And, like a rat without a tail, 2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind.1 1 Witch. Thou art kind. 3 Witch. And I another. 1 Witch. I myself have all the other; And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know I will drain him dry as hay: 2 Witch. Show me, show me. 1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd, as homeward he did come. [Drum within. By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glams; 3 Witch. A drum, a drum; Macbeth doth come. 6 All. The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about; Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine: Peace-the charm's wound up. Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores?-What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire; That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, Ban. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?—I'the name of truth, 1 This free gift of a wind is to be considered as an act of sisterly friendship; for witches were supposed to sell them. 2 i. e. the sailor's chart; carte-marine. 3 Forbid, i. e. forespoken, unhappy, charmed or bewitched. The explanation of Theobald and Johnson, 'interdicted or under a curse,' is erroneous. A forbodin fellow, Scotice, still signifies an unhappy one. 4 This mischief was supposed to be put in execution by means of a waxen figure. Holinshed, speaking of the witchcraft practised to destroy King Duff, says that they found one of the witches roasting, upon a wooden broach, an image of wax at the fire, resembling in each feature the king's person, &c. for as the image did waste afore the fire, so did the bodie of the king break forth in sweat: and as for the words of the inchantment, they served to keepe him still waking from sleepe.' This may serve to explain the foregoing passage:'Sleep shall, neither night nor day, Hang upon his pent-house lid.' But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives, No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence you. Macb. Into the air: and what seem'd corporal, As breath into the wind.-'Would, they had staid! about? Enter Rosse and ANGUS. 7 The thaneship of Glamis was the ancient inheri- 10 Rapt is rapturously affected; extra se raptus. 11 Sinel. The late Dr. Beattie conjectured that the real name of this family was Sinane, and that Dust nane, or the hill of Sinane from thence derived its name, 12 The insane root was probably henbane. In Estman's Commentary on Bartholome de Propriet. RerumA, a book with which Shakspeare was familiar, is the following passage:- Henbane is called insana, mad. for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate să dronke it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenese 4 sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly 13 i. e. admiration of your deeds, and a desire to da them justice by public commendation, contend in his mind for pre-eminence: he is silenced with wonder. 14 i. e. posts arrived as fast as they could be counted Thicke (says Baret,) that cometh often and thieze together: creber, frequens, frequent, souvent demanda And again. Crebritas literarum, the often sending, or thicke coming of letters. Thicke breathing, anhelitus creber.' Shakspeare twice uses to speak thick' fr 'to speak quick. To tale or tell is to score or member, Rowe, not understanding this passage, altered it to quick as hail. 5 In the pamphlet about Dr. Fian, already quoted-rilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason.” Againe it is confessed, that the said christened cat was the cause of the Kinge's majestie's shippe, at his coming forth of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of his shippes then being in his companie,'And further the said witch declared, that his majestie had never come safely from the sea, if his faith had not prevailed above their intentions. To this circumstance, perhaps, Shakspeare's allusion is sufficiently plain. 6 The old copy has weyward, evidently by mistake. Weird, from the Saxon, a witch, Shakspeare found in Holinshed. Gawin Douglas, in his translation of Vir gil, renders the parca by weird sisters. In borrow'd robes? Who was the thane, lives yet; With those of Norway, or did line the rebel Macb. Do Ban. That, trusted home, Cousins, a word, I pray you. 2 Two truths are told, Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-If ill, My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, But with the aid of use. Come what come may; Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains, Very gladly. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Dun. There's no art, An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin! Macb. The service and the loyalty I owe, Look, how our partner's rapt. Are to your throne and state, children, and servants; 1 Came post. The old copy reads can. Rowe made the emendation. 2. e. entirely, thoroughly relied on. 3 Enkindle means encourage you to expect the crown.' Are less than horrible imaginings.' Seems greater than itself, whilst fears are lying. 10 Is smother'd in surmise.' Where every something, being blent together, 12 Favour is countenance, good will, and not pardon, Safe toward your love and honour. 19 as it has been here interpreted. Vide Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2. 13 The interim having weigh'd it. The interim is probably here used adverbially- You having weighed it in the interim.' 14 Studied in his death is well instructed in the art of dying. The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793 His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian.' Steevens thinks that an allusion was intended to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend 15 Ow'd, owned, possessed. 16 We cannot construe the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. 17 i. e. I owe thee more than all; nay, more than all which I can say or do will requite. 19 Safe toward your love and honour.' Sir William Blackstone would read: Safe toward you love and honour which he explains thus:- Our duties are your child. ren, and servants or vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you. He says that it has reference to the old feudal simple ho The harvest is your own. Dun. There if I grow, My plenteous joys, Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter, Maeb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful My worthy Cawdor! Mach. The prince of Cumberland!