Chapter VII: Act III: Scene II

_Macbeth_.--Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that, which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he,
Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My genius is rebuk'd; (a)_as, it is said,
Anthony's was by Cæsar_. He chid the sisters,
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 'tis so,
For Banquo's issue have I 'fil'd my mind;
For them, the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the (b)_common enemy of man_,
To make them kings,--the seed of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
(c)And champion me to th' _utterance_!--

(a)--As, it is said,
Anthony's was by Cæsar.

Though I would not often assume the critick's privilege, of being confident where certainty cannot be obtained, nor indulge myself too far, in departing from the established reading; yet I cannot but propose the rejection of this passage, which, I believe, was an insertion of some player, that, having so much learning as to discover to what Shakespeare alluded, was not willing that his audience should be less knowing than himself, and has, therefore, weakened the author's sense by the intrusion of a remote and useless image into a speech bursting from a man wholly possessed with his own present condition, and, therefore, not at leisure to explain his own allusions to himself. If these words are taken away, by which not only the thought but the numbers are injured, the lines of Shakespeare close together without any traces of a breach.

My genius is rebuk'd. He chid the sisters.

(b)--The common enemy of man.

It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a sentiment to its original source, and, therefore, though the term enemy of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some may be pleased with being informed, that Shakespeare probably borrowed it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is known to have read.

That this remark may not appear too trivial, I shall take occasion from it to point out a beautiful passage of Milton, evidently copied from a book of no greater authority: in describing the gates of hell, Book ii. v.879, he says,

--On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

In the history of Don Bellianis, when one of the knights approaches, as I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, _grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.

(c)--Come fate into the list,
And champion me to th' utterance.--

This passage will be best explained by translating it into the language from whence the only word of difficulty in it is borrowed. _Que la destinée se rende en lice, et qu'elle me donne un défi_ à l'outrance. A challenge or a combat _a l'outrance, to extremity_, was a fixed term in the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an _odium internecinum, an intention to destroy each other_, in opposition to trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest was only for reputation or a prize. The sense, therefore, is, Let fate, that has fore-doomed the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own decrees, which I will endeavour to invalidate, whatever be the danger.

NOTE XXV.

_Macbeth_. Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men;
As hounds, and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demy-wolves are cleped
All by the name of dogs.

Though this is not the most sparkling passage in the play, and though the name of a dog is of no great importance, yet it may not be improper to remark, that there is no such species of dogs as _shoughs_ mentioned by Caius De Canibus Britannicis, or any other writer that has fallen into my hands, nor is the word to be found in any dictionary which I have examined. I, therefore, imagined that it is falsely printed for _slouths_, a kind of slow hound bred in the southern parts of England, but was informed by a lady, that it is more probably used, either by mistake, or according to the orthography of that time, for _shocks_.

NOTE XXVI.

_Macbeth_.--In this hour, at most,
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o'th'time,
The moment on't; for't must be done to-night,
And something from the palace.--

What is meant by _the spy of the time_, it will be found difficult to explain; and, therefore, sense will be cheaply gained by a slight alteration.--Macbeth is assuring the assassins that they shall not want directions to find Banquo, and, therefore, says,

I will--
_Acquaint you with_ a perfect spy _o'th'time_.

Accordingly a third murderer joins them afterwards at the place of action.

_Perfect_ is _well instructed_, or _well informed_, as in this play,

Though in your state of honour I am _perfect_.

_Though I am_ well acquainted _with your quality and rank_.

NOTE XXVII.

SCENE IV.

_2 Murderer_. He needs not to mistrust, since he delivers
Our offices and what we have to do,
To the direction just.

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured unsuccessfully to amend this passage, in which nothing is faulty but the punctuation. The meaning of this abrupt dialogue is this: The _perfect spy_, mentioned by Macbeth in the foregoing scene, has, before they enter upon the stage, given them the directions which were promised at the time of their agreement; and, therefore, one of the murderers observes, that, since _he has given them such exact information, he needs not doubt of their performance_. Then, by way of exhortation to his associates, he cries out,

--To the direction just.

_Now nothing remains but that we conform exactly to Macbeth's directions_.

NOTE XXVIII.

SCENE V.

_Macbeth_. You know your own degrees, sit down:
At first and last, the hearty welcome.

As this passage stands, not only the numbers are very imperfect, but the sense, if any can be found, weak and contemptible. The numbers will be improved by reading,

--sit down at first,
And last a hearty welcome.

But for _last_ should then be written _next_. I believe the true reading is,

You know your own degrees, sit down--_To_ first
And last the hearty welcome.

_All of whatever degree, from the highest to the lowest, may be assured that their visit is well received_.

NOTE XXIX

_Macbeth._--There's blood upon thy face.
[--_To the murderer, aside at the door_.]
_Murderer_. 'Tis Banquo's then.
_Macbeth_. 'Tis better thee without, than _he_ within.

