1 Witch. He will not be commanded: Here's Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:another, A third is like the former :-Filthy hags! Why do you show me this?-A fourth ?-Start, eyes! More potent than the first. Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises. (Descends. Macb. Then live, Macduff; what need I fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance double sure, That rises like the issue of a king; All. (Descends. That will never be; Rebellious head, rise never, till the wood All. Seek to know no more. Macb. I will be satisfied: deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know:Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise" is this? [Hautboys. 1 Witch. Show! 2 Witch. Show! 3 Witch. Show! All. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart ; Come like shadows, so depart. Eight Kings appear, and pass over the Stage in order; the last with a Glass in his Hand; BANQuo following. Macb. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs :-And thy hair, 1 'Had I three ears, I'd hear thee. This singular expression probably means no more than I will listen to thee with all attention.' What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ?9 11 Another yet?-A seventh ?-I'll see no more :- [Music. The Witches dance, and vanish Macb. Where are they? Gone?---Let this per nicious hour Stand Fled to England? Len. Ay, my good lord. The flighty purpose never is o'ertook, The castle of Macduff I will surprise; This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool: 11That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.' This was intended as a compliment to James the First: he first united the two islands and the three kingdoms under one head, whose house too was said to be descen as innocent, but as a noble character; whereas, accord ing to history, he was confederate with Macbeth in the murder of Duncan. 2 For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.' So Holinshed:- And surely hereupon he had put Macduff to death, but that a certeine witch, whom he had in great trust, had told him, that he should never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquish-ded from Banquo, who is therefore represented not only ed till the wood of Bernane came to the castle of Dunsinane. This prophecy put all fear out of his heart.' 3 The round is that part of a crown which encircles the head: the top is the ornament which rises above it. 4 The present accent of Dunsinane is right. In every subsequent instance the accent is misplaced. 5. e. command it to serve him like a soldier impressed. 6 Rebellious head. The old copy reads dead; the emendation is Theobald's. 12 In Warwickshire, when a horse, sheep, or other animal, perspires much, and any of the hair or wool, in consequence of such perspiration, or any redundant humour, becomes matted into tufts with grime and sweat, he is said to be boltered; and whenever the blood issues out and coagulates, forming the locks into hard clotted bunches, the beast is said to be blood-boltered. When a 7 Noise in our old poets is often literally synony-boy has a broken head, so that his hair is matted toge mous for music. 9 Show his eyes, and grieve his heart. 'And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart-1 Samuel, ii. 33. 9 i. e. the dissolution of nature. Crack and crash were formerly synonymous. 10 This method of juggling prophecy is referred to in Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 8: and like a prophet Looks in a glass, and shows me future evils. ther with blood, his head is said to be boltered [pronounced haltered] The word baltereth is used in this sense by Philemon Holland in his Translation of Pliny's Natural History, 1601, b. xii. c. xvii. p. 370. It is therefore applicable to Banquo, who had twenty trenched gashes on his head.' 13 i. e. spirits. It should seem that spirits was almost always pronounced sprights or sprites by Shakspeare's contemporaries. 14 Antique was the old spelling for antic. 15 i.e. preventest them, by taking away the opportunity In an extract from the Penal Laws against witches, it is 16 i. e. follow, succeed in it. But no more sights !---Where are these gentlemen? L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly Rosse. You must have patience, madam. You know not, His mansion, and his titles, in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not; Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. My dearest coz', I pray you, school yourself: But, for your husband, But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, Each way, and move.---I take my leave of you: L. Macd. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless. [Exit Rosse. The pit-fall, nor the gin. Son. Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying. Son. And must they all be hanged, that swear and lie? L. Macd. Every one. Son. Who must hang them? L. Macd. Why, the honest men. Son. Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men, and hang up them. L. Macd. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father? Son. If he were dead, you'd weep for him: 1. you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father. L. Macd. Poor prattler! how thou talk'st. Mess. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you: Though in your state of honour I am perfect." Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve I dare abide no longer. [Exit Messenger. Whither should I fly ? I have done no harm. But I remember now am in this earthly world; where, to do harm, Is often laudable; to do good, sometime, Accounted dangerous folly: Why then, alas! Do I put up that womanly defence, To say, have done no harm?What are these faces? He's a traitor. Run away, pray you. He has killed me, mother; [Dies. LADY MACDUFF, crying murder, and pursued by the Murderers. SCENE III. England. A Room in the King's Palace. Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF.a Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there L. Macd. