Chapter 2

"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.

I.vii.41 (431,1)

--Whouldst thou have that, Which then esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem?]

In this there seems to be no reasoning. I should read,

Or _live a coward in thine own esteem_?

Unless we choose rather,

--_Wouldst thou_ leave _that_.

I.vii.45 (431,2) Like the poor cat i' the adage?] The adage alluded to is, _The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her feet, Catus amat pisces, sed men vult tingere plantas_.

I.vii.64 (432,5) Will I with wine and wassel so convince] To _convince_ is in Shakespeare to _overpower_ or _subdue_, as in this play,

--_Their malady_ convinces _The great assay of art_.

I.vii.67 (433,6) A limbeck only] That is, shall be only a vessel to emit _fumes_ or _vapours_.

I.vii.71 (433,7) our great quell] _Quell_ is _murder_. _manquellers_ being in the old language the term for which _murderers_ is now used.

II.i (434,8) _Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch before him_] The place is not mark'd in the old edition, nor is it easy to say where this encounter can be. It is not in the _hall_, as the editors have all supposed it, for Banquo sees the sky; it is not far from the bedchamber, as the conversation shews: it must be in the inner court of the castle, which Banquo might properly cross in his way to bed.

II.i.25 (435,2) If you shall cleave to my consent, Then 'tis,/It shall make honour for you] Macbeth expressed his thought with affected obscurity; he does not mention the royalty, though he apparently has it in his mind, _If you shall cleave to my consent_, if you shall concur with me when I determine to accept the crown, _when 'tis_, when that happens which the prediction promises, _it shall make honour for you_.

II.i.49 (437,6) Now o'er the one half world/Nature seems dead] That is, _over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased_. This image, which is perhaps the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden in his _Conquest of Mexico_:

_All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head; The little birds in dreams their song repeat, And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat. Even lust and envy sleep!_

These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately observed.

Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lull'd with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover, the other, of a murderer.

II.i.52 (438,8)

--wither'd Murther, --thus with hia stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, tow'rds his design moves like a ghost.--]

This was the reading of this passage [ravishing sides] in all the editions before that of Mr. Pope, who for _sides_, inserted in the text _strides_, which Mr. Theobald has tacitly copied from him, though a more proper alteration might perhaps have been made. A _ravishing stride_ is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing at his prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an image of secrecy and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the _stealthy pace_ of a _ravisher_ creeping into the chamber of a virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to murder, without awaking him; these he describes as _moving like ghosts_, whose progression is so different from _strides_, that it has been in all ages represented te be, as Milton expresses it,

_Smooth sliding without step_.

This hemiatic 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_, _Moves like a ghost_.--

_Tarquin_ is in this place the general name of a ravisher, and the sense is, Now is the time in which every one is a-sleep, 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_.

II.i.59 (439,3) And take the present horrour from the time,/Which now suits with it] Of this passage an alteration was once proposed by me, of which I have now a less favourable opinion, yet will insert it, as it may perhaps give some hint to other critics:

_And take the present horrour 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 authour. I shall therefore propose a slight alteration:

--_Thou sound and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about, And talk--the present horrour of the time! That now suits with it_.--

Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by enumerating all the terrors 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 horrors 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 conviction of the wickedness of his design. Of this alteration, however, I do not now see much use, and certainly see no necessity.

Whether to _take horrour from the time_ means not rather to _catch_ _it_ as communicated, than to _deprive the time of horrour_, deserves te be considered.

II.ii.37 (443,6) sleave of care] A skein of silk is called a _sleave_ of silk, as I learned from Mr. Seward, the ingenious editor of Beaumont and Fletcher.

II.ii.56 (444,8) gild the faces of the grooms withal,/For it must seem their guilt] Could Shakespeare possibly mean to play upon the similitude of _gild_ and _guilt_.

II.iii.45 (447,5) I made a shift to cast him] To _cast him up_, to ease my stomach of him. The equivocation is between _cast_ or _throw_, as a term of wrestling, and _cast_ or _cast up_.

