary to witchcraft, for which reason Shakespeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits Padocke, or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was seized at Tholouse, there was found at his lodgings, "ingens bufo vitro inclusus," a great toad shut in a vial, upon which those that prosecuted him "veneficium exprobrabant," charged him, I suppose, with witchcraft.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog;—For a charm, &c.
The propriety of these ingredients may be known by consulting the books
De Viribus Animalium and De Mirabilibus Mundi, ascribed to Albertus
Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover
very wonderful secrets.
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab—
It has been already mentioned, in the law against witches, that they are supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable, that Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstances of horrour. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth; the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the sow, whose blood is used, must have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius.
And now about the cauldron sing—
Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.
And, in a former part:
—weird sisters hand in hand,—
Thus do go about, about;
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine;
These two passages I have brought together, because they both seem subject to the objection of too much levity for the solemnity of enchantment, and may both be shown, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really observed by the uncivilized natives of that country. "When any one gets a fall," says the informer of Camden, "he starts up, and, turning three times to the right, digs a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a spirit in the ground, and if he falls sick in two or three days, they send one of their women that is skilled in that way to the place, where she says, I call thee from the east, west, north, and south, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the fairies, red, black, white." There was, likewise, a book written before the time of Shakespeare, describing, amongst other properties, the colours of spirits.
Many other circumstances might be particularized, in which Shakespeare has shown his judgment and his knowledge[4].
NOTE XXXVI.
SCENE II.
Macbeth. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
Thy crown does (a)sear mine eye-balls:—and thy (b)hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:—
A third is like the former.
(a) The expression of Macbeth, that the crown sears his eye-balls, is taken from the method formerly practised of destroying the sight of captives or competitors, by holding a burning bason before the eye, which dried up its humidity. Whence the Italian, abacinare, to blind.
(b) As Macbeth expected to see a train of kings, and was only inquiring from what race they would proceed, he could not be surprised that the hair of the second was bound with gold, like that of the first; he was offended only that the second resembled the first, as the first resembled Banquo, and, therefore, said:
—and thy air, Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
NOTE XXXVII.
I will—give to the edge o' th' sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line.—No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do before my purpose cool.
Both the sense and measure of the third line, which, as it rhymes, ought, according to the practice of this author, to be regular, are, at present, injured by two superfluous syllables, which may easily be removed by reading,
—souls That trace his line:—No boasting like a fool.
NOTE XXXVIII.
SCENE III.
Rosse. My dearest cousin,
I pray you, school yourself: But for your husband,
He's noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o'th'time, I dare not speak much further,
But cruel are the times when we are traitors,
And do not know't ourselves, when we (a)hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear;
But float upon a wild and violent sea,
Each way, and (b)move. I'll take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before: my pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!
(a)—When we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.
The present reading seems to afford no sense; and, therefore, some critical experiments may be properly tried upon it, though, the verses being without any connexion, there is room for suspicion, that some intermediate lines are lost, and that the passage is, therefore, irretrievable. If it be supposed that the fault arises only from the corruption of some words, and that the traces of the true reading are still to be found, the passage may be changed thus:
—when we bode ruin From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.
Or, in a sense very applicable to the occasion of the conference:
—when the bold, running
From what they fear, yet know not what they fear.
(b) But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way, and move.
That he who floats upon a rough sea must move, is evident, too evident for Shakespeare so emphatically to assert. The line, therefore, is to be written thus:
Each way, and move—I'll take my leave of you.
Rosse is about to proceed, but, finding himself overpowered by his tenderness, breaks off abruptly, for which he makes a short apology, and retires.
NOTE XXXIX.
SCENE IV.
Malcolm. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
Macduff. Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men,
Bestride our downfal birth-doom: each new morn,
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllables of dolour.
He who can discover what is meant by him that earnestly exhorts him to bestride his downfal birth-doom, is at liberty to adhere to the present text; but those who are willing to confess that such counsel would to them be unintelligible, must endeavour to discover some reading less obscure. It is probable that Shakespeare wrote:
—like good men, Bestride our downfall'n birthdom—
The allusion is to a man from whom something valuable is about to be taken by violence, and who, that he may defend it without encumbrance, lays it on the ground, and stands over it with his weapon in his hand. Our birthdom, or birthright, says he, lies on the ground, let us, like men who are to fight for what is dearest to them, not abandon it, but stand over it and defend it. This is a strong picture of obstinate resolution.
Birthdom for birthright is formed by the same analogy with masterdom in this play, signifying the privileges or rights of a master.
Perhaps it might be birth-dame for mother; let us stand over our mother that lies bleeding on the ground.
NOTE XL.
Malcolm. Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel!
