MACBETH

(392) Most of the notes which the present editor has subjoined to this

play were published by him in a small pamphlet in 1745.

I.i (393,*) _Enter three Witches_] In order to make a true estimate of

the abilities and merit of a writer, it it always necessary to examine

the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A poet

who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon

enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of

supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of

probability, be banished from the theatre to the nursery, and condemned

to write fairy tales instead of tragedies; but a survey of the notions

that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that

Shakespeare was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the

system that was then universally admitted, to his advantage, and was far

from overburthening the credulity of his audience.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the

same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been

credited by the common people, and in most, by the learned themselves.

These phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as

the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown,

that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient

to drive them out of the world. The time in which this kind of credulity

was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in which the

Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantments or diabolical

opposition, as they ascribed their success to the assistance of their

military saints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to believe

(_Suppl. to the Introduction to Don Quixote_) that the first accounts of

enchantments were brought into this part of the world by those _who_

returned from their eastern expeditions. But there is always some

distance between the birth and maturity of folly as of wickedness: this

opinion had long existed, though perhaps the application of it had in no

foregoing age been so frequent, nor the reception so general.

Olympiodorus, in Photius's extracts, tells us of one Libanius, who

practised this kind of military magic, and having promised [Greek:

choris opliton kata barbaron energein] to perform great things against

the Barbarians without soldiers, was, at the instances of the empress

Placidia, put to death, when he was about to have given proofs of his

abilities. The empress shewed some kindness in her anger by cutting him

off at a time so convenient for his reputation.

But a more remarkable proof of the antiquity of this notion may be found

in St. Chrysostom's book _de Sacerdotia_, which exhibits a scene of

enchantments not exceeded by any romance of the middle age: he supposes

a spectator overlooking a field of battle attended by one that points

out all the various objects of horror, the engines of destruction, and

the arts of slaughter. [Greek: Deichnuto de eti para tois enantiois kai

petomenous hippous dia tinos magganeias, kai oplitas di' aeros

pheromenous, kai pasaen goaeteias dunomin kai idean.] _Let him then

proceed to shew him in the opposite armies horses flying by enchantment,

armed men transported through the air, and every power and form of

magic._ Whether St. Chrysostom believed that such performances were

really to be seen in a day of battle, or only endeavoured to enliven his

description, by adopting the notions of the vulgar, it is equally

certain, that such nations were in his time received, and that therefore

they were not imported from the Saracens in a later age; the wars with

the Saracens however gave occasion to their propagation, not only as

bigotry naturally discovers prodigies, but as the scene of action was

removed to a great distance.

The Reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though

day was gradually encreasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft still

continued to hover in the twilight. In the time of queen Elizabeth was

the remarkable trial of the witches of Warbois, whose conviction is

still commemorated in an annual sermon at Huntingdon. But in the reign

of king James, in which this tragedy was written, many circumstances

concurred to propagate and confirm this opinion. The king, who was much

celebrated for his knowledge, had, before his arrival in England, not

only examined in person a woman accused of witchcraft, but had given a

very formal account of the practices and illusions of evil spirits, the

compacts of witches, the ceremonies used by them, the manner of

detecting them, and the justice of punishing them, in his dialogues of

_Daemonologie_, written in the Scottish dialect, and published at

Edinburgh. This book was, soon after his accession, reprinted at London,

and as the ready way to gain king James's favour was to flatter his

speculations, the system of _Daemonologie_ was immediately adopted by

all who desired either to gain preferment or not to lose it. Thus the

doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the

greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than

that they are in fashion, it cannot be doubted but this persuasion made

a rapid progress, since vanity and credulity co-operated in its favour.

The infection soon reached the parliament, who, in the first year of

king James, made a law, by which it was enacted, chap. xii. "That if any

person shall use any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked

spirit; 2. or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or

reward any evil or cursed spirit to or for any intent or purpose; 3. or

take up any dead man, woman or child out of the grave,--or the skin,

bone, or any part of the dead person, to be employed or used in any

manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; 4. or shall use,

practise or exercise any sort of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or

enchantment; 5. whereby any person shall be destroyed, killed, wasted,

consumed, pined, or lamed in any part of the body; 6. That every such

person being convicted shall suffer death." This law was repealed in our

own time.

Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once

established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite,

but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are always seen in

proportion as they are expected, witches were every day discovered, and

multiplied as fast in some places, that bishop Hall mentions a village

in Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the houses.

The jesuits and sectaries took advantage of this universal error, and

endeavoured to promote the interest of their parties by pretended cures

of persons afflicted by evil spirits; but they were detected and exposed

by the clergy of the established church.

Upon this general infatuation Shakespeare might be easily allowed to

found a play, especially since he has followed with great exactness such

histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the

scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by

himself and his audience thought awful and affecting.

I.i.10 (396,5) Fair is foul, and foul is fair] I believe the meaning is,

that _to us_, perverse and malignant as we are, _fair is foul, and foul

is fair_.

I.ii.14 (398,9) And Fortune, on his damned quarry smiling] Thus the old

copy; but I am inclined to read _quarrel_. _Quarrel_ was formerly used

for _cause_, or for _the occasion of a quarrel_, and is to be found in

that sense in Hollingshed's account of the story of Macbeth, who, upon

the creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, says the historian,

that he had _a just quarrel_, to endeavour after the crown. The sense

therefore is, _Fortune smiling on his excrable cause_, &c. This is

followed by Dr. Warburten. (see 1765, VI, 373, 4).

I.ii.28 (400,4) Discomfort swells] _Discomfort_ the natural opposite to

_comfort_. _Well'd_, for _flawed_, was an emendation. The common copies

have, _discomfort swells_.

I.ii.37 (400,5) As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks,

So they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe]

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this passage by

altering the punctuation thus:

--_they were

As cannons overcharg'd, with double cracks

So they redoubled strokes_--

He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a

_cannon charged with double cracks_; but surely the great author will

not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he

_redoubles strokes with double cracks_, an expression not more loudly to

be applauded, or more easily pardoned than that which is rejected in its

favour. That a cannon is charged _with thunder_, or _with double

thunders_, may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance,

and nothing else is here meant by _cracks_, which in the time of this

writer was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he

terms the general dissolution of nature the _crack of doom_.

The old copy reads,

_They doubly redoubled strokes_.

I.ii.46 (401,8) So should he look, that seems to speak things strange]

The meaning of this passage, as it now stands, is, _so should he look,

that looks as if he told things strange_. But Rosse neither yet told

strange things, nor could look as if he told them; Lenox only

conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and

therefore undoubtedly said,

_What haste looks thro' his eyes?

So should he look, that_ teems _to speak thinks strange_.

He looks like one that _is big with_ something of importance; a metaphor

so natural that it is every day used in common discourse.

I.ii.55 (402,1) Confronted him with self-comparisons] [Theobald

interpreted "him" as Cawdor; Johnson, in 1745, accused Shakespeare of

forgetfulness on the basis of Theobald's error; and Warburton here

speaks of "blunder upon blunder."] The second blunderer was the present

editor.

I.iii.6 (403,5) _Aroint thee, witch_!] In one of the folio editions the

reading is _Anoint thee_, in a sense very consistent with the common

accounts of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural acts

by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the

places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this sense,

_anoint thee, Witch_, will mean, _Away, Witch, to your infernal

assembly_. This reading I was inclined to favour, because I had met with

the word _aroint_ in no other authour till looking into Hearne's

Collections I found it in a very old drawing, that he has published, in

which St. Patrick is represented visiting hell, and putting the devils

into great confusion by his presence, of whom one that is driving the

damned before him with a prong, has a label issuing out of his mouth

with these words, OUT OUT ARONGT, of which the last is evidently the

same with _aroint_, and used in the same sense as in this passage.

I.iii.15 (405,8) And the very points they blew] As the word _very_ is

here of no other use than to fill up the verse, it is likely that

Shakespeare wrote _various_, which might be easily mistaken for _very_,

being either negligently read, hastily pronounced, or imperfectly heard.

I.iii.21 (405,9) He shall live a man forbid] Mr. Theobald has very

justly explained _forbid_ by _accursed_, but without giving any reason

of his interpretation. To _bid_ is originally _to pray_, as in this

Saxon fragment,

Ðe iÿ þiÿ þ bit y bote

_He is wise that_ prays and makes amends.

As to forbid_ therefore implies to _prohibit_, in opposition to the word

_bid_ in its present sense, it signifies by the same kind of opposition

to _curse_, when it is derived from the same word in its primitive

meaning.

