Ube Eli3abetban Sbafespere
VOLUME I
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Gbe J6li3abetban Sbafcspere
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
A NEW EDITION OF SHAKSPERE'S WORKS WITH CRITICAL
TEXT IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH AND BRIEF NOTES
ILLUSTRATIVE OF ELIZABETHAN LIFE
THOUGHT AND IDIOM
BY
MARK HARVEY LIDDELL
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
M CM III
0-
Copyright, 1903, by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
TO
ARTHUR S. NAPIER
MERTON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
THIS EDITION OF SHAKSPERE
IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
MH00959
GENERAL PREFACE
THE aim of this new edition of Shakspere is twofold: to give the
modern reader an accurate critical text of Shakspere* s works in the
language of Shakspere* s time, and to interpret this in the light of
Elizabethan conditions of life and thought and idiom.
ZJUhen Nicholas ^owe in I70J published the first modern edition
of Shakspere* s plays ; he printed the text in the English of the eigh-
teenth century and explained its divergencies from the idiom then cur-
rent as being due to the obsolete words of the 'old print* and to the
'corruptions' of the early printers. Where the text was to him un-
intelligible he amended it to suit his notions of what Shakspere should
have written.
The apparent unintelligibilities ; confusions, and imperfections of
Shakspere* s writings when read as eighteenth-century English and
weighed by the exact and formal mind of Pope, Shakspere* s next
editor (1725), were even more frankly acknowledged than they had
been by T^owe. Pope, however, assigned them to the peculiar defects
of Shakspere* s genius : "It must be owned that with all these great
excellencies he has almost as great defects; and that as he has cer-
tainly written better, so he has perhaps written worse than any other.**
Guided by this belief, 'Pope made numerous changes and "improve-
ments** in Shakspere* s text.
Theobald, in his edition, I733 y took much the same attitude to
Shakspere* s supposed imperfections that Pope did, and wrote: "As
in great piles of building some parts are often finished up to hit the
taste of the connoisseur, others more negligently put together to strike
the fancy of a common and unlearned beholder, . . so in Shakspere.**
GENERAL PREFACE
11 Nullum sine venia placuit ingenium, says Seneca. The genius that
gives us the greatest pleasure sometime stands in need of our indulgence."
Theobald, therefore (to use his own words), set himself the task of emend-
ing the corrupt passages, of explaining the obscure and difficult ones, and
of inquiring into the beauties and defects of composition. His guiding
principles were admirable: u Wherever the author's sense is clear and
discoverable (tho f ', perchance, low and trivial), I have not by any in-
novation tamper 7 d with his text out of an ostentation of endeavouring to
make him speak better than the old copies have done. Where, thro 7
all the former editions, a passage has labour 7 d under flat nonsense and
invincible darkness, if, by the addition or alteration of a letter or two,
or a transposition in the pointing, I have restored to him both sense and
sentiment, such corrections, I am persuaded, will need no indulgence.
And whenever I have taken a greater latitude and liberty in amending,
I have constantly endeavoured to support my corrections and conjectures
by parallel passages and authorities from himself, the surest means of
expounding any author whatever. Cette voie d'interpreter un autbeur
par lui-meme est plus sure que tous les commentaires, says a very
learned French critick. 77
While these principles and this practice were far in advance of the
scholarship of Theobald 7 s day, Theobald 7 s edition laboured under the
same disadvantages as did that of 'Pope, — namely, the assumption that
whatever was unintelligible in Shakspere when read as eighteenth-cen-
tury English must likewise have been unintelligible to Shakspere 7 s audi-
ence. He says there are very few pages in Shakspere upon which
u some suspicions of depravity do not frequently arise. 77 Again, u as
to his style and diction, we may much more justly apply to Shakespeare,
what a celebrated writer has said of Milton : Our language sunk under
him, and was unequal to that greatness of soul which furnish 7 d him with
such glorious conceptions. He therefore frequently uses old words to
give his diction an air of solemnity, as he coins others to express the
novelty and variety of his ideas 77 — modern appreciations are often quite
as ill founded as is this one of Theobald 7 s.
GENERAL PREFACE
These two eighteenth-century editors of Shakspere, Pope and Theo-
bald, though such bitter rivals, both recognized a certain amount of
obscurity in Shakspere* s language as they understood it, and each in
his own way endeavoured to alleviate it or palliate it for contemporary
readers. In the one we have the prototype of the literary, in the
other the prototype of the critical editor ofShakspere. ZVarburton (1747)
and Johnson (1765) followed more or less closely in the footsteps of
Pope; Capell (1768), Steevens (1773), and Malone (1790, 182 1),
followed in the footsteps of Theobald. TSut they all printed Shakspere* s
text in the current idiom of their day, and explained its divergencies as
being due to obsolete words, depravity of text, and the general inade-
quacy of language to the task Shakspere imposed upon it.
The nineteenth-century editors largely occupied themselves with
adding to the explanatory material already collected by their predecessors
and emending the text in a growing spirit of conservatism . <&yce ( / 85 7)
enriched the work of Steevens and Malone. The first edition to show
the impulse of the critical method which, during the middle of the last
century, did so much to purify our texts of Greek and Latin classics was
that of < Delius (1854) f which is in some respects superior to the work
of the Cambridge editors. < Delius > s edition, too, contained evidence of
that careful and scholarly judgement which bore such rich fruit in Ger-
many during the latter part of the last century. The Cambridge edition,
begun in 1863, finished in 1866, and revised in 1887, carried this criti-
cal scholarship a long step in advance, furnishing a conservative text
with, for its time, a minimum of emendation, and supplying a more or
less complete apparatus for textual study. This text has usually been
reprinted with slight variations in recent editions of Shakspere. In 1 87 1
was begun a New Variorum by Horace Howard Furness, collecting in
convenient form a vast number of notes and emendations of previous
editors. 'But in the nineteenth century, as well as in the eighteenth, Shak-
spere has invariably, save in the case of Dr. Furness' s Variorum, which
copies the First Folio punctuatim et literatim, been modernized and
transliterated into the current idiom.
GENERAL PREFACE
Thus in two centuries of editing, Shakspere' s works have usually
been printed as if the differences between Elizabethan and current idiom
were largely a matter of obsolete words, and this modernized text has
usually been interpreted from the standpoint of modern idiom. The
consequent obscurities and confusions have been set down with more or
less insistence to the two causes stated by Theobald, viz. the depravity
of the text and the inadequacy of the English language to express Shak-
spere' s great thought. Through the labours of successive generations of
Shakspere scholars the number of the 'depravities' has been greatly
reduced, and the l obscurities ' illustrated and more or less clarified. But
Shakspere is still given to us in modern English dress and interpreted
to us as current idiom, and a large number of apparent depravities of
text and obscurities of diction still remain to puzzle the modern reader.
For a full half-century it has been known that the development of a
living language such as our English consists not merely in an aban-
donment of a certain part of its vocabulary, but in successive alterations
of its entire structure. Its sounds, the stresses of its syllables, its in-
flectional modes, its syntactical habits of collocating words, its pro-
sodic forms, the delicate shadings of meaning and connotation which are
conveyed by its words and idioms, — all these undergo a continuous
process of transformation, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow, the net
result of which is that the idiom of one period fails to express for a suc-
ceeding generation its original content and meaning.
No single work of actual scholarship has contributed so much to the
explanation and elucidation of this scientific principle as has the Oxford
Dictionary. The resources which this one book places at the disposal
of the Shakspere scholar of the present century put him in possession
of a means of understanding apparent depravities and inadequacies which
Shakspere' s earlier editors did not dream of.
(But not only this : the stimulus of new scientific methods has set to
work the English scholars of America, England, and Germany at re-
casting and rearranging the whole subject of English in the light of the
facts of its historical development. The fresh knowledge that has re-
GENERAL PREFACE
suited gives a new interest to 'text depravity,' and invests the apparent
quaintnesses and abnormalities of the ' old spelling' with a new mean-
ing. Words and idioms which were thought to be ' corrupt' in Shak-
spere's text turn out to be normal forms of expression in normal forms
of representation. For instance, in "VOe have scorch' d the snake, not
kill' d it" Macbeth III. 2. 13, the " scorch' d " of Shakspere' s text, which
has been changed by a ' happy emendation ' of Theobald's to the* scotched'
of all modern editions, is a normal Middle English word-form still in
use in Elizabethan literature and employed in Beaumont and Fletcher' s
Knight of the burning 'Pestle; though here, as in Shakspere, it has
been assumed that the " scorch' d" of the half-dozen independent edi-
tions of Beaumont and Fletcher's text is a misprint in each case for
4 scotched.' And, notwithstanding that the r looks like such an obvious
' depravity ' of an original t, u scorch' d" meaning ' scored' or 'hacked'
was the word Shakspere used. And so in Errors V. 1. 183, where this
same word describes the scratching of one's face ; though here some
editors explain it as meaning 'singe' and others emend to 'scotch.'
Likewise, the obscurity of diction so readily laid to Shakspere' s
charge vanishes away when we confront it with a modern historical
knowledge of Elizabethan idiom. For instance, in such a phrase as
"Let not my jealousies be your dishonors, 'But mine owne safeties,"
Macbeth IV.3.29, we do not have a vague expression of the thought,
'I am jealous for my honour: but this jealousy implies no dishonour to
you; think of it merely as proceeding from my care for my own safety,'
but a sharp, clear, and idiomatically expressed notion, 'Let not my sus-
picions be a cause of shame to you, but a safeguard to myself,' — a no-
tion that has more clearness and definiteness in its Elizabethan form
than it is possible to give it in a modern translation.
'Depravity of text undoubtedly is to be reckoned with in Shakspere.
Incorrect punctuation, misprinted words, bad line divisions, and occa-
sional dislocations of the sense were undoubtedly frequently overlooked
by the proof-readers in early editions of the text. 'But these depravities
are normal and human, and are not much worse than those that occur
GENERAL PREFACE
in the other printed books of Shakspere' s time. They are to a large extent
such mistakes as we should expect to find in the work of any author
whose writing was not revised and corrected by the author himself. ^But
the compositor 1 s capacity for error has its limitations : he does not make
"pi" of his own language. If the reader will consider the hundreds of
\emendations that have been proposed for the text of Macbeth, traditionally
regarded as one of the worst printed of Shakspere' s plays, and subse-
quently been shown to be due to editorial unfamiliarity with Elizabethan
English, he will see that this invocation of the deus ex machina of cor-
ruptness to solve the text problems of Shakspere has been appealed to
needlessly in nine cases out of ten.
As to the inadequacy of English speech to convey the greatness of
any one 7 s thought, our language has never failed to rise to any emer-
gency that English thinkers, small and great, have created for it. Indeed,
in the very nature of language such an inadequacy can never exist, be-
cause language is thought itself, and the possession of the power of
creating great thought carries with it ipso facto the capacity of putting
that thought into form. Shakspere is never superior to his idiom : indeed,
no thinker of English ever demonstrated more clearly the capacity of
our language for clear, direct, and forthright expression. ZJUe should be
as careful, therefore, in invoking this explanation of 'obscurity of dic-
tion 1 to help us over a difficult passage as we should be in resorting
to assumptions of corruptness, lest in charging Shakspere with ob-
scurity we convict ourselves of ignorance.
It is the purpose, therefore, of this new edition of Shakspere 1 s works
to bring this new learning to bear on the elucidation of Shakspere 1 s text,
and to give new point to the illustrative material collected by the editors
of the last two centuries, with the single aim of making the sense of Shak-
spere^ English clear and inevitable to the modern reader.
find while we may not succeed to the full in clearing from all its
obscurities the text of Shakspere, or in illustrating to the complete satis-
faction of the modern reader the implication of Shakspere 1 s thought and
idiom, yet we hope to be able to push the great work of interpreting
GENERAL V^EF/ICE
Shakspere a step or two along its course, and to point the way to a
fuller comprehension of the greatest and mightiest piece of literature, save
one, that the human mind has produced.
The text of this edition is a critical one newly compiled from the
various Quarto and Folio sources in the light of their known relations to
one another, and not selected from them with the purpose of obtaining the
most literary and, from the modern standpoint, the most easily intelligible
form in which the plays might have been written. /Is the basis of the form
of the text the Folio of 1623 has been chosen because it presents the
uniformity of a collected edition, and its English is essentially that of
Shakspere 7 s time. This text is printed in the forms of Elizabethan
English, not from any desire to preserve the u quaintness" of the original,
nor yet from any philological pedantry, but simply because the scholar-
ship of the last quarter-century has made evident the importance of read-
ing Elizabethan literature in the language in which it was written, and
not in modern transliterations or translations of it.
(But while the spelling of Shakspere 7 s English is an essential ele-
ment of its structure indicating essential distinctions of sound, the typo-
graphical peculiarities of the Folio, such as the capitalization of important
words and the printing of the letters f, i r and u for s, j, and v, are dis-
tinctions which have only formal and not essential significance. The
punctuation system, too, of Elizabethan English is a formal method of
pointing thought that is different from our modern one, but does not in-
dicate thought divisions essentially different from those of modern Eng-
lish. It is therefore unnecessary to preserve these formal peculiarities
of printing, and the editor has followed the system adopted by the Oxford
(Dictionary for quoting Elizabethan literature, with the sole distinction
of substituting modern capitalization for Elizabethan. 1
Significant variant readings, where there is more than one indepen-
dent source of the text, are given in their original form. Mere variations
in spelling and readings of Quartos or Folios which are not independent
1 The capitalization of important words is not peculiar to the Folio, but was a
common practice of Elizabethan printing-offices.
GENERAL P^EF/ICE
sources of the text are omitted. These latter are of no more weight in
determining the text than are modern guesses. Conjectural emendations
are not noticed unless they supply in the place of a word obviously un-
intelligible as Elizabethan English another word-form which makes apt
sense in Shakspere' s time 7 and can be assumed as the basis of a more
or less evident printer's error. In short, it is the aim of the text and of
the critical notes to present the work of Shakspere simply and clearly in
a form which Shakspere himself would understand, and one as nearly like
the form he may be supposed to have given his writing as a conservative
application of the principles of evidence can attain to.
The aim of the explanatory notes is to bring together in brief space
and compact form such material as is necessary to the clear understand-
ing of Shakspere' s text. Those which have to do with glossarial ex-
planations aim to give as accurately as possible the exact shade of mean-
ing which Shakspere' s words had at the time they were written. Many
Elizabethan locutions, while not entirely obsolete in modern English,
nevertheless suggest a range of associated ideas that is quite different
from those they now suggest. In the misunderstanding of these Eliza-
bethan connotations lies the ground of the charge of obscurity which is so
frequently brought against Shakspere' s thinking : an intimate understand-
ing, therefore, of these word meanings is necessary not only to an in-
telligent comprehension of Shakspere' s text, but is also necessary to an
appreciation of the literary quality of his writing. Left to himself, the
modern reader can only guess at these connotations, and his guess, as
is evident from the explanations of almost any edition of Shakspere,
does not always hit the mark. 'Very frequently a delicate implication
or a fine reference is missed in this process of guessing. The editor,
therefore, has preferred to incur the criticism of tl insulting the reader's
intelligence" (as it is called) by glossing these obsolete connotations,
rather than that any should miss the full meaning of Shakspere' s words
by not being familiar with Elizabethan idiom. The glossarial notes are
not intended to set down inferences more or less obvious from the con-
text, but are designed as far as possible to give a definite authority for
GENERAL (PREFACE
such an inference. And in all cases either a reference to the Oxford
(Dictionary is cited in justification of the meaning given, or a reference
from contemporary literature is appended to show that the reader's in-
ference {if he would naturally make it) is authorized by contemporary
usage.