The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should, at least, be pointed thus:
—And the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!
That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [pro justicia divina,] answerable to the cause.
But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,
—and the chance, O goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel!
This some of his transcribers wrote with a small o, which another imagined to mean of. If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, and O! thou sovereign goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to our cause.
NOTE XLI.
ACT V. SCENE III.
Macbeth. Bring me no more reports, let them fly all,
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman?—
—fly false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures.
In the first line of this speech, the proper pauses are not observed in the present editions.
Bring me no more reports—let them fly all—
Tell me not any more of desertions—Let all my subjects leave me—I am safe till, &c.
The reproach of epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective, uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury.
NOTE XLII.
Macbeth. I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.
As there is no relation between the way of life, and fallen into the sear, I am inclined to think, that the W is only an M inverted, and that it was originally written, my May of life.
I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days, but I am without those comforts that should succeed the sprightliness of bloom, and support me in this melancholy season.
NOTE XLIII.
SCENE IV.
Malcolm. 'Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.
The impropriety of the expression advantage to be given, instead of advantage given, and the disagreeable repetition of the word given in the next line incline me to read,
—where there is a'vantage to be gone,
Both more and less have given him the revolt.
Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, signified opportunity.
More and less is the same with greater and less. So in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the more and the less.
NOTE XLIV.
SCENE V.
Macbeth.—Wherefore was that cry?
Seyton. The queen, my lord, is dead.
Macbeth. She should (a)have, died hereafter:
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of (b)recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow.—
(a) She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for such a word.
This passage has very justly been suspected of being corrupt. It is not apparent for what word there would have been a time, and that there would or would not be a time for any word, seems not a consideration of importance sufficient to transport Macbeth into the following exclamation. I read, therefore:
She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for—such a world!—
To-morrow, &c.
It is a broken speech, in which only part of the thought is expressed, and may be paraphrased thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. Her death should have been deferred to some more peaceful hour; had she lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world—such is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day; but to-morrow and to-morrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still linger in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engrossed by the same dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to- morrow.
(b) To the last syllable of recorded time.
Recorded time seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is, indeed, no accurate expression, but as we only know transactions past or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience, in which future events may be supposed to be written.
NOTE XLV.
Macbeth. If thou speak'st false.
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.—
I pull in resolution; and begin
To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend,
That lies like truth: "Fear not till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane," and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.
I pull in resolution.—
Though this is the reading of all the editions, yet as it is a phrase without either example, elegance, or propriety, it is surely better to read:
I pall in resolution.—
I languish in my constancy, my confidence begins to forsake me. It is scarcely necessary to observe how easily pall might be changed into pull by a negligent writer, or mistaken for it by an unskilful printer.
NOTE XLVI.
SCENE VIII.
Siward Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so his knell is knoll'd.
This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon, by Camden, in his Remains, from which our author probably copied it.
When Siward, the martial Earl of Northumberland, understood that his son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he demanded whether his wound were in the fore part or hinder part of his body. When it was answered in the fore part, he replied, "I am right glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine."
* * * * *
After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of Shakespeare, ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, fell into my hands; and it was, therefore, convenient for me to delay the publication of my remarks, till I had examined whether they were not anticipated by similar observations, or precluded by better. I, therefore, read over this tragedy, but found that the editor's apprehension is of a cast so different from mine, that he appears to find no difficulty in most of those passages which I have represented as unintelligible, and has, therefore, passed smoothly over them, without any attempt to alter or explain them.
Some of the lines with which I had been perplexed, have been, indeed, so fortunate as to attract his regard; and it is not without all the satisfaction which it is usual to express on such occasions, that I find an entire agreement between us in substituting [see Note II.] quarrel for quarry, and in explaining the adage of the cat, [Note XVII.] But this pleasure is, like most others, known only to be regretted; for I have the unhappiness to find no such conformity with regard to any other passage.
The line which I have endeavoured to amend, Note XI. is, likewise, attempted by the new editor, and is, perhaps, the only passage in the play in which he has not submissively admitted the emendations of foregoing criticks. Instead of the common reading,
—Doing every thing Safe towards your love and honour,
he has published,
—Doing every thing Shap'd towards your love and honour.
This alteration, which, like all the rest attempted by him, the reader is expected to admit, without any reason alleged in its defence, is, in my opinion, more plausible than that of Mr. Theobald: whether it is right, I am not to determine.
In the passage which I have altered in Note XL. an emendation is, likewise, attempted in the late edition, where, for,
—and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel,
is substituted—and the chance in goodness—whether with more or less elegance, dignity, and propriety, than the reading which I have offered, I must again decline the province of deciding.