I.iii.42 (409,3) are you aught/That man may question?] Are ye any beings

with which man is permitted to hold converse, or of which it is lawful

_to ask questions_?

I.iii.53 (410,5) Are ye fantastical] By _fantastical_, he means

creatures of fantasy or imagination; the question is, Are these real

beings before us, or are we deceived by illusions of fancy?

I.iii.97 (412,8) As thick as tale] [As thick as hail] Was Mr. Pope's

correction. The old copy has,

--_As thick_ as tale

_Can_ post _with_ post;--

which perhaps is not amiss, meaning that the news came as _thick_ as a

_tale_ can _travel_ with the _post_. Or we may read, perhaps yet better,

--_As thick as tale_

Came _post with post_;--

That is, posts arrived as fast as they could be counted.

I.iii.130 (414,4) This supernatural solliciting] _Solliciting_ is

rather, in my opinion, _incitement_ than _information_.

I.iii.134 (414,5) why do I yield] To _yield_ is, simply, to _give way

to_.

I.iii.137 (414,6) Present fears/Are less than horrible imaginings] [W:

feats] _Present fears_ are _fears of things present_, which Macbeth

declares, and every man has found, to be less than the _imagination_

presents them while the objects are yet distant. _Fears_ is right.

I.iii.140 (415,7) single state of man] The _single state of man_ seems

to be used by Shakespeare for an _individual_, in opposition to a

_commonwealth_, or _conjunct body_.

I.iii.40 (415,8) function/Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is,/ But

what is not] All powers of action are oppressed and crushed by one

overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me, but that

which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception,

being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence.

I.iii.147 (415,9) Time and the hour runs through the roughest day] I

suppose every reader is disgusted at the tautology in this passage,

_Time and the hour_, and will therefore willingly believe that

Shakespeare wrote it thus,

_Come what come may_,

Time! on!--_the hour runs thro' the roughest day_.

Macbeth is deliberating upon the events which are to befall him, but

finding no satisfaction from his own thoughts, he grows impatient of

reflection, and resolves to wait the close without harrassing hinaelf

with conjectures.

_Come what come may_.

But to shorten the pain of suspense, he calls upon Time In the usual

stile of ardent desire, to quicken his motion,

_Time! on!_ --

He then comforts himself with the reflection that all his perplexity

must have an end,

--_the hour runs thro' the roughest day._

This conjecture is supported by the passage in the letter to his lady,

in which he says, _they referred me to the_ coming on of time, _with

Hail, King that shalt be_.

I.iii.149 (416,1) My dull brain was wrought] My head was _worked_,

_agitated_, put into commotion.

I.iv.9 (417,3) studied in his death] Instructed in the art of dying. It

was usual to say _studied_, for _learned_ in science.

I.iv.12 (417,4) To find the mind's construction in the face] The

_construction of the mind_ is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to

Shakespeare; it implies the _frame_ or _disposition_ of the mind, by

which it is determined to good or ill.

I.iv.26 (418,5) Which do but what they should, by doing everything, Safe

toward your love and honour] Of the last line of this speech, which is

certainly, as it is now read, unintelligible, an emendation has been

attempted, which Dr. Warburton and Dr. Theobald once admitted as the

true reading:

--_our duties

Are to your throne and state, children and servants,

Which do but what they should, in doing every thing_

Fiefs _to your love and honour._

My esteem for these critics inclines me to believe that they cannot be

much pleased with these expressions _fiefs to love_, or _fiefs to

honour_, and that they have proposed this alteration rather because no

other occured to them, than because they approved of it. I shall

therefore propose a bolder change, perhaps with no better success, but

_sua cuique placent_. I read thus,

--_our duties

Are to your throne and state, children and servants

Which do but what they should, in doing_ nothing,

Save _toward_ your love and honour.

We do but perform our duty when we contract all our views to your

service, when we act with _no other_ principle than regard to _your love

and honour_.

It is probable that this passage was first corrupted by writing _safe_

for _save_, and the lines then stood thus:

--_doing nothing

Safe toward your love and honour._

which the next transcriber observing to be wrong, and yet not being able

to discover the real fault, altered to the present reading.

Dr. Warburton has since changed _fiefs_ to _fief'd_, and Hanmer has

altered _safe_ to _shap'd_. I am afraid none of us have hit the right

word.