The same plan has been followed in respect to the grammatical idiom
of Elizabethan English. These illustrative references are given as far
as possible in the language of Shakspere' s time; their sources indicated;
and where they have been made use of in earlier editions due credit has
been given to the editor who first pointed them out. In some cases it
has been necessary to cite them in modernized forms because the original
quotation has not been accessible to the editor. Such citations are dis-
tinguished from the others by being printed within single quotation-marks.
^Brief notes of a literary character, or illustrating the dramatic action,
have been added where it has seemed to the editor that these helped to
a clearer appreciation of the text; and summaries of the dramatic action
have been appended to the several acts to keep before the reader's mind
the unity which the play would have when represented upon the stage.
The numeration of the Globe Text, which has come to be the classic
one and is now used in standard Shakspere dictionaries and grammars,
has been followed in this edition. Where the editor has seen fit to de-
part from the verse division of the Globe Text, or from the act and scene
division, the departure has been carefully indicated, and Globe refer-
ences appended in small type at the side of the text.
The form in which the note matter is arranged about the text, re-
viving a fifteenth-century method of note-composition, with some slight
modifications to suit modern conditions of printing, has been adopted to
secure ease of reading and beauty of typography.
It only remains to say that the editor is not insensible of the deep
obligation which he owes to the Shakspere scholarship of the past, as well
as to that of the present. The labours of Steevens and Malone (whose
wide reading in Elizabethan literature furnished rich material for the
modern editor to draw upon ), the careful work of the editors of the Cam-
GENERAL <P<REFACE
bridge Text in accurately recording the variants of the Quartos and Folios,
the learning and perspicacity of Nicolaus Melius, the substantial work
of 'Dr. Furnivall and the New Shakspere Society T the photographic fac-
similes of the Quartos [largely due to Dr. FurnivaW s energy), the fine
Staunton facsimile of the First Folio, the valuable material in the Ger-
man Shakespeare Jahrbuch, the careful compilations of the Variorum
editions, especially of Dr. Furness's modern Variorum — all these have
contributed to lighten the present editor's task and enrich his work. /I
modern evaluation of the Shakspere scholarship of the past two centuries
is not necessarily a light one because modern scholarship seeks to give
its results a new bearing and a fresh interpretation. Though ideals of
editing may change, faithful and earnest work abides, and the old wis-
dom dies not with the advent of the new learning. 'Beneath the mask of
Shakspere* s easy fluency there lies a revelation of human nature that
is as broad as the earth and as deep as the sea. No one scholar, no
one generation of scholars, can compass its interpretation. As long as
men shall live, and till the thoughts of all hearts be revealed, there will
be material for new thought in the pages of Shakspere. The danger that
Shakspere study has to fear is not the multiplication of new editions,
but the classicization of a single edition which all shall possess and no
one read.
M. H. L.
Summit, N. J., January, IJ03>
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
MACBETH belongs to that group of great dramas, Hamlet, Othello,
and Lear, which marks the culmination of Shakspere 7 s literary develop-
ment* These plays were all produced in the first decade of the sev-
enteenth century, probably between 1602 and 1606}
The date of Macbeth is now usually set down as 1606, The earliest
certain mention of the play 2 is a note in Forman 7 s T)iary roughly de-
scribing the tragedy as he saw it acted at the Globe Theatre on the 20th
April, 1610 [April 30th N, S.). 3 <But the reference to the double
crowning of James at Scone and at Westminster, the allusion to equivo-
cation in connection with treason/ the flattering description of Edward
touching for the king f s evil, and, if we recall the legal aspect of the Scot-
tish James's succession to the throne of Elizabeth, the unusual notion
1 Cp. The Succession of Shakspere' s are reprinted in the New Shakspere So-
ZVorks, being 'Dr. Furnivall's introduction ciety' s Transactions, 187 5-1876, pp- 415 ff.
to the English translation of Gervinus's They are preserved at Oxford in A shmolean
Commentaries, 1874, p- xliv. MS. no. 208. The note on Macbeth occurs at
2 Farmer thought that the lines in The leaf 207, article x, and begins: u ln Mack-
puritan or Widow of Watling Street (a beth at the glod [sic], 16 jo, the 20 of A prill
play published in 1607 and now usually h, ther was to be obserued," etc. Forman,
assigned to Middleton), l Instead of a jester who was an astrologer, in this as in the other
we'll have a ghost in a white sheet sit at entries wrote the astronomical sign corre-
the head of the table,' contain an earlier sponding to the day of the week, here that of
reference to Macbeth, and Farmer's notion Saturn for Saturday, but these marks were
has been revived in recent editions of Shak- overlooked by the N. Sh. Society's copyist,
spere. 'But, as 'Professor Manly has pointed The entry was evidently made from memory
out (Macbeth, Longmans, 1876, pp. x ff.), in 161 1, and, besides being inaccurate in its
these words have been taken from their con- description of Macbeth (see note on p. 122),
text, and their reference is to a ghost in The is in error in so far as the 20th of April in
Puritan, not to 'Banquo's ghost. 1 6 10 fell upon a Friday, not upon a Saturday.
3 Forman' s entries are random moraliz- 4 It has recently been argued that the
ings for "common pollicie," suggested by l farmer' who hanged himself is a punning
the plays he saw, among them three of allusion to the Farmer of the gunpowder
Shakspere' s, the entries concerning which treason ; but see the note to the passage.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
of 'affecting* a royal title, all point to an earlier date, at least for the
composition of Macbeth, than Forman's note would give us.
For although the defence of equivocation is a subject of popular and
literary reference well into the middle of the seventeenth century, and
panegyrics on the Union abound for a generation after the kingdoms were
united, 1 it is hardly likely that Shakspere would have referred to James's
peculiar scruples about the king's evil (see note on p. 180) much later than
160 5. The king soon forgot them himself. The spirit of the play also
points to the early years of James's reign, when interest in early Scot-
tish history was keen and the king's own discussion of witchcraft was
fresh in the public mind. ZVe are not apt to be far wrong, therefore, if
we assume 1605 as a rough date for Macbeth. 2
The version of the Macbeth legend upon which Shakspere based his
play he found in Holinshed's Chronicle : 3 it has not yet been made evi-
dent that he followed any other account than the one Holinshed gives. 4 "
This subject-matter, to the modern historian largely legendary, but to
Shakspere' s contemporaries true history, was especially acceptable dur-
ing the early days of the reign of James I, not only because the impulse
to give a quasi epic form to the early history of Britain was a character-
istic feature of the literature of the period, but also because the Scottish
origin of England' s new king was attracting public attention to Scottish
1 The "trebble scepters" in IV. I. 121 and 3 For evidence that it was the second edi-
the reference to the good year in the porter's Hon of Holinshed and not the first that
speech are also usually taken as evidence Shakspere used, see the preface to Shak-
pointing to 1606. 'But the former is not nee- spere's Holinshed t ZV. G. c Boswell-Stone T
essarily a reference to the Union ; and the Longmans r 1896 (also one of the publica-
latter seems to have been a current jest of tions of the New Shakspere Society). This
Shakspere' s time: see note to the passage, reprint is the most accurate and most con-
2 'Dr. Richard Garnett in the Shakespeare venient yet published. Others will be found
Jahrbuch, vol. xxxvii,p. 214, in order to sup- in < Delius's edition, 1855, Furness's Vario-
port the late 17th-century tradition that Shak- rum, Clark and ZV right's Clarendon Press
spere when living at New Place regularly edition, and in the various single-play edi-
supplied the London stage with two plays a tions of Macbeth.
year, has maintained that Forman's descrip- 4 /Jn attempt has been made to show that
Hon is of a first representation of cMacbeth he also consulted William Stewart's Chron-
in 161 1 /the play being withheld during 1 6 1 0.' icle, ed. (Rolls Series, 1858, a versified his-
<But 1610, and not 161 1, is the date which tory of Scotland that is assumed to have
Forman gives, — see the note on the preced- been circulated in MS. form in Shakspere' s
ing page, — and local Shakspere traditions time ; but the evidence is far from convincing,
are exceedingly uncertain lights to follow. See Athenaeum for July 25, I8J6.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
history. ^Both of these interests are combined in Slatyer's tPalcealbion
with the inclusion of the Macbeth legend and the usual flattery of the
reigning sovereign. ZVarner, too, in the 1606 edition of his Albion 7 s
England inserted the Historie of Macbeth. The fact that neither of these
writers follows Shakspere' s story points to a general interest in the
theme as associated with James 7 s ancestors, rather than to a particular
interest roused by Shakspere' s work. This interest is further shown by
the circumstance that James, upon his visit to Oxford in August, 1605,
was welcomed by a Latin entertainment representing the witch episode
of the Macbeth legend and associating the king with the prophecy re-
garding 'Banquo's line. 1 Farmer thought that Shakspere, notwithstand-
ing his 'small Latin/ might here have obtained a hint for his compliment
to James. And Farmer's view is not unlikely : for Shakspere would
have been indeed stupid had he not got sufficient learning from the Strat-
ford grammar-School to enable him to read the sort of Latin that the play
was couched in. 2
Shakspere' s Macbeth, however, is not a chronicle play based upon
dramatic events in the early history of his sovereign's native country.
He condenses and boldly alters Holinshed's narrative, adapting the
material to his purposes, and giving to history the unity and tense in-
terest of tragedy. 3 He seizes on the theme which the story presented
to him, — namely, the influence of the weird sisters' prophecy on Mac-
beth' s career, an episode more or less incidental in Holinshed's account,
— and with this Scottish Saul and his Witches of Endor, interpreted
in the light of popular notions of witchcraft and the current psychology
of insanity, builds up a tragedy whose motif is essentially the same with
that of the Heracles Mainomenos of Euripides, or that of the classic
1 See Farmer on the Learning of Shak- Jonson was one of the best Latinists of his
spere, apudV ariorum, I803 7 H,p.54, or Sim- time and duly proud of his accomplishments ;
rock in publications of Old Shakspere So- Shakspere' s knowledge of Latin might have
ciety, 1853; p. 127: Simrock quotes ZVake's been 'small' in his scholarly friend's estima-
Latin description of the play in its entirety. tion and still have been quite sufficient to pose
2 It is often assumed that Shakspere could many a modern schoolmaster,
not read Latin at all: the fact that c Ben ^See, for example, the introductory notes
Jonson said his Latin scholarship was inccn- to Scene II and Scene V of Act I, and the
siderable is evidence quite to the contrary, summary at the end of Act II.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
and mediceval story of Hercules Furens, or that of the mediceval and
modern Faust legend, a tragedy which in respect to unity and tenseness
of interest is unequalled in the history of literature.
As the play has come down to us, we have it in the dress which
Hemminge and Condell gave it in 1623, almost twenty years after its
production. In it there are obvious interpolations. 1 It is characterized
also by unusual condensation in style, probably due to the fact that it
was intended to be filled out by spectacular additions, evidences of the
existence of which are to be found in contemporary references and sub-
sequent traditions in regard to its stage history. This condensation
makes Macbeth difficult to read even when one is familiar with Eliza-
bethan English. ZVhen it is read as modern English and due attention is
not given to the current psychology of Shakspere T s time, the action seems
abrupt and disconnected. Much of this unintelligibility has been charged
up to careless printing, successive editors having perpetuated the notion
that the text is an unusually corrupt one. ^ut a careful comparison of
the text of this edition with that of the First Folio will show clearly that
Macbeth is not nearly so badly printed a play as it has been supposed
to be. And a careful study of the Elizabethan word meanings and their
implications will show a wonderful continuity and unity in the develop-
ment of its thought, and will point to the conclusion that, save for the few
obvious interpolations, all of which could be taken out without sacrific-
ing its interest or hindering its movement, we have Macbeth essentially
as Shakspere wrote it.
{. The theme of Macbeth is a favourite subject of Greek drama in-
vested with Germanic interests — namely, the fatal consequences of the
intervention of supernatural influences for evil in the affairs of men,
\ And the power of the tragedy lies in the fact that we, helpless specta-
tors, look on consumed with pity but unable to avert the doom. All of
Shakspere' s greatest tragedies present to us the picture of a mens in-
sana, a diseased soul whose powers are out of balance and out of tune
1 These are discussed in the notes to the various suspected passages. See especially
the introductory note to Scene V of Act III.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
through the excess of some one faculty dominating the others and over-
throwing the u state of man n which Macbeth speaks of in 1.3. 140. In
Hamlet it is a mind essentially weak from excess of deliberation, u a
resolution [i. e. will-power] sicklied ore with the pale cast of thought [i. e.
brooding anxiety]/ n that defeats a noble purpose and wrecks a noble soul.
In Lear we have the tragic results of a single foolish act, a single fatal
aberration of judgement, proceeding from an excess of caution. It is the
u consequence n — using the word in its Elizabethan sense — of this that
produces the mens insana and mocks the noble hope of an old age to be
spent in the happy comfort of filial care. In Othello it is a pitiful jeal-
ousy, arising from an excess of credulity and causing melancholia (an
aspect of the mens insana in Shakspere' s time : see < Burton ) s Anatomy
of Melancholy, passim), that shatters a noble love. Hamlet, Lear,
Othello, Macbeth are all, in the language of Elizabethan psychology,
u distempered n souls.
But Macbeth is different from the former three in having a moving
cause from without. Like Hercules, as he returns victoriously from the J
scene of his conquests, the furies invade his soul, and he becomes mai-)(
nomenos, furens, 'regarding neither lazv of God nor law of man/ The
modern reader misses much of this aspect of the play by putting modern
meanings upon the words in which it is involved, and letting their sense
go for literary when he cannot clearly understand them. So that when
Shakspere for the first time presents this notion of an invasion of Mac-
beth' s soul by the powers of evil in the implication of Macbeth 7 s own
words, Shakspere' s thought gets lost in the vagueness of the modern trans-
lation. The modern reader, too, is prone to overlook the nature and sig-
nificance of the embodiment of these powers of evil which Shakspere
presents in his witches. 1 He sees the instigating machinery of the tragedy
as a mere incident in the course of its development. But Shakspere' s
conception of these agencies was far otherwise. The powers of darkness
and their evil instruments were to him and to the common people of his
1 A glance at Scene V of Act III will show missed the meaning of these moving influ-
clearly, also, how the careless interpolator ences of the tragedy.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
day horrible realities , fleshly embodiments of evil to be met with in every
countryside. No mere theological figures to express the spiritual aspects
of the evil tendencies of the human soul ; they really entered men y s bodies
and took possession of the house, ruling all for their wicked ends. Thus,
as were the classic furies to the Greek mind, these powers of evil were to
the Elizabethan actual personalities lying in wait for those they would
destroy. The literature of the time is full of this notion. Even 'Bacon
reflects it. James was interested in the subject and wrote his tract on
demonology to counteract the juster notions that were appearing from
time to time in the tracts of liberally minded theologians. The whole
force of the law of England was brought to bear against the poor crea-
tures who were thought to be possessed by these demons of evil, and not
till a century after Shakspere f s time did this notion of the actual entrance
of the devil into the body of man lose its hold on the imagination of
men. Even yet, in out-of-the-way corners of popular superstition and
belief in England and America, can one find it lingering. The story of
Macbeth, therefore, is one of that class of themes which represent an
ambitious man as bargaining with the devil and selling his soul in ex-
change for power. And if the reader is to get a clear notion of the essen-
tial tragedy of Macbeth' r s harried life he must bear this in mind.