Most of the other emendations which he has endeavoured, whether with good or bad fortune, are too trivial to deserve mention. For surely the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor, who can imagine that he is restoring poetry, while he is amusing himself with alterations like these: for,
—This is the sergeant,
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought;
—This is the sergeant, who
Like a right good and hardy soldier fought.
For,
—Dismay'd not this
Our captains Macbeth and Banquo?—Yes;
—Dismay'd not this
Our captains brave Macbeth and Banquo?—Yes.
Such harmless industry may, surely, be forgiven, if it cannot be praised: may he, therefore, never want a monosyllable, who can use it with such wonderful dexterity.
Rumpatur quisquis rumpitur invidia!
The rest of this edition I have not read, but, from the little that I have seen, think it not dangerous to declare that, in my opinion, its pomp recommends it more than its accuracy. There is no distinction made between the ancient reading, and the innovations of the editor; there is no reason given for any of the alterations which are made; the emendations of former criticks are adopted without any acknowledgment, and few of the difficulties are removed which have hitherto embarrassed the readers of Shakespeare.
I would not, however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have studied the arts of policy, and "can teach a small state how to grow great," should, like him, disdain to labour in trifles, and consider petty accomplishments as below their ambition.[5]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is, at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament: and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well-attested, or by prohibitory laws, which, at least, suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone, Commentaries iv. 60. The learned judge, however, concludes with calling it a "dubious crime," and approves the maxim of the philosophic Montesquieu, whom no one would lightly accuse of superstition, that "il faut être très circonspect dans la poursuite de la magie et de l'hérésie." Esprit des Lois, xii. 5. Selden attempted to justify the punishing of witchcraft capitally. Works, iii. 2077. See Spectator, 117. Barrington's Ancient Statutes, 407.
[2] In Nashe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is said, that no less than six hundred witches were executed at one time. Reed.—Boswell's Shakespeare, xi. 5. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, mentions, that Hopkins the noted witch-finder hanged sixty suspected witches in one year. He also cites Hutchinson on Witchcraft for thirty thousand having been burnt in 150 years. See Barrington on Ancient Statutes.
[3] Johnson's apprehensions here are surely unfounded. The region of
Fancy, however, in his mind, was very circumscribed. Mrs. Montague's
chapter on Shakespeare's Preternatural Beings, in her excellent
Essay, will repay perusal. See too Schlegel on Dramatic Literature.
[4] Compare the Incantations of the Erichtho of Lucan, the Canidie of
Horace, the Cantata of Salvator Rosa, "all' incanto all' incante,"
and the Eumenides of Æschylus. The Gothic wildness of Shakespeare's
"weird sisters" will thence be better appreciated.—Ed.
[5] These excellent observations extorted praise from the supercilious Warburton himself. In the Preface to his Shakespeare, published two years after the appearance of Johnson's anonymous pamphlet, he thus alludes to it: "As to all those things which have been published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakespeare, (if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius,) the rest are absolutely below a serious notice." According to Boswell, Johnson ever retained a grateful remembrance of this distinguished compliment; "He praised me," said he, "at a time when praise was of value to me." Boswell, I. Johnson affixed to this tract, proposals for a Shakespeare in 10 volumes, 18mo. price, to subscribers, 1_l_ 5_s_. in sheets, half-a-guinea of which moderate sum was to be deposited at the time of subscription. The following fuller proposals were published in 1756; but they were not realized until the lapse of nine years from that period. Boswell, I.—Ed.
PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING THE DRAMATICK WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1756.
When the works of Shakespeare are, after so many editions, again offered to the publick, it will, doubtless, be inquired, why Shakespeare stands in more need of critical assistance than any other of the English writers, and what are the deficiencies of the late attempts, which another editor may hope to supply?
The business of him that republishes an ancient book is, to correct what is corrupt, and to explain what is obscure. To have a text corrupt in many places, and in many doubtful, is, among the authors that have written since the use of types, almost peculiar to Shakespeare. Most writers, by publishing their own works, prevent all various readings, and preclude all conjectural criticism. Books, indeed, are sometimes published after the death of him who produced them; but they are better secured from corruption than these unfortunate compositions. They subsist in a single copy, written or revised by the author; and the faults of the printed volume can be only faults of one descent.
But of the works of Shakespeare the condition has been far different: he sold them, not to be printed, but to be played. They were immediately copied for the actors, and multiplied by transcript after transcript, vitiated by the blunders of the penman, or changed by the affectation of the player; perhaps enlarged to introduce a jest, or mutilated to shorten the representation; and printed at last without the concurrence of the author, without the consent of the proprietor, from compilations made by chance or by stealth out of the separate parts written for the theatre; and thus thrust into the world surreptitiously and hastily, they suffered another depravation from the ignorance and negligence of the printers, as every man who knows the state of the press, in that age, will readily conceive.