The sense apparently requires that this passage should be read thus:

'Tis better thee without, than _him_ within.

That is, _I am more pleased that the blood of Banquo should be on thy face, than in his body_.

NOTE XXX.

_Lady Macbeth_. O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
[_Aside to Macbeth_.
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts,
_Impostures to true fear_, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.

As _starts_ can neither with propriety nor sense be called _impostures to true fear_, something else was undoubtedly intended by the author, who, perhaps, wrote,

--These flaws and starts,
_Impostures true to fear_, would well become
A woman's story.--

These symptoms of terrour and amazement might better become _impostors true_ only _to fear, might become a coward at the recital of such falsehoods, as no man could credit, whose understanding was not weakened by his terrours; tales, told by a woman over a fire on the authority of her grandam_.

NOTE XXXI.

_Macbeth_.--Love and health to all!
Then I'll sit down: give me some wine, fill full:--
I drink to the general joy of the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
_And all to all_.--

Though this passage is, as it now stands, capable of more meanings than one, none of them are very satisfactory; and, therefore, I am inclined to read it thus:

--to all, and him, we thirst,
_And hail to all_.

Macbeth, being about to salute his company with a bumper, declares that he includes Banquo, though absent, in this act of kindness, and wishes _health_ to all. _Hail_ or _heil_ for _health_ was in such continual use among the good-fellows of ancient times, that a drinker was called a _was-heiler_, or a _wisher of health_, and the liquor was termed _was-heil_, because _health_ was so often _wished_ over it. Thus in the lines of Hanvil the monk,

Jamque vagante scypho, discincto gutture _was-heil_
Ingeminant _was-heil_: labor est plus perdere vini
Quam sitis.--

These words were afterwards corrupted into _wassail_ and _wassailer_.

NOTE XXXII.

_Macbeth_.--Can such things be,
And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I _owe_,
When now I think, you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheek,
When mine is blanched with fear.

This passage, as it now stands, is unintelligible, but may be restored to sense by a very slight alteration:

--You make me strange
Ev'n to the disposition that I _know_.

_Though I had before seen many instances of your courage, yet it now appears in a degree altogether_ new. _So that my long_ acquaintance _with your_ disposition _does not hinder me from that astonishment which_ novelty _produces_.

NOTE XXXIII.

It will have blood, they say, blood will have blood,
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augurs, that understand relations, have
By magpies, and by choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret'st man of blood.--

In this passage the first line loses much of its force by the present punctuation. Macbeth having considered the prodigy which has just appeared, infers justly from it, that the death of Duncan cannot pass unpunished;

It will have blood:--

then, after a short pause, declares it as the general observation of mankind, that murderers cannot escape:

--they say, blood will have blood.

Murderers, when they have practised all human means of security, are detected by supernatural directions:

Augurs, that understand relations, &c.

By the word _relation_ is understood the _connexion_ of effects with causes; to _understand relations_ as _an augur_, is to know how those things _relate_ to each other, which have no visible combination or dependence.

NOTE XXXIV.

SCENE VII.

_Enter Lenox and another Lord_.

As this tragedy, like the rest of Shakespeare's, is, perhaps, overstocked with personages, it is not easy to assign a reason, why a nameless character should be introduced here, since nothing is said that might not, with equal propriety, have been put into the mouth of any other disaffected man. I believe, therefore, that in the original copy, it was written, with a very common form of contraction, _Lenox and An_. for which the transcriber, instead of Lenox and Angus, set down, Lenox and _another Lord_. The author had, indeed, been more indebted to the transcriber's fidelity and diligence, had he committed no errours of greater importance.

NOTE XXXV.

As this is the chief scene of enchantment in the play, it is proper, in this place, to observe, with how much judgment Shakespeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions:

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

The usual form in which familiar spirits are reported to converse with witches, is that of a cat. A witch, who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakespeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the spirit of one of those witches was Grimalkin; and when any mischief was to be done, she used to bid Rutterkin _go and fly_; but once, when she would have sent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the countess of Rutland, instead of _going_ or _flying_, he only cried _mew_, from whence she discovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not universal, but limited, as Shakespeare has taken care to inculcate:

Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.

The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced, were melancholy, fits, and loss of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakespeare's witches:

Weary sev'n nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

It was, likewise, their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have, to this day, many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Shakespeare has, accordingly, made one of his witches declare that she has been _killing swine_; and Dr. Harsenet observes, that, about that time, "a sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft."

Toad, that under the cold stone,
Days and nights hast thirty-one,
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

Toads have, likewise, long lain under the reproach of being by some means accessary to witchcraft, for which reason Shakespeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits Padocke, or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was seized at Tholouse, there was found at his lodgings, "ingens bufo vitro inclusus," _a great toad shut in a vial_, upon which those that prosecuted him "veneficium exprobrabant," _charged him_, I suppose, _with witchcraft_.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog;--For a charm, &c.

