That my keen knife' see not the wound it makes ; dor !2 Enter MACBeth. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Macb. My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night. Lady M. And when goes hence? Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters :-To beguile the time, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, [Exeunt. [9] The word knife, which at present has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to express a sword or dagger. STEEVENS. [1] The thought is taken from the old military laws which inflicted capital punishment upon whosoever shall strike stroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight a combat in a place enclosed and then no man shal! be so hardy as to bid hold, but the general." P. 264 of Mr. Bellay's Instructions for the Wars, translated in 1589. TOLLET. [2] Shakespeare has supported the character of Lady Macbeth by repeated ef forts, and never omits any opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monster of his own creation. The softer passions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his arrival from an expedition of danger, with such a salutation as would have become one of his friends or vassals; a salutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes. than to testify her joy at his return, or manifest an attachment to his person: nor does any sentiment expressive of love or softness fail from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself, amidst the horrors of his guilt, still retains a character less fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tenderness, and pours his complaints and fears into her bosom, accompanied with terms of endearment STEEVENS. [3] That is, thy looks are such as will awaken men's curiosity, excite their attention, and make room for suspicion. HEATH. SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of MACBETH attending. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attend ants. Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Ban. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet,' does approve, Enter Lady MACBETH. Dun. See, see! our honour'd hostess! The love that follows us, sometime is our trouble, Lady M. All our service In every point twice done, and then done double, [4] This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlets' nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented.-This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of domestic life. SIR J. REYNOLDS. [5] This bird is in the old edition called barlet. JOHNSON. 6A jutty, or jetty, (for so it ought rather to be written) is not here, as has been supposed, an epithet to frieze, but a substantive; signifying that part of a building which shoots forward beyond the rest. MALONE. [7] Coinage of vantage-Convenient corner. JOHNSON. 8 To bid any one God-yeld him, i. e. God-yield him, was the same as God reward him. WARBURTON. And the late dignities heap'd up to them, Dun. Where's the thane of Cawdor? We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him Lady M. Your servants ever Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt, Still to return your own. Dun. Give me your hand : Conduct me to mine host; we love him highly, The same. SCENE VII. [Exeunt. A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and torches. Enter and pass over the stage, a.Sewer,' and divers Servants with dishes and service. Then enter MACBETH. Mach. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere wel It were done quickly : If the assassination [3] That is, we as hermits shall always pray for you. STEEVENS. [4] A sewer was an officer so called from his placing the dishes upon the table. Asseour, French; from asseior, to place. Another part of the sewer's office was to bring water for the guests to wash their hands with. It may be worth while to ob serve, for the sake of preserving an ancient word, that the dishes served in by semers were called sewes. STEEVENS. [5] Of this soliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakespeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus: "If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and executed, were done and ended without any following effects. it would then be best to do it quickly; if the murder could terminate in itself, and restrain the regular course of consequences, if its success could secure its surcease, if, being once done successfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance and inquiry, so that this blow might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to suffer; if this could be my condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of temporal existence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future state. But this is one of those cases in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our present life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example." JOHNSON. We are told by Dryden, that "Ben Jonson, in reading some bombast speeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horrour,”— Perhaps the present passage was one of those thus depreciated. Any person but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the transcendent beauties of this sublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's creat est work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into "strong shudders" and blood-freezing" agues," by its interesting and high wrought Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.'—I have no spur Enter Lady MACВЕТН. Lady M. He has almost supp'd; Why have you left the chamber? scenes, than to have been offended by any imaginary hardness of its language; for such it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour. [6] Surcease is cessation, stop. STEEVENS. and the abyss of eternity. STEEVENS. MALONE. shallow ford of life, between us [8] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARBURTON. 191 Courier is only runner. Couriers of air are winds, air in motion. Sightless is invisible. JOHNSON. The thought of the cherubin (as has been somewhere observed) seems to have been borrowed from the eighteenth Psalm: "He rode upon the cherubim, and did By, he came flying upon the wings of the wind." Again, in Job, ch. xxx, v. 22: Thou causest me to ride upon the wind." MALONE. [1] Alluding to the remission of the wind in a shower. JOHNSON. (2) The arguments by which lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, atford 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 house-breaker, and some Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Lady M. Know you not, he has ? Macb. We will proceed no further in this business : Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Lady M. Was the hope drunk, Wherein you drest yourself? hath it slept since ? I dare do all that may become a man ; Lady M. What beast was't then, That made you break this enterprize to me? times the conqueror; but this sophism Macheth has forever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may al most 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 topic, 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 con sciences, 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 for mer obligation could not be vacated by a latter; that obligations, laid on us by a higher power, could not be overruled by obligations which we lay upon ourselves. JOHNSON. [4] The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her feet: Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas. JOHNSON. |