It is not easy for invention to bring together so many causes concurring to vitiate the text. No other author ever gave up his works to fortune and time with so little care: no books could be left in hands so likely to injure them, as plays frequently acted, yet continued in manuscript: no other transcribers were likely to be so little qualified for their task as those who copied for the stage, at a time when the lower ranks of the people were universally illiterate: no other editions were made from fragments so minutely broken, and so fortuitously reunited; and in no other age was the art of printing in such unskilful hands[1].
With the causes of corruption that make the revisal of Shakespeare's dramatick pieces necessary, may be enumerated the causes of obscurity, which may be partly imputed to his age, and partly to himself.
When a writer outlives his contemporaries, and remains almost the only unforgotten name of a distant time, he is necessarily obscure. Every age has its modes of speech, and its cast of thought; which, though easily explained when there are many books to be compared with each other, become sometimes unintelligible and always difficult, when there are no parallel passages that may conduce to their illustration. Shakespeare is the first considerable author of sublime or familiar dialogue in our language. Of the books which he read, and from which he formed his style, some, perhaps, have perished, and the rest are neglected. His imitations are, therefore, unnoted, his allusions are undiscovered, and many beauties, both of pleasantry and greatness, are lost with the objects to which they were united, as the figures vanish when the canvass has decayed.
It is the great excellence of Shakespeare, that he drew his scenes from nature, and from life. He copied the manners of the world, then passing before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the traditions and superstition of the vulgar; which must, therefore, be traced, before he can be understood.
He wrote at a time when our poetical language was yet unformed, when the meaning of our phrases was yet in fluctuation, when words were adopted at pleasure from the neighbouring languages, and while the Saxon was still visibly mingled in our diction. The reader is, therefore, embarrassed at once with dead and with foreign languages, with obsoleteness and innovation. In that age, as in all others, fashion produced phraseology, which succeeding fashion swept away before its meaning was generally known, or sufficiently authorised: and in that age, above all others, experiments were made upon our language, which distorted its combinations, and disturbed its uniformity.
If Shakespeare has difficulties above other writers, it is to be imputed to the nature of his work, which required the use of the common colloquial language, and consequently admitted many phrases allusive, elliptical, and proverbial, such as we speak and hear every hour without observing them; and of which, being now familiar, we do not suspect that they can ever grow uncouth, or that, being now obvious, they can ever seem remote.
These are the principal causes of the obscurity of Shakespeare; to which might be added the fulness of idea, which might sometimes load his words with more sentiment than they could conveniently convey, and that rapidity of imagination which might hurry him to a second thought before he had fully explained the first. But my opinion is, that very few of his lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such expressions as were then common, though the paucity of contemporary writers makes them now seem peculiar.
Authors are often praised for improvement, or blamed for innovation, with very little justice, by those who read few other books of the same age. Addison, himself, has been so unsuccessful in enumerating the words with which Milton has enriched our language, as, perhaps, not to have named one of which Milton was the author; and Bentley has yet more unhappily praised him as the introducer of those elisions into English poetry, which had been used from the first essays of versification among us, and which Milton was, indeed, the last that practised.
Another impediment, not the least vexatious to the commentator, is the exactness with which Shakespeare followed his authors. Instead of dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his main design, only because he happened to find them together. Such passages can be illustrated only by him who has read the same story, in the very book which Shakespeare consulted.
He that undertakes an edition of Shakespeare, has all these difficulties to encounter, and all these obstructions to remove.
The corruptions of the text will be corrected by a careful collation of the oldest copies, by which it is hoped that many restorations may yet be made: at least it will be necessary to collect and note the variation as materials for future criticks; for it very often happens that a wrong reading has affinity to the right.
In this part all the present editions are apparently and intentionally defective. The criticks did not so much as wish to facilitate the labour of those that followed them. The same books are still to be compared; the work that has been done, is to be done again; and no single edition will supply the reader with a text, on which he can rely, as the best copy of the works of Shakespeare.
The edition now proposed will, at least, have this advantage over others. It will exhibit all the observable varieties of all the copies that can be found; that, if the reader is not satisfied with the editor's determination, he may have the means of choosing better for himself.
Where all the books are evidently vitiated, and collation can give no assistance, then begins the task of critical sagacity: and some changes may well be admitted in a text never settled by the author, and so long exposed to caprice and ignorance. But nothing shall be imposed, as in the Oxford edition, without notice of the alteration; nor shall conjecture be wantonly or unnecessarily indulged.