In Holinshed Macbeth already belongs to an heroic period of British
history ; but Shakspere adds touches here and there, giving more sharp-
ness to the epic characteristics. In the opening scene of the play the
hero towers vast and bulky above all others in the battle, tearing his
way single-handed through an opposing army of rebels and cleaving their
leader from neck to navel in true Homeric fashion, while IBellona smiles
proudly on the glorious achievements of her beloved minion. It is an
epic and Homeric picture. This heroic aspect of Macbeth comes out
again when he returns in triumph to receive his meed of praise from
Duncan and be hailed in triumph as the saviour of his country. These
epic characteristics flash forth from time to time throughout the play,
perhaps nowhere more clearly than when Macbeth longs for the former
age ere human statute had purged the gentle weal — when the brains
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
were out the man would die! — the time when a man could go straight
to his purpose, be it foul or good, and gain his end in a forthright way.
His virtues are heroic : when he plans to murder Duncan it is the heroic
notion of the rites of hospitality and the patriarchal notion of allegiance
to a just king that stay his hand T not the thought of killing an innocent
old man in cold blood. It is his fear of the taunt of cowardice that
nerves him to the deed itself. It is the dread that he will have to drink
the same cup that taints his joy : he '11 gladly risk the life to come. And
■when the powers of evil get hold of his imagination and poison his soul
at the spring, his vices become heroic too; and, being heroic, they are
interesting, possessing that fatal attraction which magnificent strength
has even when viciously applied. Thus the wild havoc which the victim
of these instigations works suggests no "vulgar criminal, 11 but a Her-
cules furens, and awe and pity overpower our loathing of his crimes.
Euripides 1 s treatment of this theme in its general outlines presents strik-
ing similarities to Shakspere's handling of the Macbeth story — similari-
ties due to the fact that the methods of great art are eternally the same;
and perhaps it will be worth our while for a moment to glance at this,
in a certain sense, Greek prototype of the English Macbeth.
The colossal and heroic figure of early Greek history, like Macbeth,
has his soul invaded by the furies as he is returning triumphant from
one of his great labours; and Euripides r s play is the tragic consequence
of this supernatural invasion. Hercules 1 s madness, however, is of a
simpler and more elemental character than Macbeth' 's. Made furens by
these powers of evil, he murders his dear ones. In Macbeth 1 s case the
instigation is more subtle, less objective; the evil influences seize upon
a strong ambition of kingship already firmly planted in Macbeth 1 s mind
and fostered by a native imagination of unusual strength, amiwork upon
this to poison his soul. Hercules, when he again recovers his sanity
and sees in its true light the enormity of his crime, is plunged into de-
spair, and on the brink of suicide exclaims that 'his bark is full fraught
with horrors. 1 Macbeth, looking back over the long train of bloody
yesterdays and helplessly involved in their tragic consequence, is like-
INTRODUCTION TO MAC<BETH
wise on the brink of suicide — "Out, out, breefe candle! n — and in the bit-
terness of his despair he too exclaims, U I have supped full of horrors." 1
Hercules recovers his former self through the ministrations of friendship
and Euripides 7 s play comes to a redeeming end', Macbeth does not
wholly recover, — the poison has worked too deeply for that, — but the ne-
cessity for action rouses his titanic will in somethinglike its early strength,
and his manly end at least suggests the redemptive note.
These two dramas, then, while written to meet radically different con-
ditions of interest, have a certain subtle kinship with one another that
seems deeper than a mere accidental coincidence. For Macbeth, while
not insane in our modern sense of the word, is essentially mad when his
acts and words are viewed in the light of Elizabethan psychology. He
has that 'great imagination proper to madmen ' ': the shaping fancies of his
seething brain 'apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends/
The poet, ' of imagination all compact/ comes out clearly in his first
words, "So foule and faire a day I have not seene, )y as he blends together
in his thought the blustery, fitful, stormy day and the battle he has just
passed through. Thus at the very outset Macbeth is presented to us as a
dreamer of dreams, find all through the course of the play it is rather
the poetic visions which he sees than the facts which are that lead him
on from day to day. The natural influences which surround him and the
supernatural powers which he thinks are brooding over his career glorify
with their misty haze every one of his soliloquies. When the instru-
ments of darkness deprive him of his sovereignty of reason and drive
him into madness, he is the lunatic, the madman, 'who sees more devils
than vast hell can hold. T Life becomes one long, changing 'fever/ and
' what T s a fever but a fit of madness ? ; These restless ' extacies, T these
'fever fits/ as Shakspere calls them, using the technical language by
which the physician of his time described this kind of alienation, make
the 'torture of the mind 7 that becomes the Nemesis of his tragedy.
1 Likewise Macbeth' s u l have lived long resque, nihil est: cuncta iam amisi bona. n
enough," etc., has an interesting parallel in (This parallel was pointed out by 'Professor
the words of Seneca's Hercules : " Cur ani- Munro in the Journal of Philology, Vol. VI,
mam in ista luce detineam amplius, Mo- p. 70 ff.)
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
The evidences which show that Shakspere conceived Macbeth as
suffering from a 'mind diseased ' are to be found rather in the language
which he uses to describe its symptoms than in the text itself. If one
reads these words with their Elizabethan connotations ; and notes their
application to various forms of alienation in the technical literature of
the subject as it was in Shakspere 7 s time ; especially as gathered to-
gether in Burton's great treatise on insanity , he will see clearly that
Shakspere intended to represent Macbeth as a person of unsound mind.
This is not the historical Macbeth of Holinshed. T)r. Furness
{Variorum^ p. 359) suggested that Shakspere got his hint for Macbeth' s
hallucinations from Holinshed' s story of the unquiet mind of Kenneth
after the murder of his nephew Malcolm, the son of King Duff: cp.
Bo swell- Stone, p. 30. But in this account of Kenneth's unquietness
it is only one voice and one unquiet night that are described; the visions
are absent. In Buchanan' s Historia Rerum Scoticarum, cap. vi r which
was extant in Latin in Shakspere' s time ( 1st ed. ; 1 582 \, and might easily
have been accessible to him y we have the words : u Tamen animus, con-
scientia sceleris inquietus, nullum solidum et sincerum ei gaudium
esse permittebat; sed intercursantibusper otiumco^itationibus sceleris
fcedissime interdiu vexabatur; et per somnum observantia visa bor-
roris plena quietem interpellabant. Tandem sive vere vox coelo edita
est, sive turbatus animus earn sibi ipse speciem finxerat," etc. This
gives us the picture of Macbeth' s torture almost exactly as Shakspere
conceived it. 1 It will be remembered \ also ; that it was Buchanan who
made the suggestion that the Macbeth story was fitter for dramatic pur-
1 Shakspere, in describing Macbeth' s men- ing' Malcolm' to his peace' — "intercursanti-
tal torture, employs verbiage that sounds bus per otium" — and could ' gain no peace'
very like a rough translation of 'Buchanan's for himself, — "et visa horroris plena" — but
Latin; one can almost fancy him reading it : 'terrible dreams' and 'visions' — "obser-
"animus conscientia sceleris inquietus" — his vantia " — 'afflicting' him — "per somnum
mind in 'restless ecstacy' with the conscious- quietem interpellabant" — 'shook him night-
ness of his guilt — "nullum solidum et sin- ly' ; — " sive vere vox coelo edita est" — either
cerum ei gaudium esse permittebat" — kept he heard a voice from heaven crying' sleep no
him 'dwelling in doubtful joy,' — "sedfoedis- more, Kenneth doth murder sleep' — "sive"
sime interdiu vexabatur" — and he was con- — or — "turbatus animus" — his 'diseased
tinually 'tortured' — "cogitationibus sceleris" mind' — " ipse earn speciem sibi finxerat" —
— by thoughts of his wicked deed in 'send- itself 'informed' thus to his guilty ears, etc.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
poses than for historical — "quia theatris aut Milesiis fabulis sunt ap-
tiora quam historise." If Shakspere did not get his hint direct from
Buchanan, — and he might easily have done so, — he could well have
obtained it from current literature, since Burton refers to the story as a
sort of commonplace illustrating an unquiet conscience, 1
Macbeth' 's own realization of his 'possession* is rather the vague
consciousness of a mysterious disturbing power within him than a clear
acknowledgement of the fact that he has sold his soul to the powers of
darkness. He knows that he is sick, but until the very end of the play
he thinks his 'rooted sorrow ' is temporary ; action will rid him of it;
to-morrow he will be well: to-morrow the consequence will be tram-
melled up. If Banquo becomes a disturbing element to his peace of
mind, he will get Banquo out of the way and to-morrow be at peace.
If Macduff rises to take Banquo 7 s place as a disturber of his peace, he
will wade on through the stream of blood, and to-morrow, having gained
firm ground on the other side, he will sleep in spite of thunder. So it
is — to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow — peace ever just beyond
until the end comes and he is face to face with his shattered life, his
broken hopes, lighted by yesterdays the way to dusty death. Life is
meaningless, a gibbering idiot' s tale, a strutting actor's rant, full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And at last, too late, poor Macbeth comes to the bitter realization
that the juggling fiends have been paltering with him in a double sense,
keeping the word of promise to his ear and breaking it to his hope,
lying like truth; that his rooted sorrow has been planted by himself.
With one last frenzied tug he tears it from his mind, and is almost him-
self again when, defying fate as well as men, his life goes out in the
flaming words "Lay on, Macduffe, And damn 1 d be him that first cries
'Hold, enough ! fn
1 Burt on /Anatomy of Melancholy' III. 4. sembled the matter a longtime, at last his
ii. 3, quotes the substance of 'Buchanan's de- conscience accused him, his unquiet soul
scription: 'Kennetus, King of Scotland, could not rest day or night, he was terrified
when he had murdered his nephew Malcolm, with fearful dreams, visions, and so miser-
King c Duff'sson, c Prince of Cumberland, and ably tormented all his life.' {A foot-note
with counterfeit tears and protestations dis- shows that he cites 'Buchanan from memory.)
xxvi
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
The contributory characters to his tragedy are sketched in with a
few touches, sharp enough for clear definition ; but never with sufficient
detail to make them of paramount interest: Lady Macbeth, 'Banquo,
Macduff Malcolm, With marvellous skill, Shakspere prevents even
the most important of them — Lady Macbeth — from becoming a para-
mount theme. Jit the beginning the woman, as the instigator of Mac-
beth 7 s first step in his bloody course, does threaten to absorb the reader's
whole attention. c But Shakspere withholds the details which would con-
tribute to this end and, instead of giving them in their proper place, re-
flects them backward into the action after Macbeth has become the
paramount theme, and there is therefore no danger of weakening our
interest in the main current of the action. 1
Banquo, too, is kept in the background, though we would gladly
know just how Banquo felt about Duncan's murder, the authorship and
motive of which he must have suspected, and what he really thought
about the witches' prophecy promising kingship to his family. When
we come to Macduff, the danger of a subsidiary theme becoming of
paramount interest is over, and Shakspere gives us more detail because
the detail will now heighten the interest of the external climax of the
tragedy without marring its unity. 2
Lady Macbeth' s possession by the powers of evil, which in the
havoc it works is essentially the same as Macbeth' s, is yet so care-
fully differentiated from Macbeth' s madness in the manner of its in-
ception that the unity of interest in the play is in no way marred. The
insidious combination of ambition and supernatural soliciting in Mac-
beth' s case is counteracted by a natural manliness and a "milk of
human kindness" that make a continuous and interesting resistance
1 /1 short-sighted criticism, reading Mac- left out by accident or through abridgement
beth in modern English as a tragedy of for practical purposes of stage representation,
events rather than one of character, has gone -Here again criticism has cavilled at the
so far as to assume that these detailed ac- disproportionate amount of attention which
tions — for instance, the planning out of 'Dun- Shakspere gives to the plans of Malcolm and
can' s murder either by letter or inconference in cMacduff to restore the Scottish throne to
the early part of the play — were represented its rightful heir, the objective and spectacu-
in the original copy of Macbeth but have been lar culmination of the drama.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
to the ' disenfranchisement of his bosom' and the dethronement of his
will. And when this struggle is over the fact that his imagination is
the strongest element of his mental character, and that it is only neces-
sary for the instruments of evil to work upon that to produce the mental
torture which forms the Nemesis of Macbeth 9 s tragedy, furnishes a new
interest for the course of the play. Lady Macbeth, however, is pre-
sented to us not only as not resisting the powers of evil which threaten her
peace, but as furiously invoking their entrance into her soul.
After she has accomplished her purpose of inciting Macbeth to the
murder ofDuncan, she fades out of the drama and becomes a merely pas-
sive subject in the hands of fate, emerging only to her final doom in the
last act. The invoked powers of evil immediately poison her will. Mac-
beth says of himself that his state of man is thrown into insurrection,
and this insurrection is the theme of his tragedy; but there is no insur-
rection in Lady Macbeth' s case because there is no resistance ; her ex-
ecutive instruments themselves are evil, and even her hints are fatal. 1
The internal unity of theme and interest in Macbeth is comple-
mented by an external unity of form that is peculiar to this among Shak-
spere's great tragedies. This unity of structure is secured by the in-
sertion of narrative scenes between the several acts of the play to serve
the purposes of the Greek chorus. Through the influence of Seneca on
Elizabethan play-writing this form of dramatic structure was not un-
known to Shakspere' s contemporaries. Shakspere's very practical adap-
tation of it shows clearly what a stage master he was. Indeed, he has been
so successful that modern criticism has failed to notice these linking
scenes as being at all external to the main interest of the tragedy. Their
character and their peculiar effect in uniting and making one picture of
a long series of events will be best observed by reading them in their
places with a consciousness of their dramaturgic import.
Another striking characteristic of Macbeth is its absence of perspec-
1 It is going far afield to assume that a and no contemporary version of the story
blood feud existed between Lady Macbeth attaches any importance to it. Indeed, the
and 'Duncan's house. There is no trace of whole thing is a motif evolved from the mind
this in the action or phraseology of Macbeth, of a foreign critic of the play.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
tive. Its scenes are presented to the imagination with such sharpness
of outline and at the same time with such conciseness of interest that the
whole tragedy becomes a single picture. The play is peculiar in this
respect. Its main action is sketched out at first more or less roughly;
but as we watch the unfolding, details which really belong to scenes that
have passed the immediate vision of the mind 7 s eye are filled in to recall
that past and bind it in with the present. As a work of art Macbeth is
thus in its cesthetic unity a marvellous achievement, because to a certain
extent it transcends its own limitations. In a great picture or in a great
piece of statuary, a single moment of interest is pressed upon the at-
tention by the skill of art in such a way that all which has preceded
that particular moment and all that will follow is at once seized upon
by the comprehending imagination, which of itself knows not the limita-
tions of time and space. The interest of a great work of literature, how-
ever, is a consecutive interest, moment succeeding moment in rhythmic
pulse and all contributing to a final impression when we reach the end of
the series. c But Shakspere in his Macbeth, by the simple device of adding
fresh detail to recalled scenes, keeps the whole tragedy as it were before
the mind T s eye at one time. One of the most interesting and important
scenes in the whole play is the murder of Duncan, yet we do not get
the full details of this scene at the time of its enactment. ZVe merely
get the impression of a deed of horror done in darkness. When the
scene, however, is recalled at the end of the play in Lady Macbeth' s
sleep-walking, it comes into the imagination, as Shakspere represents
it, not with a loss of detail as is usually the case in -a recalled experi-
ence, but with added detail which it did not have' before. Just a word
— a single association or two — gives the past act a new and present in-
terest. The time analysis of the play considered as history covers a
period of some score of years. Right in the middle of it is a gap seven-
teen years long. But when viewed by the imagination as Shakspere
forces us to look at it, Macbeth is crowned at Scone yesterday and to-
day o f erthrown at T)unsinane. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, while
the action is thus brought before us as a single conspectus, this is done
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
without sacrificing the interests which come from a long course of devel-
opment. Little hints and suggestions, word associations, all the sub-
sidiary interests of literature, combine to suggest the result of a long
course of events in single moments. While the action of the play has
been rushing along through a few days of rapid denouement, Macbeth
passes from middle age into the sear and yellow leaf. He tastes the
whole bitterness of despair in a succession of disappointing yesterdays
stretching back through a lifetime of defeated hopes. Shakspere's power
in securing this unity and continuity at the same time, thus presenting
action as it comes to us in dreams without the limitations of time and
space, is well illustrated in Hamlet where the clock strikes twelve in
the opening of the first scene and three minutes afterward strikes one
without producing any sense of incongruity in the reader's mind.