The propriety of these ingredients may be known by consulting the books De Viribus Animalium and De Mirabilibus Mundi, ascribed to Albertus Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover very wonderful secrets.

Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab--

It has been already mentioned, in the law against witches, that they are supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable, that Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstances of horrour. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth; the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the sow, whose blood is used, must have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius.

And now about the cauldron sing--

Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.

And, in a former part:

--weird sisters hand in hand,--
Thus do go about, about;
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine;

These two passages I have brought together, because they both seem subject to the objection of too much levity for the solemnity of enchantment, and may both be shown, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really observed by the uncivilized natives of that country. "When any one gets a fall," says the informer of Camden, "he starts up, and, _turning three times to the right_, digs a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a spirit in the ground, and if he falls sick in two or three days, they send one of their women that is skilled in that way to the place, where she says, I call thee from the east, west, north, and south, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the _fairies, red, black, white_." There was, likewise, a book written before the time of Shakespeare, describing, amongst other properties, the _colours_ of spirits.

Many other circumstances might be particularized, in which Shakespeare has shown his judgment and his knowledge[4].

NOTE XXXVI.

SCENE II.

_Macbeth_. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
Thy crown does (a)sear mine eye-balls:--and thy (b)_hair_,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:--
A third is like the former.

(a) The expression of Macbeth, that the _crown sears_ his eye-balls, is taken from the method formerly practised of destroying the sight of captives or competitors, by holding a burning bason before the eye, which dried up its humidity. Whence the Italian, _abacinare, to blind_.

(b) As Macbeth expected to see a train of kings, and was only inquiring from what race they would proceed, he could not be surprised that the _hair_ of the second was _bound with gold_, like that of the first; he was offended only that the second resembled the first, as the first resembled Banquo, and, therefore, said:

--and thy _air_,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.

NOTE XXXVII.

I will--give to the edge o' th' sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That _trace him in his line_.--No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do before my purpose cool.

Both the sense and measure of the third line, which, as it rhymes, ought, according to the practice of this author, to be regular, are, at present, injured by two superfluous syllables, which may easily be removed by reading,

--souls
That trace his line:--No boasting like a fool.

NOTE XXXVIII.

SCENE III.

_Rosse_. My dearest cousin,
I pray you, school yourself: But for your husband,
He's noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o'th'time, I dare not speak much further,
But cruel are the times when we are traitors,
And do not know't ourselves, when we (a)_hold rumour
From what we fear_, yet know not what we fear;
But float upon a wild and violent sea,
Each way, and (b)_move_. I'll take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before: my pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!

(a)--When we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.

The present reading seems to afford no sense; and, therefore, some critical experiments may be properly tried upon it, though, the verses being without any connexion, there is room for suspicion, that some intermediate lines are lost, and that the passage is, therefore, irretrievable. If it be supposed that the fault arises only from the corruption of some words, and that the traces of the true reading are still to be found, the passage may be changed thus:

--when we _bode ruin_
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.

Or, in a sense very applicable to the occasion of the conference:

--when the _bold, running_
From what they fear, yet know not what they fear.

(b) But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way, and move.

That he who _floats_ upon a _rough sea_ must move, is evident, too evident for Shakespeare so emphatically to assert. The line, therefore, is to be written thus:

Each way, and move--I'll take my leave of you.

Rosse is about to proceed, but, finding himself overpowered by his tenderness, breaks off abruptly, for which he makes a short apology, and retires.

NOTE XXXIX.

SCENE IV.

_Malcolm_. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
_Macduff_. Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men,
Bestride our _downfal birth-doom_: each new morn,
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllables of dolour.

He who can discover what is meant by him that earnestly exhorts him to _bestride_ his _downfal birth-doom_, is at liberty to adhere to the present text; but those who are willing to confess that such counsel would to them be unintelligible, must endeavour to discover some reading less obscure. It is probable that Shakespeare wrote:

--like good men,
Bestride our _downfall'n birthdom_--

The allusion is to a man from whom something valuable is about to be taken by violence, and who, that he may defend it without encumbrance, lays it on the ground, and stands over it with his weapon in his hand. Our birthdom, or birthright, says he, lies on the ground, let us, like men who are to fight for what is dearest to them, not abandon it, but stand over it and defend it. This is a strong picture of obstinate resolution.

_Birthdom_ for _birthright_ is formed by the same analogy with _masterdom_ in this play, signifying the _privileges_ or _rights of a master_.

Perhaps it might be _birth-dame_ for _mother_; let us stand over our mother that lies bleeding on the ground.

NOTE XL.

_Malcolm_. Now we'll together; and the _chance of goodness_
Be like our warranted quarrel!

The _chance of goodness_, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should, at least, be pointed thus:

--And the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [_pro justicia divina_,] answerable to the cause.

But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,

--and the chance, O goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

This some of his transcribers wrote with a small _o_, which another imagined to mean _of_. If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, _and O! thou sovereign goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to our cause._

NOTE XLI.