It has been long found, that very specious emendations do not equally strike all minds with conviction, nor even the same mind, at different times; and, therefore, though, perhaps, many alterations may be proposed as eligible, very few will be obtruded as certain. In a language so ungrammatical as the English, and so licentious as that of Shakespeare, emendatory criticism is always hazardous, nor can it be allowed to any man who is not particularly versed in the writings of that age, and particularly studious of his author's diction. There is danger lest peculiarities should be mistaken for corruptions, and passages rejected as unintelligible, which a narrow mind happens not to understand.
All the former criticks have been so much employed on the corrections of the text, that they have not sufficiently attended to the elucidation of passages obscured by accident or time. The editor will endeavour to read the books which the author read, to trace his knowledge to its source, and compare his copies with their originals. If, in this part of his design, he hopes to attain any degree of superiority to his predecessors, it must be considered, that he has the advantage of their labours; that, part of the work being already done, more care is naturally bestowed on the other part; and that, to declare the truth, Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope were very ignorant of the ancient English literature; Dr. Warburton was detained by more important studies; and Mr. Theobald, if fame be just to his memory, considered learning only as an instrument of gain, and made no further inquiry after his author's meaning, when once he had notes sufficient to embellish his page with the expected decorations.
With regard to obsolete or peculiar diction, the editor may, perhaps, claim some degree of confidence, having had more motives to consider the whole extent of our language than any other man from its first formation. He hopes that, by comparing the works of Shakespeare with those of writers who lived at the same time, immediately preceded, or immediately followed him, he shall be able to ascertain his ambiguities, disentangle his intricacies, and recover the meaning of words now lost in the darkness of antiquity.
When, therefore, any obscurity arises from an allusion to some other book, the passage will be quoted. When the diction is entangled, it will be cleared by a paraphrase or interpretation. When the sense is broken by the suppression of part, of the sentiment in pleasantry or passion, the connexion will be supplied. When any forgotten custom is hinted, care will be taken to retrieve and explain it. The meaning assigned to doubtful words will be supported by the authorities of other writers, or by parallel passages of Shakespeare himself.
The observation of faults and beauties is one of the duties of an annotator, which some of Shakespeare's editors have attempted, and some have neglected.—For this part of his task, and for this only, was Mr. Pope eminently and indisputably qualified; nor has Dr. Warburton[2] followed him with less diligence or less success. But I have never observed that mankind was much delighted or improved by their asterisks, commas, or double commas; of which the only effect is, that they preclude the pleasure of judging for ourselves; teach the young and ignorant to decide without principles; defeat curiosity and discernment, by leaving them less to discover; and at last show the opinion of the critick, without the reasons on which it was founded, and without affording any light by which it may be examined.
The editor, though he may less delight his own vanity, will, probably, please his reader more, by supposing him equally able with himself to judge of beauties and faults, which require no previous acquisition of remote knowledge. A description of the obvious scenes of nature, a representation of general life, a sentiment of reflection or experience, a deduction of conclusive arguments, a forcible eruption of effervescent passion, are to be considered as proportionate to common apprehension, unassisted by critical officiousness; since, to conceive them, nothing more is requisite than acquaintance with the general state of the world, and those faculties which he must almost bring with him who would read Shakespeare.
But when the beauty arises from some adaptation of the sentiment to customs worn out of use, to opinions not universally prevalent, or to any accidental or minute particularity, which cannot be supplied by common understanding, or common observation, it is the duty of a commentator to lend his assistance.
The notice of beauties and faults, thus limited, will make no distinct part of the design, being reducible to the explanation of some obscure passages.
The editor does not, however, intend to preclude himself from the comparison of Shakespeare's sentiments or expression with those of ancient or modern authors, or from the display of any beauties not obvious to the students of poetry; for, as he hopes to leave his author better understood, he wishes, likewise, to procure him more rational approbation.
The former editors have affected to slight their predecessors: but in this edition all that is valuable will be adopted from every commentator, that posterity may consider it as including all the rest, and exhibiting whatever is hitherto known of the great, father of the English drama.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is not true, that the plays of this author were more incorrectly
printed than those of any of his contemporaries: for in the plays of
Massinger, Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, and others, as many errors
may be found. It is not true, that the art of printing was in no
other age in such unskilful hands. Nor is it true, in the latitude
in which it is stated, that "these plays were printed from
compilations made by chance or by stealth, out of the separate parts
written for the theatre:" two only of all his dramas, The Merry
Wives of Windsor, and King Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust
into the world; and of the former it is yet a doubt, whether it is a
first sketch, or an imperfect copy. See Malone's Preface throughout.
—Ed.