Still another characteristic of Macbeth which is well worth the
reader's attention is the wonderful fitness of its rhythms. It is not only
in its verbiage one of the most poetical of Shakspere's plays, but is also,
in the way in which the rhythmic flow of their attention stresses reflects
the notions expressed by his words, one of the most poetic plays of that
period when he had fully learned the power and use of English rhythms.
There is no surer mark to distinguish his later from his earlier poetry
than this harmonious fitness of speech rhythms. And in no respect is
the distinction between the interpolated matter in this play and Shak-
spere's own work sharper and clearer than in the difference between the
rhythms of the added matter and Shakspere's own. There is no poetry
in English literature in which such perfect rhythmic fitness in the move-
ment of the thought is secured without the sacrifice of a single idiomatic
locution or graphic word association as we have in Macbeth, Othello,
Hamlet, and Lear. Some of these harmonious rhythm series are pointed
out in the notes, but there has not been space sufficient to include a notice
of anything like their full number. 1
1 The relation of such rhythm series to the English 'Poetry (<Doubleday, Page & Co.,
structure of English poetry is briefly dis- 1902, pp.27 '5-305), and the nomenclature and
cussed, with special reference to Shakspere' 's notation there explained are employed in the
verse, in An Introduction to the Study of ensuing notes.
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
These are but a few of the characteristics of this great tragedy, second
only to Hamlet as a picture of the overthrow of a human souL Shak-
spere is his own best commentator, and a clear understanding of the
meaning and implication of his words in the senses which they bore when
he used them is a surer guide to a full appreciation of his works than
all the books that have been written about them.
The only textual source for Macbeth is the Folio of 1623. This
undoubtedly gives us an acting version which, if not one of Shakspere* s
"blotless papers/ 7 at least comes as near being an authorized edition
as any version we shall ever have. No change, therefore, has been
made in its verbiage save for the attempted corrections of its indubitable
misprints. 1
In consonance with the general plan of the edition, the text is pre-
sented in the language of Shakspere* s time. But the reader hardly needs
to be told that Shakspere' s words may be pronounced as the English
of to-day without serious detriment save to the sound-colouring of his
verses 2 — may the time soon come when even this drawback to the full
appreciation of Shakspere f s poetry shall be removed I
The abbreviations used in the notes are in the main self-explanatory ,
or in such common usage as to need no explanation here. The con-
stantly recurringwords " Old English, " u Middle English," and u New
English/ 7 connoting respectively the periods of our language from the be-
ginning to 1025, from 1023 to 1550, and from 1550 to the present, are
represented by the current abbreviations O.E., M.E., and N.E. These
are often further qualified by the words 'early* and 'late/ respectively
abbreviated to e. and I. The Folio and Quarto Texts of Shakspere are
represented by FO. and QO. followed by the numeral which indicates
their respective places in the series. The Oxford, or New English,
Dictionary is represented by N. E. D., and the Century Dictionary by
Cent. Diet. ; the number or letter following the abbreviation represents
1 A list of these will be found in the Index, inary glance at the references there given will
2 The chief peculiarities of Elizabethan enable the reader easily to surmount stum-
word representation are arranged in the In- bling-blocks that might otherwise halt him
dex under the rubric Spelling, and a prelim- from time to time in the course of his readings
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
the peculiar sense of the word referred to, After the reader has become
familiar with them the titles of the early New English dictionaries are
abbreviated to Cooper ; Minsheu, Jllvearie, Coles, Glossographia, Phr.
Gen., etc. Save where special note is made, I cite these dictionaries in
the following editions : Caret's /llvearie, 1 580 ( 1st ed. ) ; Coles' *s Eng-
lish Dictionary, 1713 (isted., 1677); Coles's Latin Dictionary , 1679
(Isted., 1677); Comenius's Janua Linguarum Reserata, translated by
Horn and^obotham, 1 643 (Horn* s translation is dated 1634); Cooper's
Thesaurus, 1573 (isted., 1565); Cotgrave's French Dictionary, with
Howell's supplement, 1650 (1st ed., 161 1); Cowel's Law Diction-
ary, 1684 (1st ed., 1607); Florio's Italian Dictionary, 161 1 (1st ed.,
1597); Glossographia, 1707 (1st ed., 1656); Holyoke's Latin Dic-
tionary, 1677 (Isted.); Kersey's English Dictionary, 1708 (Isted.);
Minsheu's Ductor in Linguas (containing 1st ed. of Percivale), 1 6 17
(Isted.); Percivale' s Spanish Dictionary, 1623; 'Phillips's New
World of Words, 1678 (1st ed., 1658); Phraseologia Generalis (The
Cambridge Phrase 'Book), 1 68 1 (Isted.); Sewel's Dutch Diction-
ary, 1708 (1st ed.); Skinner's Etymologicon, 1 67 1 (licensed 1668);
Thomas's Latin Dictionary, with Holland's supplement, 1620 (1st
ed., 1596); Withal' s Little Dictionarie for Children, 1556 (Isted.).
The names of the various learned societies whose publications are fre-
quently referred to are abbreviated as follows : O. Sh. Soc, The Old
Shakspere Society ; N. Sh. Soc, The New Shakspere Society ; Shake-
speare Jahrbuch, or Jahrb., the Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare
Gesellschaft; E. E. T. S., The Early English Text Society ; Sp. Soc,
The Spenser Society ; Per. Soc, The Percy Society.
The names of the various editors of Shakspere whose work is referred
to will be found chronologically arranged in Furness's Variorum, or in
the Preface to the Cambridge Edition, or in Mr. Lee's Life of William
Shakespeare {pp. 361 ff. ). Professor J. M. Manly, whose excellent school
edition of Macbeth appeared in 1896, should be added to the list. The
title of the Clarendon Press edition of Macbeth, by Clark and Wright
( Oxford, 1878), I have shortened to CI. Pr. The titles of the books from
INTRODUCTION TO MACBETH
which illustrative quotations have been drawn are cited in the forms given
in the New English and the Century dictionaries, and are in the main
self-explanatory. Its date usually accompanies each citation. The ab-
breviations of the titles of Shakspere f s works are practically those em-
ployed by the Oxford Dictionary and do not need explanation to the
Shakspere student. The marks ' and " indicate primary and secon-
dary grades of stress : unstressed impulses are left unmarked. The
conventional turned e (a) represents the vowel sound of an unstressed
syllable, or the sound of u in 'but/ 4 cut/ etc.
My indebtedness to my predecessors has already been acknowledged
in the General Preface. But I desire especially to express my obliga-
tions to Schmidt's Shakspere Lexicon, for many finely discriminated
definitions ; to the Century Dictionary, for many supplementary Eliza-
bethan quotations ; and to the Clarendon T^ress edition of Macbeth, for
many valuable cross-references.
The practical and mechanical difficulties attendant upon the form
of composition have been many and various, and I should be indeed un-
grateful if I did not acknowledge the unfailing courtesy of the publishers
and the ready skill of the printers in coping with these, commonly counted
the humiles et sordidae curae of editorship. And in this connection
I must also express my deep obligation to the good sense and good taste
of my assistant, who has relieved me of much of the burden of arrang-
ing the note-matter in such a way as to make possible, under modern
conditions, a fifteenth-century form of printing.
xxxni
THE TRAGEDIE OF
MACBETH
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
corresponds to Modern English (MN. E.) 'over' : cp. 1.7. 1. *TF 4 BATTAILE is an Eliza-
bethan English (EL. E.) spelling of the word due to the retention of its Middle English
(M. E.) form. SF 5 In TH' SET and TH' FOGGE (v. 1 1) we have illustrations of the loss
of the vowel of the definite article common in EL. E. both in poetry and in prose and
whether the following word began with a consonant or with a vowel. The evidence
of this is found in EL. printing and in the versification of careful writers: cp. "from
th'rest" Drayton/ Barrons Warres' V. 63- 7; "affright th' most senselesse thing" ifcz'c/. II.
66. 5 ; " in th' daies " (prose) Dekker, ' Knights Conjuring,' Percy Soc, p. 33- We have
probably an evidence of this elision in the apostrophe in such printing as " would here
set ' peacefull period to my dayes" Ben Jonson, ' Sejanus,' 1640, p. 341, and " Well said,
this carries ' palme with it " ' Poetaster' p. 300. (The phenomenon still survives as a
peculiarity of modern dialect English ; see Prof. Wright's ' Dialect of Windhill,' Eng.
Dial. Soc, I892 ; pp. 91 and 1 10; in the Windhill dialect the remaining spirant is fur-
ther reduced to t.) The elision is of very frequent occurrence in Macbeth. We may
assume, therefore, that the printer of the Folio in these two cases neglected to denote
the omission by the customary apostrophe of EL. texts. Pope's excision of the ar-
ticle here and in v. II, and Abbott's attempt to explain HOVER in v. II as a mono-
syllable, are due to efforts to make the verses perfectly rhythmical in MN. E. SF 6
HEATH in EL. E. rhymed with MACBETH, the vowels of the two words differing only
in quantity, and was sounded as if rhyming with MN. E. "faith." Almost without ex-
ception, ea in Shakspere has nearly the sound of a in MN. E. ' make ' and ay in
MN. E. 'day,' viz. a long close e-sound, and our present i-sound for this Vowel, as in
MN. E. "heath," is nearly a century later than Shakspere. *TF 7 The scansion "There
to meet with Macbeth" forces a strong pause after MEET and thus gives peculiar im-
pressiveness to WITH MACBETH. The loss of an unstressed syllable after a ceesural
pause is of common occurrence in English verse and gives no occasion for the numer-
ous emendations which supply a monosyllabic adjective like 'brave' or 'great' before
MACBETH. *JF 8 In the Folio I COME, GRAY-MALKIN is assigned to the First Witch,
having ' I ' before it. What follows is printed as a couplet, preceded by the stage direc-
tion ' All.' It is probable, however, that after v. 9 some 'stage business' of the witches
intervened, like the dance in 1.3-32 ff., abruptly ended by the summons of the nuntius
spirit (see note to III. v. 34), and that the witches then vanished singing the couplet in vv. 10
and II. Shakspere uses for the names of his witches' familiars GRAY-MALKIN, the
common appellation of a cat, like MN.E. 'Tabby,' and PADOCK, the M.E. and EL.E.
word for toad: cp. Gifford's 'Dialogue concerning Witches,' 1603, ed. Percy Soc,
p. 19*. "Witches have their spirits . . some in one likenesse and some in another . .
as like cats . . toades . . or mice, whom they nourish with milk or with a chicken."
On the same page is a story of a witch who "had three spirits, one like a cat which she
called Lightfoot, another like a toade which she called Lunch, and a third like a weasill
which she called Makeshift." The punctuation of the Cambridge Text in v. 9, " Pad-
dock calls — anon!" follows Capell, 1768, departing from that of the Folio and assuming
ANON to be an answer to Padock's summons, 'Coming!' But as punctuated in the
Folio the expression is natural and makes good sense, i. e. ' Padock will summon
us presently': for the use of the present tense, cp. "Farewell, thou Lob of spirits, I 'le
be gon, Our queene and all her elves come here anon" Mids. II. I. 16. There is there-
fore no good reason for altering the text. SF 10 In EL. E. FAIRE and FOULE mark off a
sharper and more fundamental distinction than they do now, nearly that of right and
wrong, a distinction which Shakspere makes frequent use of; cp. the many instances
in Schmidt s.v. 'fair.' *1F II The notion of the powers of evil HOVERING in the air is
also found in John III. 2. 2, "Some ayery devill hovers in the skie, And pours downe
mischiefe." FILTHIE has since Shakspere's time acquired a strong connotation of dis-
gust : see Mr. Bradley's note on the history of the word's meaning in the New English
Dictionary (N. E. D.). To the ears of Shakspere's audience it meant only 'murkj^'
4
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE II
The subject matter for this scene comes from Holinshed's Historie of Scotland, 1587,
pp. 169 ff. But Shakspere aptly fits this historical material to his dramatic purpose.
Holinshed describes four successive battles in which Macbeth took part: in the first he
puts an end to the rebellion of Macdowald; in the second he, Banquo, and the king
are defeated at Culros by Sweno, the King of Norway, who immediately after the vic-
tory over Macdowald invades the realm of Scotland; in the third, the Scots having
drugged the Norwegian soldiers by mingling the "juyce of mekilwort berries" with their
food, Macbeth falls upon them and destroys their army, Sweno and ten others escaping
to their ships; in the fourth Macbeth and Banquo defeat an avenging incursion of the
Danes sent by Canute and arriving while the Scots were still celebrating their victory
over Sweno. The 'composition' of vv. 59 ff- is the result of this battle. "And these
were the warres that Duncane had with forrayne enemies in the seventh yeare of his
raigne."
Shakspere rolls these four into one, linking the last three with the first by hinting that
the Norwegian hosts, coming to the aid of the Scots, cp. v. 27, turned on them, "assisted"
by the treachery of the Thane of Cawdor, and began a fresh attack, but were defeated by
Macbeth and Banquo. In Holinshed the treachery of Cawdor is briefly mentioned in the
words : " shortlie after the Thane of Cawdor being condemned at Fores of treason against
the King committed, his lands livings and offices were given of the King's liberalise to
Macbeth," and the invasion of the King of Norway is not connected with Macdowald's
rebellion. In Holinshed's account, too, Duncan and Malcolm take an active part in the
fighting. We must remember, therefore, that in Scene II we are dealing with Shakspere's
Macbeth and not with Holinshed's, that all this first act is not the ' Historie of Scotland'
but the background of a tragedy. The details of those parts of the action in which Mac-
beth is not directly concerned are thus mere hints and suggestions, intentionally left vague
and undefined, and due historic sequences of time and events have but little place in the
dramatic interest. What Shakspere gives us is the picture of a great battle whose central
figure is Macbeth twice snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat and disaster: the other
figures are merely sketched in, as it were, so that the heroic personality may stand forth
in greater clearness and distinction.
The first three sentences of this scene do not sound like Shakspere, especially the awk-
ward and unnecessary inversion "of the revolt the newest state." Moreover, they intro-
duce the succeeding events as an aspect of a revolt, not as a single battle ; they explain to
the audience the relations of the actors to the action in a bald and mechanical way quite
unlike Shakspere's, who usually leaves the action to explain itself; they make Malcolm
participate in the battle but leave the field for no apparent cause before its crisis has come
on and in utter ignorance of the issue of even the first stage of the fight ; and they contain
a reference to the news-bringer as a wounded "serjeant" that is inconsistent with the
scene and stage directions. These inconsistencies give good ground for supposing that
Scene II when it left Shakspere's hands began with Malcolm's words " Haile, brave
friend ! " These lines are therefore marked off from the rest of the play by an obelus (f ),
and the u Captaine " of FO. I is not altered to u Sergeant " or u Soldier " in the stage
directions, as in modern editions beginning with Capell's, 1767. ' The "Duncan (Dun.)"
of modern editions has also been changed back to the " King" of FO. I. There is only
one king in the play, and that is Duncan. Macbeth's kingship is an ill-worn, ill-fitting
garment, and we are never allowed by Shakspere to forget the fact ; even Davenant's later
version of the play, 1674, recognized the fitness of this stage direction. The theory stated
by the editors of the Clarendon Press edition (CI. Pr.), that the whole scene, together with
vv. I— 37 of Scene III, is by another hand than Shakspere's, is quite untenable.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE II: A CAMP NEAR FORRES: ALARUM WITHIN
ENTER KING MALCOLME DONALBAINE LENOX WITH ATTENDANTS
MEETING A BLEEDING CAPTAINE
I — 13
f KING
HAT bloody man is that? He can
report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the
revolt
The newest state.*)*
MALCOLME
fThis is the serjeant
Who like a good and hardie souldier fought
'Gainst my captivitie.*j* Haile, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the
broyle
As thou didst leave it.
