NOTE XIII. -Hie thee hither, That I may pour my spirits in thine ear; For seem, the sense evidently directs us to read seek. The crown to which fate destines thee, and which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem. NOTE XIV. Lady Macbeth.Come, all you spirits Th' effect and it! -Mortal thoughts, This expression signifies not the thoughts of mortals, but murderous, deadly, or destructive designs. So in Act v. Hold fast the mortal sword. And in another place, With twenty mortal murthers. -Nor keep peace between Th' effect and it ! The intent of Lady Macbeth evidently is to wish that no womanish tenderness, or conscientious remorse, may hinder her purpose from proceeding to effect; but neither this, nor indeed any other sense, is expressed by the present reading, and, therefore, it cannot be doubted that Shakespeare wrote differently, perhaps, thus: That no compunctious visitings of nature Th' effect and it. To keep pace between, may signify to pass between, to intervene. Pace is, on many occasions, a favourite of Shakespeare. This phrase, is indeed, not usual in this sense; but was it not its novelty that gave occasion to the present corruption? NOTE XV. SCENE VIII. King. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Ban. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, Buttrice, nor coigne of 'vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle : In this short scene, I propose a slight alteration to be made, by substituting site for seat, as the ancient word for situation; and sense for senses, as more agreeable to the measure; for which reason likewise I have endeavoured to adjust this passage, -heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty frieze, by changing the punctuation and adding the syllable thus, -heaven's breath Smells wooingly. Here is no jutty frieze. Those who have perused books, printed at the time of the first editions of Shakespeare, know that greater alterations than these are necessary almost in every page, even where it is not to be doubted, that the copy was correct. NOTE XVI. SCENE. X. 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. 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, 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. (3) 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 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 Of dire combustion, and confused events, 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: Of dire combustion and confused events. 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, 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. |