I.v.2 (420, 6) _by the perfected report_] By the best intelligence. Dr.

Warburton would read, _perfected_, and explains _report_ by

_prediction_. Little regard can be paid to an emendation that instead of

clearing the sense, makes it more difficult.

I.v.23 (420, 7) thoud'st have, great Glamis,/That which cries, _Thus

thou must do, if thou have it_] As the object of Macbeth's desire is

here introduced speaking of itself, it is necessary to read,

--_thoud'st have, great Glamis,

That which cries_, thus thou must do, if thou have _me_.

I.v.39 (422, 8) The raven himself is hoarse] Dr. Warburton reads,

--_The raven himself's_ not _hoarse_.

Yet I think the present words may stand. The messenger, says the

servant, had hardly breath _to make up his message_; to which the lady

answers mentally, that he may well want breath, such a message would add

hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird, whose harsh voice is

accustomed to predict calamities, could not _croak the entrance of_

Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness.

I.v.42 (422, 2) mortal thoughts] This expression signifies not _the

thoughts of mortals_, but _murtherous, deadly_, or _destructive

designs_. So in act 5,

_Hold fast the_ mortal _sword_.

And in another place,

_With twenty_ mortal _murthers_.

I.v.47 (422, 3) nor keep peace between/The 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

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep_ pace _between

Th' effect, and it_.--

To _keep_ pace _between_ may signify _to pass between_, to _intervene_.

_Pace_ is on many occasions a favourite of Shakespeare's. This phrase is

indeed not usual in this sease, but was it not its novelty that gave

occasion to the present corruption? [The sense is, _that no compunctious

visitings of nature_ may prevail upon her, to give place in her mind to

_peaceful_ thoughts, or to rest one moment in quiet, from the hour of

her purpose to its full completion in the effect. REVISAL.] This writer

thought himself perhaps very sagacious that be found a meaning which

nobody missed, the difficulty still remains how such a meaning is made

by the words. (see 1765, VI, 394, 6)

I.v.49 (423, 5) take my milk for gall] _Take_ away _my milk_, and put

_gall_ into the place.

I.v.51 (423, 6) You wait on nature's mischief!] _Nature's mischief_ is

mischief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by

wickedness.

I.v.55 (423,8) To cry, _hold, hold_!] On this passage there is a long

criticism in the _Rambler_.

I.v.58 (424,1) This ignorant present time] _Ignorant_ has here the

signification of _unknowing_; that it, I feel by anticipation these

future hours, of which, according to the process of nature, the present

time would be _ignorant_.

I.vi.3 (425,3) our gentle senses] _Senses_ are nothing more _than each

man's sense_. _Gentle senses_ is very elegant, as it means _placid_,

_calm_, _composed_, and intimates the peaceable delight of a fine day.

(see 1765, VI,396,2)

I.vi.7 (426,5) coigne of 'vantage] Convenient corner.

I.vi.13 (426,7) How you should bid god-yield as for your pains] I

believe _yield_, or, as it is in the folio of 1623, _eyld_, is a

corrupted contraction of _shield_. The wish implores not _reward_ but

_protection_.

I.vii.1 (428,1) If it were _done_] A man of learning recommends another

punctuation:

_If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well.

It were done quickly, if, &c._

I.vii.2 (428,2) If the assassination/Could tramel up the consequence] 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 enquiry, 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 _these cases_ in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance

inflicted upon as _here_ in our present life. We teach others to do as

we have done, and are punished by our own example." (1773)

I.vii.4 (428,3) With his surcease, success] I think the reasoning

requires that we should read,

_With its_ success surcease.

I.vii.6 (429,4) shoal of time] This is Theobald's emendation,

undoubtedly right. The old edition has _school_, and Dr. Warburton

_shelve_.

I.vii.22 (429,7) or heavens cherubin, hors'd/Upon the sightless couriers

of the air] [W: couriers] _Courier_ is only _runner_. _Couriers of air_

are _winds_, air in motion. _Sightless_ is _invisible_.

I.vii.25 (430,8) That tears shall drown the wind] Alluding to the

remission of the wind in a shower.

I.vii.28 (430,9) _Enter Lady_] 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 house-breaker, 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 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

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 shewn that a former obligation could not be vacated by a

latter: that obligations laid on us by a higher power, could not be

over-ruled by obligations which we lay upon ourselves.