CAPTAINE
Doubtfull it stood,
As two spent swimmers that doe cling together
And choake their art. The mercilesse Mac-
donwald —
Worthie to be a rebell, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Doe swarme upon him — from the Westerne
Isles
Of kernes and gallowglasses is supply'd;
•"IF 3 NEWEST often in EL. E.
corresponds to MN.E. 'lat-
est,' cp. Malcolm's " what 's
the newest griefe?" in IV. 3«
174. SERJEANT seems here
to be a trisyllable but is a dis-
syllable elsewhere in Shak-
spere. SF4 Malcolm's epithet
HARDIE implies 'daring/ as
in MN.E. 'foolhardy,' and
GOOD is an ordinary 1 6th
century equivalent of ' brave ?
as in " good men " IV. 3- 3«
SF5 The CAPTIVITIE he re-
fers to may have been sug-
gested by Holinshed's "Mac-
dowald [in an earlier stage of
the revolt] . . by mere force
tooke their capteine Malcolme
[not the king's son, however]
and after the end of the bat-
tell smote off his head." The
printer of FO. 2 noticedthe lack
of an unstressed syllable after
"captivitie" and added an-
other "haile" to make up the
rhythm ; Walker and Abbott
suggested several botchings of
the verse into normal regular-
ity ; but this is only one of
numerous instances in Eng-
lish poetry — there are at least
nine in this play — where an unstressed impulse is lost after the verse pause : cp. I. 1.7, note,
and I. 5- 41. 'IF 6 Malcolm's words SAY TO THE KING, etc., are not so stilted as they
seem to modern ears, for "say" and "say to" in EL. E. were commonly used of narration,
e.g. "say in brief e the cause Why thou departedst" Err. 1. 1.29, and the definite article had
a force nearly like that of the modern possessive pronoun, so that THE KNOWLEDGE
stands for MN.E. 'your knowledge.' The extra syllable in SF 7 may be accounted for by
assuming a common EL. contraction by which the pronoun IT is absorbed in the pre-
ceding word, like "goes't" IV. 3- 1 79, "deny't" III. 6. 15. Four- wave verses are not un-
common in Shakspere's blank verse and are especially frequent in Macbeth. 'IF 8 The
captain's simile seems to be taken from a swimming match in which each of the contes-
tants, worn out by his efforts and in despair of winning the goal, seeks to prevent the other
from getting the prize, f 9 As the skill of the swimmers is 'obstructed' (cp. N. E. D.
'choke' 10) by their too close proximity, so in this BROYLE, a word suggestive of confused
tumult and 'hurly-burly,' the too close quarters of the combatants prevent all exercise
6
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of military art. In Holinshed the name of the leader of the rebels is M Macdowald" ; MAC-
DONWALD is probably, as Malone suggested, due to a confusion with the" Donwald" spoken
of by Holinshed on p. 149- *ff 10 THAT seems to refer to the rebels' mercilessness,
with TO in its common EL. sense of ' besides ' ; cp. "to that dauntlesse temper of his minde "
III. 1.52. SFI3 OF is used in the sense of 'by'; and SUPPLY'D is the regular EL.E.
military term for 'reinforced,' cp. Kersey, ' Dictionarium,' 1708, "supply, . . recruits of
forces"; cp. also John V.3-9- Spenser, Globe ed., pp. 639 ff-» gives us a description
of these KERNES AND GALLOWGLASSES (the word is misprinted " gallowgrosses " in
FO. I) : "for it [i.e. "the quilted leather jacke"] is then [i. e. "in warre"] worn likewise
of a footeman under a shirte of mayle, the which footeman they call a galloglass . . And
he being soe armed, in a long shirt of mayle down to the calfe of his legg with a long brode
axe in his hand, was then pedes gravis armaturae." These gallowglasses and "kearne,"
light-armed Irish soldiers, are "the most loathsome and barbarous conditions of any
people under heaven. They do use all the beastly behavior that may be ; they oppress all
men ; they spoyle as well the subject as the enemy," etc. Eudoxus exclaims, "These be
most villenous conditions!" Spenser goes on to describe the "frye [an EL. E. synonym
of 'swarm'] of rakehelle horse-boyes" as especially needing reformation: "for out of
these . . are theyr kearne continually supplyed and maintained." It would seem, there-
fore, that the MULTIPLYING VILLANIES OF NATURE in v. II are the 'kernes and gal-
lowglasses 'themselves, and not vicious aspects of Macdonwald's character. SF 12 SWARME
is not elsewhere by Shakspere used with reference to abstract qualities, but refers to the
gathering of mobs: e.g. "our peasants . . swarme About our squares of battaile" Hen. 5
IV. 2. 27, "With the plebians swarming at their heeles " Hen. 5 V. chor. 27 ; "The common
people by numbers swarme to us" 3Hen.6 IV. 2.2. MULTIPLYING, too, generally means
' prolific,' not ' multiplied,' and
APT T QPRMR 11 nr\ is used here, if this interpreta-
AL> I * oUtilNti 11 14 — 20 tion is the correct one, as in
Cor. II. 2. 82: "Your multi-
And Fortune on his damned quarry smiling ply in g spawne how can he
Shev/d like a rebell's whore. But all 's too atter -
weake; SF 14 quarry is usually al-
For brave Macbeth — well hee deserves that te J ed to "w*™*" by modern
editors ; but there is no good
name reason for the change, despite
Disdaynim* Fortune, with his brandisht Holinshed's "rebellious quar-
f 1 rel" in his description of
Sieeie > Macdowald's rebellion. That
Which smoak'd with bloody execution, quarrel, 'crossbow bolt,' is oc-
Like Valour's minion carv'd out his passage carnally spelled 'quarry' in
1 ill hee lac d the Slave: and that quarrel, 'small square
window pane,' is often simi-
larly spelled, is not surprising: for both these words had in EL. E. doublet forms in -y.
But quarrel, MN. E. 'quarrel,' had not. QUARRY in the sense of 'heaps of slain' is also
found in Cor. 1. 1.202, " I 'de make a quarrie With thousands of these quarter'd slaves":
properly the word describes a heap of slaughtered game, and the association is not so
entirely inapposite here as to lead to the inference that it is a misprint for "quarrel." A
somewhat similar expression is found in Drayton's Barrons Warres, 1605,11.57: "O
ill did Fate these noble armes bestow Which as a quarry on the soilde earth lay, Seized
on by conquest as a glorious pray." DAMN in the sense of 'to doom,' 'ruin,' 'destroy'
without the connotation 'doom to everlasting perdition' is sufficiently common in EL.E.
to make no difficulty; cp. Oth. I. 3. 359? Iago to Roderigo, "If thou wilt needs
7
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
damne thy selfe, do it a more delicate [i. e. pleasant] way then drowning." *IFl5
SHEW'D (i, e. 'appeared/ 'looked/ cp. I. 3- 54) in the preterite tense is awkward with
the IS preceding it. But in M.E. and EL. E. the historical present and past tenses are
frequently used together in the same narrative. Here, too, SHEW'D seems to point
to the first stage of the battle, now past. ALL'S TOO WEAKE presents a similar
inconsequence of tenses if ALL ? S is to be taken for 'All is.' It may possibly, however,
be the contracted form of 'All was/ like "There's" for 'There was' in II. 2. 23- Such
forms were not uncommon in EL. E., cp. Jonson, ' Sejanus/ 1640, p. 338, u Agr. Dying?
Ner. That 's strange ! Agr. Yo' were with him yesternight," where no contraction is
possible but 'you're.' *ff 18 SMOAK'D is here used in its well-nigh obsolete sense of
'steamed' (though we still say "smoking hot") ; cp. "Thy murd'rous faulchion smoaking
in his blood" Rich.3 1.2.94. EXECUTION: in EL. E. the suffixes -sion, -Hon, -tience
can be either dissyllabic as in M. E. or monosyllabic as in MN.E. The word refers to
the wielding of any weapon or instrument; cp. " In fellest manner execute [i. e. 'wield/
N. E. D. 'execute' lb] your armes" Tro.&Cr. V. 7. 6, where to make MN.E. sense
many editors change "armes" to the weak "aims"! *ff 20 In TILL HE FAC'D THE
SLAVE we seem to have a verse beginning with a doubled unstressed impulse ; such
verses are not common in Macbeth; there is one in 1.2.46, and another in III. 4.
133- Lines of less than the five normal waves occur frequently in EL. blank verse,
and this one is well adapted to a wounded soldier's narrative. But perhaps LIKE
VALOUR'S MINION (three
syllables), v. 19, was an after Ap'T T 9PPMP TT 0T 0A
insertion which broke in two AL> l l SOU IN C 1 1 2 1-24
a verse originally beginning
with carv'd and ending Which nev rshooke hands nor bad tarwellto him
with slave. Till he unseam'd him from thenave to th'chops
<1F2I which refers to Mac- And fix ' d his bead u P on our battlements.
beth, being an instance of the KTNC
common EL. usage of the r\ i i
relative pronoun as a con- ^ valiant cousin ! worthy gentleman !
nective, 'and he'; cp. 1,5.
37, and III. 1.85 where "which" stands for 'and this.' SHOOKE HANDS seems to
refer to the formal preliminaries of a fight, as in Sidney's Arcadia, 1590, p. 267:
" After the terrible salutation of warlike noyse, the shaking of handes was with
sharpe weapons," with NOR in its common sense of ' and not.' " Shook hands " in the
sense of ' took leave of ' is usually found in EL. E. in connection with abstract notions, e. g.
"shake hands with chastitie" ' Euphues/ Arber, p. 75 (quoted in CI. Pr.), "with folly"
Middleton's Witch (quoted by Manly), "with earth," z. e. with earthly things, Quarles,
'Emblems' (quoted by Cent. Diet.), "with virtue" Cooper, 'Thesaurus' s.v. nuntius.
^22 NAVE, 'navel/ seems to be the right word here, though this anomalous form has
not yet been found in EL. E. That the two words "navel," M.E. "navele," and "nave,"
M.E. "nave," 'the centre of a wheel/ were confused in EL. E. is shown by Massinger's
use of "navel" for "nave" in "Circle him round with death and if he stir His body be the
navel to the wheel In which your rapiers like so many spokes Shall meet and fix themselves"
' Pari, of Love' II. 3 (Cent. Diet.). That the expression was more or less familiar to EL. ears
is shown by Nash's, 1594, "Then from the navel to the throat at once He ript old Priam"
(quoted from Steevens's note). In Holinshed Macbeth finds Macdowald already dead on
taking his castle. CHOPS, an EL. form of MN.E. "chaps," 'jaws/ was used of persons
as well as of animals in Shakspere's time. SF 24 As to Macbeth's cousinship with Dun-
can, cp. Hoi., p. 168 : "After Malcolme succeeded his nephue Duncane [the Duncan of the
play] the sonne of his daughter Beatrice : for Malcome had two daughters, the one, which
was this Beatrice, being given in manage unto one Abbanath Crinen . . bare of that mariage
8
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT I
SCENE II
25-35
the foresaid Duncane. The
other called Doada, was mar-
ied unto Sinell [cp. I. 3- 71]
the thane of Glammis, by
whom she had issue one Mac-
beth, a valiant gentleman."
CAPTAINB
As whence the sunne 'gins his reflection
Shipwracking stormes and direfull thunders,
So from that spring whence comfort seem'd The figure in <1F 25 ff. is a refer-
ence to storms rising out of the
east and not to the storms of
the vernal equinox, a curious
interpretation tortured out of
the Latin meaning of re- and
flectio, ' turning back.' RE-
to come
Discomfort swells. Marke, King of Scot
land, marke:
No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd,
CompelFd these skipping kernes to trust 'flection in el. e. is used of
their heeles, directshining,cp.'' May never
_ xt 11 • j glorious sunne reflex his
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage, beames Upon the countrey
Withfurbushtarmesandnewsupplyesof men where you make abode"
Began a fresh assault.
KING
Dismay'd not this
Our capitaines, Macbeth and Banquoh?
CAPTAINE
Yes—
As sparrowes eagles, or the hare the lyon.
I Hen.6V.4.87 ; "Mostradiant
and refulgent Lampe of light . .
from thee Reflect [i. e. shine]
those rayes that have en-
lightnedmee"Quarles,'Sion's
Sonets,' 1630, V. The same
metaphor is found in 2Hen.4
IV. 4. 34, 35, "As humorous
as winter and as sudden As
flawes congealed in the spring
of day," which also shows the
EL. use of SPRING, v. 27, in
the sense of * sunrise' : inthe'dayspringfrom on high' of Luke 1. 78 this meaning is still pre-
served. That Shakspere intends us to think of Sweno as coming to the aid of the Scots and
then turning on them is evident from the WHENCE COMFORT SEEM'D TO COME, i. e.
whence help was to have come, for SEEM in EL. E. often connotes an immediate or near
futurity, 'was on the point of,' as here and in v. 47 below. SF 26 After THUNDERS mod-
ern editors, following Pope, supply 'break'; but 'storms break' and 'thunders break'
are neither of them Shaksperian locutions. The word which Shakspere generally uses in
connection with thunder is " bursts," cp. Lear III. 2. 46, "such bursts of horrid thunder,"
and this would also aptly describe the coming of a sudden flaw. The verse, however, does
not really need a patch either to make sense, for with ideas of motion the verb is often
omitted in M.E. and EL. E. where it can be supplied from the context, or to make metre,
for four-wave verses are common in Macbeth: in III. I. 103 and 1.4. 14 are two instances ;
in the latter the verse ends with a falling impulse as here. *ff 27 COMFORT, still used in
the sense of ' aid/ ' support ' in our phrase ' give comfort to the enemy,' was common in
EL. E. with this signification : cp. IV. 3- 193 ; SF 28 DISCOMFORT, likewise, connoted the
negative of this idea and corresponds to MN. E. ' undoing,' ' disaster ' : cp. " Should I stay
longer, It would be my disgrace and your discomfort" IV. 2. 29. *TF 29 NO SOONER—
BUT is EL. E. idiom for ' no sooner— than,' cp. N. E. D. ' but ' 1 6 ; but in MN. E. the verb
usually precedes the subject ; the same word order occurs in 1.2. 63, " No more that Thane
of Cawdor shall deceive," etc. SF 31 SURVEYING VANTAGE seems to mean 'seeing his
opportunity,' cp. N. E. D. 'advantage' 4 and Cym. 1.3-24; but SURVEY in the sense 'dis-
cern ' is not elsewhere found in EL. E. In Rich. 3 V. 3. 15, " Let us survey the vantage of
9
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the field," "vantage" refers to opportunity of place rather than to opportunity of time,
and " survey " has its usual sense of ' view.' *1F 33 There are two forms of the word cap-
tain in EL. E. as in M. E., one " captain " and the other CAPITAINE ; both forms continue
to be written through the 1 7th century, and the latter, the trisyllabic, is of constant
occurrence in books of Shakspere's time, e. g. Halle's Chronicle, Henry VIII, 292 b,
Cooper's Thesaurus, etc. ; cp., too, Marston as quoted in Warton-Hazlitt IV, p. 417, " with
farewell, capitaine, kind heart,
ACT I SCENE II
adew ! " There can be but
little doubt that here and
in 3Hen.6lV.7.30 Shakspere
used the CAPITAINE form,
though the printer of the
Folio has set the dissyllabic
word.