II.iii.61 (448,7)

--strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents terrible Of dire combustions, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time: The obscure bird Clamour'd the live-long night: some say the earth Was feverous, and did shake]

Those lines I think should be rather regulated thus:

--_prophecying with accents terrible, Of dire combustions and cosfus'd events. New-hatch'd to th' woful time, the obscure bird Clamour'd the live-long night. Some say the earth Was fev'rous and did shake._

A _prophecy_ of an _event new hatch'd_, seems to be a _prophecy_ of an _event past_. And _a prophecy new hatch'd_ is a wry expression. The term _new hatch'd_ is properly applicable to a _bird_, and that birds of ill omen should be _new-hatch'd to the woful time_, that is, should appear in uncommon numbers, 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. (see 1765, VI, 413, 7)

II.iii.117 (452,3) Here, lay Duncan,/His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood] Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines by substituting _goary blood_ for _golden blood_; but it may easily be admitted that he who could on such an occasion talk of _lacing the silyer skin_, would _lace it_ with _golden blood_. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.

It is not improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to shew the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech so considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of antithesis and metaphor.

II.iii.122 (432,5) Unmannerly breech'd with gore] An _unmannerly dagger_, and a _dagger breech'd_, or as in some editions _breech'd with_, gore, are expressions not easily to be understood. There are undoubtedly two faults in this passage, which I have endeavored to take away by reading,

--_daggers_ Unmanly drench'd _with gore_:--

_I saw_ drench'd _with the King's blood the fatal daggers, not only instruments of murder but evidence of cowardice_.

Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have substituted for it, by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent inspection, [W: Unmanly reech'd] Dr. Warburton has, perhaps, rightly put _reach'd_ for _breech'd_.

II.iii.138 (454,8)

In the great hand of God I stand; and thence, Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonous malice]

_Pretence_ is not act, but _simulation_, a _pretence_ of the traitor, whoever he might be, to suspect some other of the murder. I here fly to the protector of innocence from any charge which, yet _undivulg'd_, the traitor may pretend to fix upon me.

II.iii.147 (454,7) This murtherous shaft that's shot,/Hath not yet lighted] The design to fix the murder opon some innocent person, has not yet taken effect.

II.iv.15 (456,9) minions of their race] Theobald reads,

--_minions of_ the _race_,

very probably, and very poetically.

II.iv.24 (456,1) What good could they pretend?] To _pretend_ is here to _propose to themselves_, to _set before themselves_ as a motive of action.

III.i.7 (457,2) As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine] _Shine_, for appear with all the _lustre_ of _conspicuous_ truth.

III.i.56 (459,4) as, it is said,/Mark Anthony's was by Caesar] Though I would not often assume the critic'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 authour's sense by the intrusion of a remote and useless image into a speech bursting from a man wholly possess'd 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._

This note was written before I was fully acquainted with Shakespeare's manner, and I do not now think it of much weight; for though the words, which I was once willing to eject, seem interpolated, I believe they may still be genuine, and added by the authour in his revision. The authour of the _Revisal_ cannot admit the measure to be faulty. There is only one foot, he says, put for another. This is one of the effects of literature in minds not naturally perspicacious. Every boy or girl finds the metre imperfect, but the pedant comes to its defence with a tribrachys or an anapaest, and sets it right at once by applying to one language the rules of another. If we may be allowed to change feet, like the old comic writers, it will not be easy to write a line not metrical. To hint this once, is sufficient. (see 1765, VI, 424, 2)

III.i.65 (460,5) For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind] [W: 'filed] This mark of contraction is not necessary. To _file_ is in the bishop's _Bible_.

III.i.69 (460,6) 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. This expression, however, he might have had in many other places. The word _fiend_ signifies enemy.

III.i.71 (461,7) come, Fate, into the list,/And champion me to the 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 defi a l'outrance_." A challenge or a combat _a l'outrance_, _to extremity_, was a fix'd 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 foredoom'd 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_. [Johnson quotes Warburton's note] After the former explication, Dr. Warburton was desirous to seem to do something; and he has therefore made _Fate_ the _marshal_, whom I had made the _champion_, and has left Macbeth to enter the lists without an opponent.

III.i.88 (462,9) Are you so gospell'd] Are you of that degree of precise virtue? _Gospeller_ was a name of contempt given by the Papists to the Lollards, the puritans of early times, and the precursors of _protestantism_.

