Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 542
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.
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.
ACT V. SCENE III.
Macbeth. Bring me no more reports, let them fly all,
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? —
— fly false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures.
In the first line of this speech, the proper pauses are not observed in the present editions.
Bring me no more reports — let them fly all —
Tell me not any more of desertions — Let all my subjects leave me — I am safe till, &c.
The reproach of epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective, uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury.
NOTE XLII.
Macbeth. I have liv’d long enough: my way of life Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf.
As there is no relation between the way of life, and fallen into the sear, I am inclined to think, that the W is only an M inverted, and that it was originally written, my May of life.
I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days, but I am without those comforts that should succeed the sprightliness of bloom, and support me in this melancholy season.
NOTE XLIII.
SCENE IV.
Malcolm. ’Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.
The impropriety of the expression advantage to be given, instead of advantage given, and the disagreeable repetition of the word given in the next line incline me to read,
— where there is a’vantage to be gone,
Both more and less have given him the revolt.
Advantage or ‘vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, signified opportunity.
More and less is the same with greater and less. So in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the more and the less.
NOTE XLIV.
SCENE V.
Macbeth. — Wherefore was that cry?
Seyton. The queen, my lord, is dead.
Macbeth. She should (a)have, died hereafter:
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of (b)recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow. —
(a) She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for such a word.
This passage has very justly been suspected of being corrupt. It is not apparent for what word there would have been a time, and that there would or would not be a time for any word, seems not a consideration of importance sufficient to transport Macbeth into the following exclamation. I read, therefore:
She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for — such a world! —
To-morrow, &c.
It is a broken speech, in which only part of the thought is expressed, and may be paraphrased thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. Her death should have been deferred to some more peaceful hour; had she lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world — such is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day; but to-morrow and to-morrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still linger in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engrossed by the same dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to- morrow.
(b) To the last syllable of recorded time.
Recorded time seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is, indeed, no accurate expression, but as we only know transactions past or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience, in which future events may be supposed to be written.
NOTE XLV.
Macbeth. If thou speak’st false.
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