SF37 CRACKS seems here to
mean 'shots,' but this pas-
sageisas yet theonlyevidence
that has been cited for such a
meaning in EL. E. : its usual
sense is 'crash.' This double
charging of pieces is jokingly
referred to by Falstaff when he
hears the good news of Prince
Hal's accession: "Pistol,"
he says, u I will double charge
thee with dignities" 2Hen.4 V.
3.130. SF38 SO THEY, which
makes the verse one of six
waves with the caesura after
THEY, is here printed as in
FO. I ; some editors append it
to v. 37, others make a sepa-
rate line of it. But such ex-
pedients help little. There are
many six-wave verses in Shakspere and the EL. poets; whether they were due to
carelessness or were a permissible variation of the blank-verse structure has not yet been
made out. Such expressions as DOUBLY REDOUBLED — this one occurs in Rich. 2 I.3.8O—
are frequent in EL. E., but now give offence by their tautology. SF 39 The captain's know-
ledge of the battle seems to end at this point : but his closing words are not so abruptly
broken off as they seem to be in MN.E., for I CANNOT TELL is 1 6th century idiom for 'I
do not know what to say,' cp. Spenser's Faerie Queene I. 8. 34, and would be so under-
stood by an EL. audience. EXCEPT is used in its EL. sense of ' unless,' cp. N.E.D., and
MEMORIZE is 'make memorable,' cp. Hen. 8 III. 2. 52. We have precisely the same sort
of sentence in Tarn, of Shr. IV. 4. 91 ' "I cannot tell, except they are busied about a
counterfeit assurance," where the punctuation of FO. I — and it is the only authority for the
passage — shows that its "expect" is a misprint for "except," noticed and corrected by FO.2,
though modern editions strangely return to "expect." Thissentence istherefore printedhere
asit stands in FO. I, without the dash after "tell." ^43 SO — AS is a regular M.E. and EL. E.
idiom corresponding to MN. E. 'as — as.' The stage direction of the Folio, ENTER ROSSE
AND ANGUS, which follows the captain's exit, is altered to " Enter RoSs" by modern editors
and placed after WHO COMES HERE? But Rosse and Angus in I. 3. 88 together bring
news of Macbeth's promotion. That Angus does not speak is no evidence for his not
10
36-45
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons over-charg'd with double cracks,
So they doubly redoubled stroakes upon the
foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking
wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
But I am faint; my gashes cry for helpe.
KING
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds ;
They smack of honor both. Goe get him
surgeons.
EXIT CAPTAINE ATTENDED
ENTER ROSSE AND ANGUS
Who comes here?
MALCOLME
The worthy Thane of Rosse!
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
being in the scene : Donalbaine (see scene direction) does not speak at all, and Lenox only
once. It is likely, therefore, that Shakspere intended them both to enter here as the Folio
records, Rosse somewhat in advance and alone taking part in the dialogue. In EL. stage
directions "Enter" means 'begins to take part in the action' and not necessarily in the
dialogue. There is, therefore, no occasion for changing either the form or the position of
the stage direction. SF 45 Malcolm's words seem to be rather an exclamation than an an-
swer to Duncan's question ;
ACT I SCENE II
46-53
So
king!
the Folio has a period after
Rosse, but its printer rarely
uses the exclamation-point,
e.g. GOD SAVE THE KING,
v. 47, is followed by a period.
EL.E.WORTHYhaspartofthe
connotation of MN.E.' brave,'
'valiant,' as it had in M. E.
SF46 Either WHAT A HASTE
or "what haste" is idiomatic
EL. E. ; but two unstressed
syllables at the beginning of a
verse are of comparatively rare
occurrence ; and it was prob-
ably for this reason that the
editor of FO. 2 dropped out the
article. SF47 SEEMES is here
used, like "seem'd" in v. 27
above and " seeme" in I. 5. 30
below, todenotesomethingim-
mediately imminent, and cor-
responds to MN.E. 'is going
to,' 'is about to,' 'is on the
point of.' Sidney, 'Arcadia,'
p. 291, uses much the same
words as those Shakspere
puts into the mouth of Lenox :
"the messenger came in with letters in his hand and hast in his countenence" ; cp. also,
"And that [i.e. if] our drift [i.e. intention] looke through our bad performance" Ham.
IV. 7. 152, and "The businesse of this man lookes out of him" Ant.&Cl. V. 1. 50 (cited by CI.
Pr.). SF48 In M.E. and early New English (e. N.E.) the imperfect tense often expresses
action which in MN.E. is represented by the perfect, as CAM'ST, here ; the illustrations given
by Koch, ' Engl. Gram.,' p. 40, could be greatly multiplied, reaching back to Chaucer and for-
ward through the 1 7th century. SF 49 To an Englishman of Shakspere's time the mere un-
furling of foreign banners on English soil was an insult to heaven : in John V. 1. 69 ff., speak-
ing of "arms invasive," the Bastard says, "Shall a beardlesse boy . . flesh his spirit [i.e.
courage] in a warre-like soyle, Mocking the ayre with colours idlely [i.e. foolishly, rashly]
spread?" An alliance of a foreign power with discontented elements in Ireland and Scotland
was much more than a dramatic situation to Shakspere's audience, and the blood of more
than one of them had already run " cold " at the thought of it. Rosse, of course, represents
the appalling situation in present time, just as does the wounded captain in v. 1 3. SF 50
For FANNE OUR PEOPLE COLD cp. "Let . . your enemies with nodding of their plumes
fan you into despaire" Cor. III. 3- 126. *1F5I TERRIBLE belongs toa large class of EL. words
in which an unstressed syllable — usually one containing a liquid or nasal — preceded by
a full stressed syllable and followed by one of secondary stress, was lost, and the following
II
LENOX
What a haste lookes through his eyes!
should he looke
That seemes to speake things strange.
ROSSE
God save the
KING
Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane ?
ROSSE
From Fiffe, great king,
Where the Norweyan banners flowt the
skie,
And fanne our people cold.
Norway himselfe, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyall traytor
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismall
conflict,
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
secondarily stressed syllable reduced to an unstressed syllable. These words occur in the
best literary idiom of the EL. period; many printers indicate the loss of this syllable both
in prose and poetry by an apostrophe, showing that it was not mere poetic license. Some
of these syncopated words are still heard, like "med'cine," "parlous," ('perilous,' with the
further change of e to a), "nat'ral," but are recognized as vulgar; others, like "fev'rish" and
"tott'ring," are in constant unquestioned use ; while innumerable others, like "visited" and
" enemy," have entirely lost their syncopated forms. *ff 52 ASSI STED does not mean neces-
sarily that the Thane of Cawdor stood fighting by the side of the King of Norway : he
merely furthers the designs of the invaders, as the Host "assists" Fenton u in his purpose"
in Merry W. IV. 6. 3 ; the details are left to the imagination. The only interest that the
fact has for the tragedy of Macbeth lies in the confirmation which it gives to the first part
of the witches' prophecy, and Shakspere would have been the less Shakspere had he stopped
to describe the treachery to the satisfaction of the historical student. SF53 In the DIS-
MALL CONFLICT, as in the "dismall fight" which the messenger describes to the Bishop
of Winchester in I Hen. 6 I. I. I05 r "dismal" is used in its obsolete sense of 'disastrous.'
The word was originally a
ACT I SCENE II 54-67
phrase meaning 'an unlucky
day, 'and in Shakspere's time
still retained a part of this M.E.
connotation of misfortune.
SF 54 THAT is a strengthen-
ing particle with M.E. and
EL. E. conjunctive adverbs
like "till," "when," "if," etc.,
still familiar to us in Bible
English. Rosse calls Mac-
beth BELLONA'S BRIDE-
GROOM E, as the wounded
soldier describes him as " Val-
our's darling," picturing him
as one who had newly taken
the goddess of war for his
bride. The classical incon-
sistency of making Bellona,
the maid of war, even momen-
tarily a bride — that Shak-
spere did not do it out of ig-
norance is fortunately evident
fromlHen.4IV.I.II2ff. — has
not escaped the criticism of
Shakspere scholars, who offer
various mitigating explana-
tions. LAPTIN PROOFE car-
ries out the picture of this new
god of war, another " mailed
Mars"(cp. lHen.4IV. I.II6)
with his "armours forg'd for
proofeeterne"(cp. Ham. II. 2.
512). SF55 In Shakspere's
time COMPARISON had the
connotation of ' rivalry/ a
shade of meaning which is
Till that Bellona's bridegroome, lapt in proofe r
Confronted him with selfe-comparisons,
Point against point, rebellious arme 'gainst
arme
Curbing his lavish spirit; and, to conclude,
The victorie fell on us, —
KING
Great happinesse! —
ROSSE
that now Sweno,
The Norwayes king, craves composition;
Nor would we deigne him buriall of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colmes ynch
Ten thousand dollars to our generall use.
KING
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosome interest : goe pronounce his
present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSSE
I 'le see it done.
KING
hath lost, noble Macbeth hath
What he
wonne.
EXEUNT
12
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
prominent here, and SELFE in EL. E. was frequently used as the first element of a
compound word whose connotation was a property of the subject of the thought ; cp.
"selfe-bounty" Oth. III. 3- 200, "selfe-danger" Cym. III. 4. 149, and Jonson's "thou art
not covetous of least selfe-fame" 'Epigrammes' II, ed. 1640. *ff56 That POINT is a
metonymy for 'sword' is evident from "Turne face to face and bloody point to point"
John II. I. 390, and " How often he had met you sword to sword" Cor. III. 1. 13- The
text follows the punctuation of the Folio, which makes good sense, and the comma is
not put after REBELLIOUS as in many modern editions. (FO. I has a comma also after
ARME, which has been removed, for in FO. I a descriptive participial clause, as is usual in
EL. printing, is almost invariably pointed off from its noun: e.g. "And the late dignities,
Heap'd up to them" I. 6. 19, and "we shall have cause of state, Craving us jointly"
III. I. 34, and "His silver skinne, lac'd with his golden blood" II. 3- 118.) As HIS is
the EL. E. equivalent of MN.E. 'its/ and SPIRIT a psychological term for the physical
energy supposed to reside in the members of the body, HIS probably refers to REBEL-
LIOUS ARME ; i. e. 'the arm of the King of Norway, now fighting for the rebels, against
the arm of Macbeth, curbing its unbridled strength.' SF57 LAVISH in MN.E. is usually
limited to unrestrained expenditure or prodigal giving ; in EL. E. it had a far more general
application, e.g. " his lavish tongue" lHen.6 II. 5.47, "lavish manners" 2Hen.4 IV. 4. 64.
458 GREAT HAPPINESSE means 'what good fortune!' cp. Oth. III. 4. 108, where
Cassius's meeting with Desdemona provokes Iago to exclaim, " Loe, the happinesse ! "
The line is interjectory and the interrupted verse is continued in THAT NOW, etc.
THAT in EL.E. often expresses result, 'so that,' as here. SF59 NORWAYES is EL. E.
for ' Norwegians 'and not a mistake for ' Norway' ; cp. "English, Scots, Danes, Norwayes,
they Foure mighty people" Slatyer, ' Paleealbion,' 1 6 1 9 t p. 219- COMPOSITION means
'terms of surrender,' cp. "Thus we are agreed; I crave our composition may be written
And seal'd betweene us," Ant.&Cl. II. 6.58; the word has five syllables, cp. v. 18. SF6I
SAINT COLMES YNCH ("inch" is a Gaelic word for a small island) is now Inchcolm
in the Firth of Forth opposite Leith. SF 62 Minsheu, 1617, says the DOLLAR was a
" Dutch coine worth about foure shillings." Shakspere may have had in mind, however,
the "rigs dollar" of the northern countries, which the visit of Christian IV to the court
of King James in 1606 had recently made familiar to Londoners. TO OUR GENERALL
USE is EL.E. for 'to defray our state expenses,' cp. "Whose ransomes did the generall
coffers fill" Caes. III. 2. 94, and "Hath here distrayn'd the tower to his use" lHen.6 1,3.61.
*ff 64 In EL.E. BOSOME was used as an adjective meaning 'close,' 'intimate,' and hints at
an intimate relation between the treacherous thane and Duncan (OUR, of course, is the
majesty plural). PRESENT DEATH is 'immediate death,' cp. " Martius is worthy of pres-
ent death" Cor. III. I. 211. The scene closes with a couplet, a common practice with
Elizabethan dramatists.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE III
Scene III resumes the falling lyric rhythm of Scene I ; now running lightly along with
no secondarily stressed syllables, now swirling back on itself in short intervals of rising
rhythm, as in vv. II, 12, 13, 17, and 18, now poised for a moment, as in " Looke what I
have," v. 26, then madly rushing on again to be caught back in vv. 30 and 31- Then the
final rush of the chorus, "about, about," ending with the three verses whose rhythm is
"Peace! the charme's wound up," a wonderfully fitting cadence to the series. The
witchery of such rhythm is paralleled only by that of Puck's charm in Midsummer Night's
Dream III. 2. 148 ff. And yet, with the strange obliquity of judgement which sometimes
besets Shakspere scholarship, these verses have been thought unShaksperian.
13
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE III : A HEATH: THUNDER: ENTER THE THREE WITCHES
*ff I Jonson, in a note to his
'Masque of Queenes,' 1 609,
tells us: "This is also sol-
emne [i. e. part of the ritual]
in their witchcraft, to be ex-
amined, either by the Divill, or
their Dame, at their meetings,
of what mischief they have
done and what they can con-
fer ['contribute'] to a future
hurt,"subjoiningreferencesto
the classical literature of de-
monology. Shakspere makes
his witches interrogate one
another, omitting the dame
features altogether (see note
on III. 5« 2). Jonson makes
them "sisters," but Shak-
sperealway s keeps in the back-
ground their norn character :
to him they are the "weyard
sisters," the Three Sisters of
FIRST WITCH
HERE hast thou beene, sister?
SECOND WITCH. Killing swine.
THIRD WITCH. Sister, where
thou ?
FIRST WITCH
A savior's wife had chestnuts in her lappe,
And mouncht and mouncht and mouncht:
'Give me/ quoth I.
'Aroynt thee, witch!' the rumpe-fed ronyon
cryes.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone,
Master o' th f Tiger ;
But in a syve I 'le thither sayle,
And, like a rat without a tayle,
I *le doe, I f le doe, and I f le doe.
Destiny. SF 2 Gifford in his Dialogue concerning Witches, 1 603, tells us that their powers are
" when they are offended with any . . to hurt them in their bodies, yea, to kill them, and to
kill their cattell." SF 5 The form MOUNCH/ to chew with closed lips,' is not uncommon in
EL.E., cp. " Mounch-present," Awdley, 'The XXV orders of Knaves,' E. E. T. S., p. 14.