III.i.94 (463,1) Showghes] _Showghes_ are probably what we now call _shocks_, demi-wolves, _lyciscae_; dogs bred between wolves and dogs. (1773)

III.i.95 (463,2) the valued file] In this speech the word _file_ occurs twice, and seems in both places to have a meaning different from its present use. The expression, _valued file_, evidently means, a list or catalogue of value. A station in the _file_, and not in the worst rank, may mean, a place in the list of manhood, and not in the lowest place. But _file_ seems rather to mean in this place, a post of honour; the first rank, in opposition to the last; a meaning which I have not observed in any other place. (1773)

III.i.112 (465,2) So weary with disasters, tug'd with fortune] _Tug'd with fortune_ may be, _tug'd_ or _worried_ by fortune.

III.i.130 (465,4) Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time] 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' the 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. [Warburton explained this as "the critical juncture"] How the _critical juncture_ is the _spy o' the time_ I know not, but I think my own conjecture right.

III.ii.38 (467,1) nature's copy's not eternal] The _copy_, the _lease_, by which they hold their lives from nature, has its time of termination limited.

III.iii.1 (469,6) But who did bid thee join with us?] 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; yet one of the murderers suborned suspects him of intending to betray them; the other observes, that, by his exact knowledge of _what they were to do_, he appears to be employed by Macbeth, and needs not be mistrusted.

III.iv.1 (470,9) You know your own degrees, sit down: at first,/And last the hearty welcome] As this passage stands [sit down:/At first and last], 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.

III.iv.14 (471,1) 'Tis better thee without, than he within] The sense requires that this passage should be read thus:

_'Tis better_ thee _without, than_ him _within_.

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

The authour might mean, _It is better that Banquo's blood were on thy face, than_ he _in this room_. Expressions thus imperfect are common in his works.

III.iv.33 (472,2) the feast is sold] The meaning is,--That which ia not _given cheerfully_, cannot be called a _gift_, it is something that must be paid for. (1773)

III.iv.57 (473,3) extend his passion] Prolong his suffering; make his fit longer.

III.iv.60 (473,4) O proper stuff!] This speech is rather too long for the circumstances in which it is spoken. It had begun better at, _Shame itself_!

III.iv.63 (473,5)

Oh, these flaws, and starts, (Impostors to true fear,) would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authoriz'd by her grandam]

_Flaws_, are _sudden gusts_. The authour perhaps wrote,

--_Those flaws and starts_, Impostures true to fear _would well become_; _A woman's story_,--

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

III.iv.76 (474,6) Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal] The _gentle weal_, is, the _peaceable community_, the state made quiet and safe by _human statutes_.

_Mollia securae peragebant otia gentes_.

III.iv.92 (475,7) And all to all] I once thought it should be _hail_ to all, but I now think that the present reading is right.

III.iv.105 (475,8) If trembling I inhabit] This is the original reading, which Mr. Pope changed to _inhibit_, which _inhibit_ Dr. Warburton interprets _refuse_. The old reading may stand, at least as well as the emendation. Suppose we read,

_If trembling I_ evade _it_.

III.iv.110 (476,9) Can such things be,/And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,/Without our special wonder?] [W: Can't] The alteration is introduced by a misinterpretation. The meaning is not that _these things are like a summer-cloud_, but can such wonders as these pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer cloud passes over us.

III.iv.112 (477,1) You make me strange/Even to the disposition that I owe] You produce in me an _alienation of mind_, which is probably the expression which our author intended to paraphrase.

III.iv.124 (477,2) Augurs, and understood relations] By the word _relation_ is understood the _connection_ of effects with causes; to _understand relations_ as _an angur_, is to know how these things _relate_ to each other, which have no visible combination or dependence.

III.iv.141 (479,5) You lack the season of all natures, sleep] I take the meaning to be, _you want sleep_, which _seasons_, or gives the relish to _all nature_. _Indiget somni vitae condimenti_.

III.v.24 (480,8) vaporous drop, profound] That is, a drop that has _profound_, _deep_, or _hidden_ qualities.

III.v.26 (480,9) slights] Arts; subtle practices.

III.vi (481,1) _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 errors of greater importance.