-That is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, Aside. Exeunt. |title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and refer- Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be To catch the nearest way: Thou would'st be great; The illness should attend it. What thou would'st That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false, That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it : One of my fellows had the speed of him; It is a banquet to me. Let us after him, Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome: It is a peerless kinsman. Give him tending, [Flourish. Lady M. He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse, SCENE V. Inverness. A Room in Macbeth's [Exit Attendant. Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a Letter. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, come, you spirits Lady M. They met me in the day of success; and That tend on mortal10 thoughts, unsex me here; I have learned by the perfectest report, they have And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, in desire to question them further, they made them-Stop up the access and passage to remorse; selves-air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood That no compunctious visitings of nature rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the Shake my fell king, who all-hailed me, Thane of Cawdor; by which The effect, and it!11 Come to my woman's breasts, purpose, nor keep peace between mage, which when done to a subject was always ac- 7 Thou would'st have that [i. e. the crown] which companied with a saving clause-saulf le foy que jeo cries unto thee, thou must do thus, if thou would doy a nostre seignor le roy; which he thinks suits well have it, and thou must do that which rather,' &c. The with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver difficulty of this passage in Italics seems to have arisen in his allegiance. Malone and Steevens seem to favour from its not having been considered as all uttered by this explanation: but safe may merely mean respect-the object of Macbeth's ambition. Malone is the author ful, loyal; like the old French word sauf. Shakspeare has used the old French phrase, sauf votre honneur, several times in King Henry V. 1 i. e. exuberant. 2 In drops of sorrow.' lachrymas non sponte cadentes ffudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto; Gaudia, quam lachrymis.' Lucan, lib. ix. of this regulation, and furnished the explanation. 8That I may pour my spirits in thine ear.' So in Lord Sterline's Julius Cæsar, 1607: Thou in my bosom used to pour thy spright 9 Which fate and metaphysical aid,' &c.; i.e. supernatural aid. We find metaphysics explained things supernatural in the old dictionaries. To have thee crown'd,' is to desire that you should be crowned. 10 That tend on mortal thoughts.' Mortal and deadly 3 Holinshed says, Duncan having two sons, &c. were synonymous in Shakspeare's time. In another he made the elder of them, called Malcolm, prince of part of this play we have the mortal sword,' and 'merCumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him his suc-tal murders.' We have mortal war, and mortal cessor in his kingdome immediatelie after his decease. hatred. In Nashe's Pierce Pennilesse is a particular Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by description of these spirits, and of their office. The this means his hope sore hindered (where, by the old second kind of devils, which he most employeth, are laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that those northern Martii, called the spirits of revenge, should succeed were not of able age to take the charge and the authors of massacres, and seedsmen of misupon himself, he that was next of blood unto him chief; for they have commission to incense men to should be admitted,) he began to take counsel how he rapines, sacrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just manner of cruelties: and they command certain of the quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter) for that Dun-southern spirits to wait upon them, as also great Arioch, cane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner that is termed the spirit of revenge. of title and claime, which he might in time to come pre- 11 Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by tend, unto the crowne.' 4True, worthy Banquo,' &c. We must imagine that while Macbeth was uttering the six preceding lines, Duncan and Banquo had been conferring apart. Macbeth's conduct appears to have been their subject; and to some encomium supposed to have been bestowed on him by Banquo, the reply of Duncan refers. 5 The perfectest report is the best intelligence. 6 Missives, messengers. action. To keep peace between the effect and parpose,' means to delay the execution of her purpose, ta prevent its proceeding to effect. Sir Wm. Davenant's strange alteration of this play sometimes affords a reasonably good commentary upon it. Thus in the present instance: -make thick My blood, stop all passage to remorse; And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, | Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle: You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, Enter MACBETH. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! Mach. Duncan comes here to-night. Lady M. My dearest love, And when goes hence? O, never Macb. To-morrow,-as he purposes. Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men But be the serpent under it. He that's coming Only look up clear; Enter SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Haut- ants. Dun. Enter LADY MACBETH. See, see! our honour'd hostess ! Lady M. We rest your hermits." Where's the thane of Cawdor? To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Dun. Give me your hand [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The same. A Room in the Castle. Hautboys and Torches. Enter, and pass over the Stage, a Sewer,11 and divers Servants with Dishes and Service. Then enter MACBETH. Macb. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well Dun. This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air It were done quickly: If the assassination Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. Ban. This guest of summer, Shake my design, nor make it fall before 1 To pall, from the Latin pallio, to wrap, to invest, to cover or hide as with a mantle or cloak. 