GIVE ME is EL.E. for 'give it to me': Juliet asks the Friar for the vial with "Give me,
give me, O tell me not of feare" in Rom.&Jul. IV. 1. 121. SF 6 AROYNTTHEEis evidently
an adjuration to a witch, meaning ' begone ' ; the word is used also in the same sense
in Lear 1 1 1. 4. 129, "aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee!" But the locution has not yet
been found elsewhere in EL.E., cp. N. E. D.s.v. RUMPE-FED seems to be the equiva-
lent of Cotgrave's " hanchu, bumme-growne, great hipt"; with FED in its EL. sense of
'fatted': "fed calfe " in Coverdale's version corresponds to the "fatted calf" of Luke
XV. 27, cp. N. E. D. 'fed' b. It may, however, mean 'fed on rumps,' cp. " beane fed"
Mids. II. I. 45, and " Had he [i. e. my father] set me to grammer schole . . instead of
treading corontoes and making fidlers fat with rumps of capon I had by this time read
homilyes" Dekker, ' Knights Conjuring/ Percy Soc, p. 3L The abusive RONYON origi-
nally meant 'scurvy person.' In Merry W. IV. 2.193, Ford, who takes the disguised
Falstaff for a witch, cries "Out of my doore you witch . . you poulcat, you runnion."
*ff7 HER . . GONE, MASTER . . TIGER seem to be intended for two verses, though
printed as one in the Folio. In O' TH' appears a common EL. contraction for ' of the ' that
counts as but one verse impulse ; the definite article is enclitic, as is shown by the EL.
printing " ithe," a similar contraction for 'in the,' and " tothe," a similar contraction for
'to the.' These contract forms are not peculiar to poetry as in MN.E., but are found in
EL. prose as well. Collier cites an account of a voyage to ALEPPO in a ship called the
TIGER of London in 1583 as given by Hakluyt II, pp. 247, 251, which seems to be more
than a mere coincidence, though Tiger is a common ship-name in the 1 6th and 1 7th
14
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
centuries. SF 8 That witches went to sea in sieves was a popular belief in the 1 6th cen-
tury. The form "sive," " syve," is common in EL.E. ; it is our modern spelling that is
anomalous. *ff9 Steevens, 1793, states that it was a belief of the times that though a
witch could assume the form of any animal she pleased, the tail would be wanting ; but
unfortunately he gives no evidence of this popular superstition. SF 10 DOE seems to be
used vaguely here for ' work
ACT I
SCENE III
11-26
mischief/ like the MN. E. " I '11
do him ! " The thrice repeated
threat has a peculiar solem-
nity, imitating \hz fiat, fiat, fiat
of an excommunication writ.
*ff 1 1 Her witch sisters prom-
ise her winds, which they were
popularly supposed to con-
trol, cp. "The witches raise
tempests, "etc. ,Gifford,'Dial.'
p. 74. Burton in his 'Anat. of
Mel.' says that u nothing is so
familiar as for witches and
sorcerers in Scandinavia to
sell winds to mariners and
cause tempests." WINDE in
EL.E. rhymed with KINDE.
<ff 14 OTHER is the EL. plural,
and that BLOW is used in the
sense of ' blow upon T seems
evident from " Ayre, quoth he,
thy cheekes may blowe"
L.L.L. IV. 3. 109, though this
sense is not given in N.E.D.
save in the phrases "to blow
one's nails or fingers " and
"blowthefire. " Many changes
have been proposed to avoid
the seeming unintelligibility of
the verse when it is read as
MN. E. Shakspere may have
had in mind the proverb quoted by Cotgrave s.v.vent, " No one can blow him to good
whom destinie will not harbour." SF 1 7 For I 1 TH', cp. v. 7. THE SHIP-MAN'S CARD is the
mariner's compass, cp. " Not now to learne his compasse by the carde" Drayton, ' Bar-
rons Warres,' III. 15.6. Chaucer's "shipman" for 'sailor' was still in common use in
EL.E.: Cooper defines nauta as "a shipman, a mariner," and Shakspere speaks of " ship-
men "in Tro.&Cr.V. 2. 172. <ff 18 The witch's threat I 'LE DREYNE — the word means 'dry
up' in EL.E. — HIM DRIE AS HAY has reference to EL. psychology, cp. Burton, ' Anat.
of Mel.,' III. 4. 2.4, " Fear takes away their content, and dries the blood, wasteth the
marrow": this explains also vv. 22, 23. Shakspere in Sonnet LXIII refers to the
same notion in "With Time's injurious hand crusht and oreworne, When houres [MN. E.
'hours of anxiety' as in Tim. III. 1.66] have dreind his blood." SF 20 The figure by
which Shakspere expresses the sleepless anxiety of the witch's victim is taken, not
from what we know as a PENT-HOUSE (pronounced "pentice" in EL.E.), which would
describe rather the eyebrow than the eyelid, but from the EL. usage of the word in the
sense of 'curtain'*, cp. Cotgrave, u hauvens, penthouses of cloth hung before shop win-
15
SECOND WITCH
I 'le give thee a winde.
FIRST WITCH
TV art kinde.
THIRD WITCH
And I another.
FIRST WITCH
I my selfe have all the other,
And the very ports they blow —
All the quarters that they know
T th' ship-man's card.
I 'le dreyne him drie as hay f
Sleepe shall neyther night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Wearie sev'nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peake, and pine;
Though his barke cannot be lost
Yet it shall be tempest tost.
Looke what I have.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
dows," and L.L.L. 1 1 1 . 1 . 1 7. Shakspere is fond of the figure : cp. " The fringed curtaines
of thine eye advance" Temp. I. 2. 408, and " would under peepe her lids To see th' enclosed
lights now canopied Under these windowes" Cym. II. 2. 21. Puck's charm in Mids. 1 1.
2. 80 is " When thou wak'st let love forbid Sleepe his seate on thy eye-lid." *ff 21 FOR-
BID here seems to mean 'cursed/ 'banned/ though this and a passage probably written
in imitation of Shakspere's use of the word here are the only instances given in
N.E.D. for FORBID in this sense. It may be the English equivalent of homo interdictus,
with another suggestion of excommunication. < ff22 The SEV'NIGHT ('sennit'), seven
days or half a fortnight, was a common EL. measure of time that has now become poetic.
*fF 23 Many have thought the sailor's dwindling away is a reference to the making of
wax figures by witches, who by their charms caused their victims to waste as the wax
melted. But the anxiety of a sea captain storm tossed and kept from haven for a year and a
half is surely sufficient cause for his dwindling away; see note on "dreyne" above. PEAKE
is used by Shakspere, but in
ACT I SCENE III
a slightly different sense, in
"peake Likejohn-a-dreames"
Ham.II.2.59 4 ; Kersey,I708 r
gives"peaking,that isof sickly
constitution"; so 'Glosso-
graphia,' 1707; and Sewell's
Dutch Dictionary glosses
" peaking, ziekelyk, quy-
nende" ; " peaked," ' sickly,' is
still common in English dia-
lects and often heard in the
United States.^ 24 THOUGH
HIS BARKE CANNOT BE
LOST seems to be one of those
limitations which often condi-
tioned themischief of witches j
but possibly a hint at the fate
character of the Three Sisters
of Destiny is meant.
27-37
SECOND WITCH
Shew me! shew me!
FIRST WITCH
Here I have a pilot's thumbe,
Wrackt as homeward he did come.
DRUM WITHIN
THIRD WITCH
A drumme, a drumme!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL
The weyward sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus doe s*oe, about, about:
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice againe to make up nine —
Peace! the charme 's wound up.
*ff 32 The WEYWARD SIS-
TERS are part of the Macbeth
legend. Shakspere undoubt-
edly derived his knowledge
of them from Holinshed, who
says that "these women were
either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some
nymphs or feiries indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necromantical science." The
word "weird" is a I6th century Northern English form of M.E. "werd," meaning 'fate,'
'destiny.' Douglas uses "werd sisters" to render c Parcae in J&n. III.379» ed. Small,
1 1, p. 142, v. 24. For the place of these fate sisters in Germanic mythology see J. Grimm,
'Deutsche Mythologie,' I, p. 379 ff. It is not strange that in the EL. imagination these
beings should be confused with witches: Slatyer's Palasalbion, 1 619? refers to them
as witches; Simon Forman, who saw Macbeth played in 1 6 10, calls them "3 women
feiries or nimphes," i. e. witches and enchantresses — Saxo Grammaticus calls the norns
nymphae. Skinner, ' Etymologicon,' explaining "weirdes," says the term etiam sagas
seu pythonissas notat" ; Coles, 17 13, glosses "wieres" (misprint for "wierdes"?) "witches,
destinies." *ff33 POSTERS is EL. E. for 'couriers,' cp. Cotgrave, "courrier, a post, or,
a poster." The significance of the number three in demonology is so common as
16
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
scarcely to be worth remark. This witches' dance Jonson probably had in mind when he
wrote his dance song in the 'Masque of Queenes,' 1609: but the cadence rhythm of
the finale in Shakspere's lyric "Peace! the charme's wound up!" is quite lacking in
Jonson's "And our charmes advance."
11 About, about, and about,
Till the mist arise, and the lights flie out,
The images neither be seene, nor felt ;
The wollen burne, and the waxen melt ;
Sprinkle your liquors upon the ground,
And into the ayre ; around, around,
Around, around,
Around, around,
Till a musique sound,
And the pase be found,
To which we may dance,
And our charmes advance."
Whether the form WEYWARD, WEYARD be a phonetic Southern English rendering of
the Northern "weird," or due to a confusion with "wayward" ('morose/ 'grim/ 'per-
verse' in EL. E.), WAYWARD SISTERS, and not "weird sisters," was the phrase by which
these creatures were known in England during the 1 7th century: e. g. Th. Heywood,
'The Late Witches of Lancashire,' 1633, "you look like one of the Scottish wayward sis-
ters" (quoted from Hudson's note in Furness's Variorum) ; Sewell, Dutch Diet., glosses
"the wayward sisters, de Hexen, Kollen." It can scarcely be, therefore, a mere mis-
print for "weird," as Theobald and modern editors suppose. Such a term as WAY-
WARD SISTERS, 'the gloomy sisters,' 'the grim sisters,' presents a not uncommon
association of ideas, cp. fata perversa and Old Norse grimmar as applied to the norns.
In view of these facts and Shakspere's use of the word as a dissyllable, the Folio spelling
WEYWARD and WEYARD is retained. From Shakspere's spelling " Seyward" and " Sey-
ton" below, "weyward,"
i^m T e/^DXTD ttt oo ^ "weyard" would indicate a
AU 1 1 bUbJNblll 3»-43 word sounded as if spelled in
MN. E. "way-ard."
ENTER MACBETH AND BANQUO
MACBETH I n ^ 3 8 Macbeth refers to the
P , 1 c . i t i f air issue of the battle and the
bo foule and taire a day 1 have not seene. f ou l weather. Holinshed,ed.
PiMnnn Boswell-Stone, p. 2 1 , tells us
BAIN^UU "the Scots after this victory
How farre is 't call'd to Foris? What are caused, .thanks to be given to
these almightie God, that had sent
p " ,i' K i .11. i them so faire a day over their
bo wither d and so wilde in their attyre, enemies." SF 39 The Folio
That looke not like th' inhabitants o' th' misprints "Sons "for foris,
-i an EL. form of modern
eartn "Forres" (dissyllabic). The
And yet are on 't ? Live you, or are you p i aC e is on the Moray Firth,
au tfht tenmilesW.S.W.ofElgin,and
rrr, * -> \r more than a hundred miles
lhat man may question.' You seeme to from Kingcorne and Inch-
understand me colm, near which the battle
17
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
took place. Holinshcd intro-
duces the incident of Mac-
beth's meeting the witches as
occurring "shortly after" the
battle: Shakspere seems to
consider it as happening im-
mediately after. WHAT is
the M.E. and EL. E. inter-
rogative relative correspond-
ing to the Latin qualis, 'what
sort of persons/ cp. "what
were these" Temp. III.
3.20. *ff 40 WILDE means
'strange,' 'fantastic': Holins-
hed mentions their "strange
and wild apparell." Sr43The
word QUESTION had a wider
range of meaning in EL. E.
than it has now, and meant
'converse with,' 'talk to';
hence the YOU SEEME TO
UNDERSTAND ME that fol-
lows. The verse is a good
illustration of the extra
rhythmical syllable before the
cassural pause.
<ff44 Their CHOPPIE FIN-
GERS were 'fissured with
wrinkles'; cp. "Her cheeks
with chops and wrincles
were disguiz'd" Lucr. 1452.
«lr45 YOU SHOULD BE is
'one would expect you to
be,' with SHOULD in the
M.E. sense of the auxiliary.
SF46 BEARDS were sup-
posed to be characteristic of
witches : Evans in Merry W.
IV. 2. 202, says "By yea
and no, I thinke the 'oman
is a witch indeede : I like not
when a 'oman has a great
peard ; I spie a great peard
under his muffler." INTER-
PRETS is somewhat loosely
used in EL. E. in the sense
of 'rendering into specific
terms'; cp. III. 6. 1, "My for-
mer speeches have but hit your
thoughts, Which can interpret
farther," i. e. l you can put
them in words for yourself.'
ACT I
SCENE III
44-61
By each at once her choppie finger laying
Upon her skinnie lips. You should be
women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interprete
That you are so.
MACBETH
Speake, if you can: what are you?
FIRST WITCH
All haile, Macbeth ! Haile to thee, Thane of
Glamis!
SECOND WITCH
All haile, Macbeth ! Haile to thee, Thane of
Cawdor!
THIRD WITCH
All haile, Macbeth, that shalt be king here-
after !
BANQUO
Good sir, why doe you start, and seeme to
feare
Things that doe sound so faire?
TO WITCHES
T th f name of truth,
Are ye fantasticall, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye shew? My noble part-
ner
You greet with present grace and great pre-
diction
Of noble having and of royall hope,
That he seemes wrapt withall; to me you
speake not.
If you can looke into the seedes of time
And say which graine will grow and which
will not,
Speake then to me, who neyther begge nor
feare
Your favors nor your hate.
18
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
IF 48 The rhythms of the first two prophecies are identical, thus : " '
; the
third has its last phrase slightly slowed '""'"'* giving a peculiar finale effect to the
prediction, an interesting improvement upon Holinshed's "All Haile Macbeth Thane of
Glamis ! Haile, Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor ! All haile Macbeth, that hereafter shalt be
King of Scotland!" SF53 FANTASTICALL is the regular EL. word for 'imaginary';
cp. 1.3- 139 and N.E. D. I ; here it means 'creatures of the imagination.' SF 54 SHEW has
already occurred in its EL. sense of 'appear,' cp 1.2. 1 5. PARTNER is commonly used
in EL. E. in the sense of 'companion,' 'colleague' ; in Cor. V. 3- 2 Coriolanus calls Aufidius
his "partner," so in 1.3. 142. *ff55 GRACE is more than 'favour' here: rather 'good
fortune' (N.E.D. 10), as in Ham. I. 3. 53, " A double blessing is a double grace." *ff 56
HAVING is EL. E. for ' property," estate ' ; cp. Jonson, 'Every Man in his Humour' I. 4,
" Lye in a water-bearer's house ! a Gentleman of his havings ! " SF 57 THAT corresponds to
MN. E. ' so that,' as in 1. 2. 57. WRAPT is a common 1 7th century spelling for ' rapt,' proba-
bly due to confusing the word in the EL. idiom ' rapt in,' i.e. ' dazed by,' which occurs in 1. 5. 6,
with " wrapt in," ' wrapped in,' ' enfolded by.' WITH ALL is in EL. E. an adverb, like the Ger-
man 'damit,' and corresponds to MN. E. 'with it,' 'with them,' etc. These half jesting
words of Banquo's show what a deep impression the witches' prophecy has made on Mac-
beth's mind. SF 58 SEEDES and " germins," as in IV. 1 . 59? were favorite 1 7th century forms
under which to think of the elements of the universe ; TIME connoted a much wider range
of association in EL. E. than it does now, being often used as here for the general course
of things. In 2Hen.4 III. I.