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for Weep our sad bosoms empty. a father? Son. Nay, how will you do for a husband? L. Macd. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. Son. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again. Let us rather Macd. L. Macd. Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out yet i' faith, With wit enough for thee. Son. Was my father a traitor, mother? L. Macd. Ay, that he was. Son. What is a traitor? L. Macd. Why, one that swears and lies. L. Macd. Every one that does so, is a traitor, and must be hanged. 1Our fears do make us traitors. Our flight is considered as evidence of our treason. 2 Natural touch, natural affection. 3 The fits o' the season should appear to be the violent disorders of the season, its convulsions: as we still say figuratively the temper of the times. Like syllable of dolour. 5 Sirrah was not in our author's time a term of reproach, but sometimes used by masters to servants, pa rents to children, &c. 6 i. e. I am perfectly acquainted with your rank. 7'Shag-ear'd villain. It has been suggested that we should read shag-hair'd, an abusive epithet frequent in our old plays. Hair being formerly spelt heare, the corruption would easily arise. 4 The best I can make of this passage is,' says Stee- 8 This scene is almost literally taken from Holinvens: 'The times are cruel when our fears induce us shed's Chronicle, which is in this part an abridgment to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumoured of the chronicle of Hector Boece, as translated by John or reported abroad; and yet at the same time, as we Bellenden. From the recent reprints of both the Scotlive under a tyrannical government, where will is sub-tish and English chroniclers, quotations from them bestituted for law, we know not what we have to fear, be- come the less necessary; they are now accessible to the cause we know not when we offend. Or, when we reader curious in tracing the poet to his sources of inare led by our fears to believe every rumour of danger formation. we hear, yet are not conscious to ourselves of any crime for which we should be disturbed with fears.' 9 Birthdom, for the place of our birth, our native land 10 i. e. befriend. He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but | The cistern of my lust; and my desire something You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom Macd. I am not treacherous. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil, pardon; That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose: Yet grace must still look so." Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, I speak not as in absolute fear of you. Macd. What should he be? Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted, That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd With my confineless harms. Macd. Not in the legions Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd In evils, to top Macbeth. Mal. I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name: But there's no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness; your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up 1 'You may deserve of him through me.' The old copy reads discerne. The emendation was made by Theobald. In the subsequent part of the line something is wanted to complete the sense. There is no verb to which wisdom can refer. Steevens conjectured that the line might originally have run thus:but something You may deserve through me; and wisdom is it 2 A good and virtuous nature may recoil A good mind may recede from goodness in the execution of a royal commission. 3 This is not very clear. Johnson has thus attempted to explain it 'My suspicions cannot injure you, if you be virtuous, by supposing that a traitor may put on your virtuous appearance. I do not say that your viruous appearance proves you a traitor; for virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be counterfeited by villainy. 4 To affeer is a law term, signifying to assess or reduce to certainty. The meaning therefore may be :The title is confirmed to the usurper.' My interpretation of the passage is this: Bleed, bleed, All continent impediments would o'erbear, That did oppose my will: Better Macbeth Than such a one to reign. Macd. Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been Mal. With this, there growe In my most ill-compos'd affection, such Macd. Of your mere own: All these are portable,10 Mal. But I have none: The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, I have no relish of them; but abound Acting in many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Macd. O Scotland! Scotland! Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. Macd. Fit to govern! No, not to live.-O nation miserable, By his own interdiction stands accurs'd, And does blaspheme his breed?-Thy royal father Was a most sainted king; the queen, that bore thee, Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived.12 Fare thee well! These evils, thou repeat'st upon thyself, Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast, Thy hope ends here! Mal. Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts poor country! Great tyranny, lay theu thy basis sure, for goodness dares not check thee! Then addressing Malcolm, Macduff says, 'Wear thou thy wrongs,--the title to thy crown is now confirmed to the usurper, he would probably have added, but that he interrupts himself with angry impatience, at being suspected of traitorous double-ling. 5 i. e. immeasurable evils. 6 Luxurious, lascivious. 7 Sudden, passionate. 8 Sir W. Blackstone proposed to read summer-seed ing, which was adopted by Steevens: but there appears no reason for change. The meaning of the epithet may be, Just as hot as summer. In Donne's Poems, Malone has pointed out its opposite--winter-seeming. 9 Foysons, plenty. 10 Portable answers exactly to a phrase now in use. Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable. 11 With an untitled tyrant.' Thus in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale : 'Right so betwix a titleles tiraunt And an outlawe. 12 Died every day she lived.' The expression is de rived from the Sacred Writings:-'I protest by you rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus, I die daily To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth No less in truth, than life: my first false speaking Is thine, and my poor country's to command: 'Tis hard to reconcile. [Exit. Macd. What's the disease he means? Mal. "Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures : Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, Enter Rosse. Macd. move The means that make us strangers! Sir, Amen. 1 Credulous haste, overhasty credulity. 2 i. e. overcomes it. We have before seen this word used in the same Latin sense, Act i. Sc. 7, of this play. To convince or convicte, to vanquish and over. Erinco.'-Baret. come. 3 A golden stamp, the coin caned an angel; the value of which was ten shillings. 4 To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long disused,' say the editors: in other words it is the old orthography of the verb to rend. 5 It has been before observed that Shakspeare uses ecstasy for every species of alienation of mind, whether proceeding from sorrow, joy, wonder, or any other exciting cause. Modern is generally used by him in the sense of common. A modern ecstasy is therefore a common grief. 6 Thus in Antony and Cleopatra :— 7 To doff is to do off, to put off. 8 To latch (in the North) signifies the same as to Rosse. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it? Rosse. When I came hither to transport the fid ings, Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Mal. Rosse. "Would, I could answer This comfort, with the like! But I have words, That would be howl'd out in the desert air, Where hearing should not latch them. What concern they? Macd. The general cause? or is it a fee-grief," Due to some single breast? ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound Macd. Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Mal. catch. Thus also Golding, in his translation of the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses :— As though he would, at everie stride, betweene his teeth hir latch." 9 Or is it a fee-grief,' a peculiar sorrow, a grief that hath but a single owner. 10 Quarry, the game after it is killed: it is a term used both in hunting and falconry. The old English term querre is used for the square spot wherein the dead game was deposited. Quarry is also used for the game pursued. I shall do so; And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, now! Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. Cut short all intermission:3 front to front, Mal. you may; The night is long that never finds the day. 1 ACT V. [Exeuns. SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. tlewoman. Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Enter LADY MACBETH, with a Taper. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close. Doct. How came she by that light? Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command. Doct. You see her eyes are open. Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut. Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady M. Yet here's a spot. Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. -Hell is Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One: Two: Why, then 'tis time to do't:murky !-Fye, my lord, fye! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Doct. Do you mark that? Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife: Where is she now ?- -What, will these hands ne'er be clean ?-No more o' that, my lord, no more o'that: you mar all with this starting. 8 Doct. Go to, go to: you have known what you should not. Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bo som, for all the dignity of the whole body. Doct. Well, well, well, Gent. 'Pray God, it be, sir. Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale :-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doct. Even so? Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone: To bed, to [Exit LADY MACBETH. Doct. Will she go now to bed? Gent. Directly. Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-bed, to bed. gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. should. Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech. At one fell swoop. Swoop, from the verb to swoop or sweep, is the descent of a bird of prey on his quarry 2 i. e. contend with your present sorrow like a man 3 All intermission, all pause, all intervening time. 4 The old copy reads time. The emendation is Rowe's 5 i. e encourage, thrust us their instruments forward against the tyrant. 6Ay, but their sense is shut.' The old copy reads 'Ay, but their sense are shut.' Malone has quoted other instances of the same inaccurate grammar, according to modern notions, from Julius Cæsar The posture of his blows are yet unknown.' And from the hundred and twelfth Sonnet of Shakspeare: Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad; Unnatural Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds Good night, good doctor. "In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others' voices, that my adder's sense To critick and to flatterer stopped are.' 7 Lady Macbeth, in her dream, imagines herself talk ing to her husband, who (she supposes) had just said Hell is murky (i. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed,) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice. Hell is murky!-Fye, my lord, fye! a soldier, and afeard? This explanation is by Steevens, and appears to me very judicious. 8 You mar all with this starting.' She is here again alluding to the terrors of Macbeth when the Ghost broke in on the festivity of the banquet. 9 My mind she has mated. Mated,nated, from matte, old French, signified to overcome, con found, dismay, or make afraid. |