Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 541
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.
NOTE XVIII.
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.
NOTE XIX.
— Who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
Quell is murder, manquellers being, in the old language, the term for which murderers is now used.
NOTE XX.
ACT II. SCENE II.
— Now o’er one half the world
(a)Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecat’s offerings: and wither’d murther,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With (b)Tarquin’s ravishing sides tow’rds his design
Moves like a ghost. — 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 (c)take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. —
(a) — Now o’er one half the 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 songs repeat,
And sleeping flowers 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 lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, that of a murderer.
(b) — Wither’d murder,
— thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing sides tow’rds his design,
Moves like a ghost. —
This was the reading of this passage 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 on 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 to be, as Milton expresses it,
Smooth sliding without step.
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,
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 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.
(c) 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
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
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
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’th’air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confused events,
New-hatch’d to the woeful time.
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:
— prophesying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events.
New-hatch’d to th’woeful 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. 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,
As from your graves rise up. —
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. —
Many other emendations, of the same kind, might be made, without any greater deviation from the printed copies, than is found in each of them from the rest.
NOTE XXIII.
Macbeth. — Here, lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood; And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature, For ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech’d with gore. —
An unmannerly dagger, and a dagger breech’d, or as in some editions breach’d with gore, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor can it be imagined that Shakespeare would reproach the murderer of his king only with want of manners. There are, undoubtedly, two faults in this passage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,
— Daggers
Unmanly drench’d with gore. —
I saw drench’d with the king’s Mood the fatal daggers, not only instruments of murder but evidences 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.
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 silver 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 show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech, considered in this light, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as if consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.
NOTE XXIV.
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,