2 Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, 1596, has an expression resembling this: The sullen night in mistie RUGGE is wrapp'd.' And in his Polyolbion, which was not published till 1612, we again find it : Thick vapours that like ruggs still hang the troubled air.' On this passage there is a long criticism in the Rambler, No. 168; to which Johnson in his notes refers the reader with much complacency. 3 1. e. beyond the present time, which is, according to the process of nature, ignorant of the future. 4 Favour is countenance. 5 i. e. situation. 6 i. e. convenient corner. 7 This short dialogue,' says Sir Joshua Reynolds, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. The conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of the castle's 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 Shakspeare 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 quict rural image or picture of familiar domestic life.' Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, Marks 8 The explanation by Steevens of this obscure pas. sage seems the best which has been offered: of respect importunately shown are sometimes troublesome, though we are still bound to be grateful for thein, as indications of sincere attachment. If you pray for us on account of the trouble we create in your house, and thank us for the molestations we bring with us, it must be on such a principle. Herein I teach you, that the inconvenience you suffer is the result of our affection; and that you are therefore to pray for us, or thank us only as far as prayers and thanks can be deserved for kindnesses that fatigue, and honours that oppress. You are, in short, to make your acknowledgments for intended respect and love, however irksome our present mode of expressing them may have proved.'-To bid is here used in the Saxon sense of to pray. God yield us, is God reward us. 9 i. e. we as hermits, or beadsmen, shall ever pray for you. 10 In compt, subject to accompt. 11 A sewer, an officer so called from his placing the dishes on the table. Asscour, French; from asseoir, to place. 12 This passage has been variously explained. I have attempted briefly to express what I conceive to be its meaning-Twere well it were done quickly, if, when 'tis done, it were done (or at an end ;) and that no sinister consequences would ensue. If the assassination, at the same time that it puts an end to Duncan's life, could make success certain, and that I might enjoy the crown unmolested, we'd jump the life to come, i.c. hazard or run the risk of what may happen in a foure state. To trammel up was to confine or tie up. The legs of horses were trammeled to teach them to amble. There was also a trammel-net,' which was a long net to take great and small fowl with by night. Surecase is c(8sation. "To surcease or to cease from doing some. thing; supersedeo, Lat. ; cesser, Fr.-Buret. Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, If we should fail, Commends' the ingredients of our poison'd chalice | I would, while it was smiling in my face, Enter LADY MACBETH. left the chamber? We fail! Mach. Macb. Lady M. He has almost supp'd: Why have you For thy undaunted mettle should compose Macb. Hath he ask'd for me? Macb. Pr'ythee, peace: you Lady M. now 6 Does unmake you. I have given suck; and know 1. To commend was anciently used in the sense of the Latin commendo, to commit, to address, to direct, to recommend. 2 The sightless couriers of the air are what the poet elsewhere calls the viewless winds. Macb. I am settled, and bend up ACT II. clock. Ban. And she goes down at twelve. Fle. Their candles are all out.-Take thee that too. 8 The circumstance relative to Macbeth's slaughter of Duncan's chamberlains is copied from Holinshed's account of King Duffe's murder by Donwald. 9 Wassel is thus explained by Bullokar in his Expositor, 1616: Wassaile, a term usual heretofore for 3 So in the tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, 1607 :— quaffing and carowsing; but more especially signifying "Why think you, lords, that 'tis ambition's spur a merry cup (ritually composed, deckt and filled with That pricketh Cæsar to these high attempts? country liquor) passing about amongst neighbours, Malone has observed that there are two distinct meta-meeting and entertaining one another on the vigil or eve phors in this passage. I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent; I have nothing to stimulate me to the execution of my purpose but ambition, which is apt to overreach itself; this he expresses by the second image, of a person meaning to vault into his saddle, who, by taking too great a leap, will fall on the other side.' 4 This passage is perhaps sufficiently intelligible; but as Johnson and Steevens thought otherwise, I must offer a brief explanation. Would'st thou have the 15 Husbandry here means thrift, frugality. crown, that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 16 It is apparent from what Banquo says afterwards, and yet live a coward in thine own esteem,' &c. The that he had been solicited in a dream to attempt some adage of the cat is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566-thing in consequence of the prophecy of the witches, The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete.' that his waking senses were shocked at; and Shak5 Who dares do more is none.' The old copy, in-speare has here most exquisitely contrasted his charac stead of do more,' reads 'no more: the emendation is Rowe's. 6 Adhere, in the same sense as cohere. 7But screw your courage to the sticking-place. Shakspeare seems to have taken his metaphor from the screaming up the chords of stringed instruments to their proper degree of tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking place; i, e. in the place from which it is not to recede, or gr back. ter with that of Macbeth. Banquo is praying against being tempted to encourage thoughts of guilt even in his sleep; while Macbeth is hurrying into temptation, and revolving in his mind every scheme, however flagitious, that may assist him to complete his purpose. The one is unwilling to sleep, lest the same phantoms should assail his resolution again, while the other is depriving himself of rest through impatience to commit the mut der. |