SCENE III
FIRST WITCH
SECOND WITCH
THIRD WITCH
ACT I SCENE III 62-72
Hayle!
Hayle!
Hayle!
FIRST WITCH
Lesser then Macbeth, and greater.
SECOND WITCH
Not so happy, yet much happyer.
THIRD WITCH
Thou shalt ^et kins*s, though thou be none:
So all haile, Macbeth and Banquo!
FIRST WITCH
Banquo and Macbeth, all haile!
MACBETH
Stay, you imperfect speakers; tell me more!
By Smell's death I know I am Thane of fowed byThe 'queen's kindly
Glamis,
But how of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor
lives,
19
80 ff. the same notion oc-
curs : "There is a historie in
all men's lives, Figuring the
nature of the times deceas'd:
The which observ'd, a man
may prophecie With a neere
ayme of the maine chance of
things As yet not come to
life, which in their seedes
And weake beginnings lye
entreasured ; Such things be-
come the hatch and brood of
Time."
SF 62 ff. Again the formal
rhythm series thrice repeated,
and again "Thou shalt get
kings, though thou be none,"
with the finale effect. HAPPY,
of course, has here its EL.
meaning of 'fortunate.' *1F69
The change in the order of
names implies an equal distri-
bution of favor, as in Ham.
II. 2. 33, where the king's
"Thankes, Rosincrance and
gentle Guildensterne" is fol-
"Thankes, Guildensterneand
gentle Rosincrance." *ff 70
Macbeth calls them IMPER-
FECT SPEAKERS because of
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the incompleteness, not be-
cause of the unintelligibility
of what they have said: the
adj. "perfect" in EL. E. con-
notes completeness of infor-
mation ; cp. "perfect'st re-
port n 1. 5.2, and " in your state
of honor I am perfect," i.e.
'well informed,' IV. 2. 66.
<ff 7 1 The death of Sinel— the
name seems originally to
have been ' Finel,' corrupted
through the likeness of the
written forms of S and F to
ACT I
SCENE III
73-78
A prosperous gentleman : and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of beleefe,
No more then to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence, or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetique greeting? Speake, I
charge you.
WITCHES VANISH
ACT I
SCENE III
79-85
"Sinel," as was ' Foris,' to
" Soris" above — is mentioned by Holinshed in connection with the First Witch's salutation :
"All haile, Macbeth, thane of Glammis (for he had entered into that dignitie and office by the
death of his father Sinell)." SF 72 Macbeth may well be ignorant of Cawdor's treachery.
Shakspere's words, as pointed out above, do not imply that the traitor was present
at the battle. SF 74 STANDS NOT WITHIN THE PROSPECT OP BELEEFE is like
"Shall come . . into the eye and prospect of his soule" Ado IV. 1. 23 1, and "Nothing that
can be can come betweene me and the full prospect of my hopes" Tw. N. III. 4. 90, with the
word used to connote a mental range of vision. EL. thinking was full of such metaphors
for the perceptive powers of the mind; cp. N.E. D. 'eye' 4 c and 8. The double negative
STANDS NOT . . NO MORE violates only our modern notions of grammar; in literary
English up to the 1 7th century, and still in popular English, such idioms are common.
SF75 The two parallel forms "thanne" and "thenne" in M.E. remained in EL.E. as THAN
and THEN; 'than 'has since been set apart for use in comparison, while 'then' remains
temporal. SF 76 The word OWE in O. E. and M.E. meant 'to possess," to obtain,' as well
as 'to be under obligation to,' a double meaning still retained in Shakspere's time. SF 78
-que in PROPHETIQUE is merely the French spelling of a final k, giving such EL.E.
forms as "musique," "an-
tique " (still preserved), " poli-
tique," etc.
<1F79 The Folio reads HA'S,
as often ; but this is a mere
gratuitous piece of philologi-
cal information — and incor-
rect, as such information usu-
ally is — on the part of the
printer, who seems to have
supposed that "has" was
formed from "haves" by
dropping theue. *1F80THESE
ARE OF THEM, i.e. 'these
are some of them,' is a parti-
tive genitive idiom, now obso-
lete, but common in the 1 7th
century ; cp. " He sent thither
straight of the best soldiers he
had about him" North, ' Plu-
tarch,' ed. 1 595, p. 240. ARE
BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
And these are of them : whither are they van-
ished?
MACBETH
Into the ayre; and what seem f d corporall
Melted as breath into the winde.
Would they had stay'd!
BANQUO
Were such things here as we doe speake
about ?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner ?
20
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THEY VANISH'D is another M.E. and EL.E. idiom still familiar from Bible English, but
obsolete in our thinking, through which Ms,' not 'have,' forms the auxiliary for past time
with verbs of motion. SF 8 1 CORPORALL is EL.E. for 'material,' 'substantial'; cp.
N.E. D., especially the quotation from West, ' Symboleographia,' 1592, "Corporal things
are such as of their own nature may be felt or seen." Modern editors take MELTED from
the next verse and add it to this, bringing up WOULD THEY HAD STAY'D, which is printed
as a separate verse in the Folio, to fill the measure of v. 82. This quite mars the graphic
rhythm in " Melted as breath," and the effect of astonishment produced by the incom-
plete verse following with its necessary pause after WINDE. Despite the fact that the
verse division of FO. I is not always to be trusted, the verses are probably correct as they
stand; but the reader may make the improvement for himself if his sense of rhythm will
justify it. SF 82 For MELT in the sense of 'fade away,' cp. "the boy . . was melted like
a vapour from her sight " Ven.& Ad. 1 1 66. SF 84 To EAT ON or U PON is a common EL. E.
idiom corresponding to MN.E. 'eat of,' 'taste of,' cp. N.E.D. 'eat' 3 c. INSANE in the
sense of 'making insane' seems to be a translation of insana in '■herba insana, the name
by which henbane was known in Shakspere's time. Douce, ' Illustrations,' I, p. 372, quotes
' Batman uppon Bartholome,' ed. 1582, XVII, 87: " Henbane is called Insana, mad, . . for
if it be eat or dronke it breedeth madnesse . . Therefore this hearb is called commonly
Mirilidium for it taketh away wit and reason"; cp. Holyoke's Latin Dictionary, 1677,
s.v. 'insanus' : "insana herba, henbane sic dicitur per metonomiam quia comedentes facit
insanas v : Coles, 1679, also has "insana herba, henbane." Shakspere may have been
thinking of the "roots of hemlock," cp. IV. 1.25, referred to in Greene's Never Too Late,
1590: "you have eaten of the roots of hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit unseen
objects" (cited by Steevens), and either borrowed the epithet from " herba insana 11 or
confounded henbane and
APT T QfpMp TTT o^ oo hemlock. Florio's gloss
AU [ [ SUC1NE, ill 86-88 " c i cu ta, henbane, kex and
hearbe bennet" shows clearly
MACBETH such a confusion, for cicuta
Your children shall be kinds. J s Latin for hemlock, for
° which "kex" and "herb-
BANQUO bennet" (herba benedicta)
You shall be king. are EL ' E - equivalents.
MACBETH SF 87 InrepeatingtheTHANE
And ' Thane of Cawdor/ too : went it not so ? o? cawdor Macbeth prob-
ably imitated the peculiar
BANQUO rhythm which marked the
Toth' selfe-same tune and words. Who 's witch ' s prophecy, and thus
1 . occasioned Banquo s remark
Here . which follows. The reference
ENTER ROSSE AND ANGUS in TUNE, v. 88, is to rhythm,
notto melody : oneof Webbe's
rules of poetry, 'A Discourse of English Poesie,' 1586, ed. Arber, p. 57, is that a "meeter
or verse . . be proportionable to the tune whereby it is to be measured." It is the prompt
fulfilment of the "Thane of Cawdor" part of the prophecy that is the key to Macbeth's
implicit belief in the supernatural power of the witches: cp. 1.3. 119, 122, 133- And
Shakspere keeps these words before our minds, not varying their order or stress rela-
tions, so that the title comes to have an ominous ring in the early part of the play. With
the same iterating insistence " Birnam wood" and " Dunsinane " are thrust upon the
attention later on, till they, too, come to have an ominous ring. *1F 88 Such EL.E. forms
as TOTH' have already been explained; this is one of the four-wave verses that are
frequent in Macbeth.
21
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 91 IN goes with READES
rather than with VENTURE,
and the phrase means 'infers
from," gathers from* ; cp."In
the modesty of fearefull duty
[i.e. a duty performed fear-
fully] I read as much as from
the rattling tongue" Mids. V.
101, and "read not my blem-
ishes in the world's report"
Ant.&Cl. II. 3. 5; cp. too,
lHen.4 IV. 1.49- This notion
of 'inference' was promi-
nently attached to the word in
M.E., continued through the
1 7th century (cp. e.g. Coles,
1679, "read, ghess, divino"),
and survives in some MN.E.
phrases like "read one's se-
cret." FIGHT was up to the
beginning of the 1 8th century
used to connote the action of
fighting, a sense of the word
preserved in 'valiant in fight,'
'to show fight.' Shakspere
calls Mars the god of fight
in Ven.&Ad. 1 14 (cp. N. E. D.
I), and Cooper, 'Thesaurus,'
glosses "aspera pugna sur-
git" by "sore fight begin-
neth." ' Fighting' seems to be
ACT I
SCENE III
89-103
ROSSE
The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,
The newes of thy successe: and when he
reades
Thy personall venture in the rebel's fight,
His wonders and his prayses doe contend
Which should be thine or his: silenc T d with
that,
In viewing o're the rest o f th'selfe-same day,
He findes thee in the stout Norweyan rankes,
Nothing afeard of what thy selfe didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as haile
Ran post with post, and every one did beare
Thy prayses in his kingdomes great defence,
And powr'd them downe before him.
ANGUS
Wee are sent
To give thee from our royall master thanks
Onely to harrold thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
the sense intended here, and
REBELS of FO. I is therefore singular, Rosse's meaning being: 'When he infers from the
rebel's fighting what your personal risk was,' etc. SF 93 THINE and HIS seem to be used*
here as objective genitives, and the sense to be ' contend which should take the form of praise
due to Macbeth's prowess and which should take the form of wonder affecting Duncan at
Macbeth's miraculous escape from danger.' A similar use of HIS occurs in "gazing in
a doubt Whether those peales of praise be his or no," Merch. III. 2. 146, and a similar
use of ' contend ' in " Death and Nature doe contend about them, Whether they live or dye "
II. 2. 7. Duncan is nonplussed by (the preposition WITH as often in EL. E. corresponds
to MN.E. 'by') this contention: cp. ' Phraseologia Generalis,' Cambridge, l68I,"he was
quite blank; silent; at a non plus: . . obstupuit. 11 *TF 95 STOUT means 'proud' as well
as 'bold' in EL. E. ; cp. "As stout and proud as he were lord of all" 2Hen.6 1. 1. 187. SF 96
NOTHING is adverbial, 'not at all,' and AFEARD OF is a common EL.E. synonym of
'frightened by.' SF 97 For the meaning of STRANGE IMAGES OF DEATH, i.e. 'unusual
types or forms of death,' cp. "images of revolt" Lear II. 4.91. Purchas in his ' Pilgrim-
age,' vol. V, describing the destruction of Jerusalem, says : " Everywheer the eye is enter-
tayned with differing spectacles of diversified Deaths" ; and Sidney, 'Arcadia' (Sommer's
repr., p. 268) makes use of the same notion in " So was the face therof [i.e. of the earth]
hidden with dead bodies to whome Death had come masked in diverse manners." THICK
AS HAILE: (misprinted in FO. I "Thick as Tale") is a common EL. comparison, cp.
' Phr. Gen.,' " as thick as hail, in modum grandinis" and Purchas, ' Pilgrimage,' V. 90 1 , " The
fowles flew over them as thicke as haile." SF98 RAN, likewise, is misprinted "Can"
B
22
(X
I
i^V
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
in FO. I. Many editors read "Came"; but 'run* is of common occurrence in connection
with POST, 'messenger/ and involves only one misprint, while "Came" involves three.
SF 102 ONELY TO is used, as the punctuation shows, in its EL. sense of 'merely in order
to' ; cp. "as fond fathers Having bound up the threatning twigs of birch Onely to stick it
in their children's sight For terror" Meas. 1.3.25. Misapprehending this sense, modern
editors alter the comma of the Folio after THANKS to a semicolon, which led Hudson
to conjecture that WEE ARE SENT should be "we are not sent." HARROLD is an EL.
form of MN.E. "herald," cp.
ACT I SCENE III
104— 1 17
ROSSE
And for an earnest of a greater honor,
He bad me, from him, call thee thane of
Cawdor: '^,
In which addition, haile, most worthy thane!
For it is thine.
BANQUO
What! can the devill speake true?
MACBETH
The Thane of Cawdor lives: why doe you
dresse me
In borrowed robes?
ANGUS
X,
Who was the thane lives yet,
!" But under heavie judgement beares that life
Which he deserves to loose. Whether he
was combin'd -
With those of Norway, or did lyne the rebell
With hidden helpe and vantage, or that with
both
He labour'd in his countreyeswracke, I know
not;
But treasons capitall, confess'd and prov'd,
Have overthrowne him.
MACBETH
ASIDE
and ' Thane of Cawdor ' !
Glamys,
The greatest is behinde.
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS
Thankes for your paines.
23
N.E.D. SFI05 FROM HIM
means 'by his authority,' cp.
" I do it . . from Lord Angelo
by speciall charge" Meas. I.
2. 123, not 'as a favor from
him,' as the MN.E. words sug-
gest. SF 106 ADDITION is
a regular EL. synonym for
'title,' cp. III. I. 100. SF 107
DEVILL is generally mono-
syllabic, ' deel,' in Shakspere,
cp. Schmidt's Shaks. Lexi-
con for instances. This,
wrongly supposed a dialect
form, is common in EL. liter-
ary English, and is no more
dialect than is our MN.E.
"ill" from "evill," "ivill."
*ff 109 WHO is M. E. and
EL. E. syntax corresponding
to MN.E. 'he who.' SF 110
BEARES seems here to be
used in its sense of ' possess,'
'maintain,' 'keep,' cp. "beare
a charmed life" V. 8. 12.
^III COMBIN'D carries
with it the meaning ' in league
with'; EL.E. "combination"
is a regular word for 'league,'
'alliance', N.E.D. 4 c. It is
best to treat the verse as one
of six waves, notwithstanding
that WHETHER is often a
monosyllable, "wher," in
EL.E., for "combined" is not
found in Shakspere. SFII2
LYNE is EL. E. for 'furnish,'
'support'; cp. "who lin'd
himselfe with hope" 2Hen.4
1.3-27. SF 113 VANTAGE is
EL.E. for 'opportunity,' 'ad-
vantage,' cp. I. 2. 31 ; THAT
inM.E.andearly New English
(e. N. E.) often serves, as here,
to repeat a connective ; cp. I.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
7. 4. Rosse and Angus know
only the fact of Cawdor's
treachery, and their ignorance
of its details, like Macbeth's
ignorance of the fact, vaguely
points to secret treachery on
Cawdor's part.
SF 119 GAVE . . TO is EL.E.
for 'declared that I was' ; cp.
Rom.&Jul. IV. 5. 116, "I will
give you the minstrell"; we
still use the idiom in "to give
the lie direct." The stress
seems to be on ME as con-
trasted with THEM : possibly
an elision was intended here as
""t'an,""t'whom,"
ACT I
SCENE III
I 18-127
in "t' our
cp. note on I. 6. 24. "t"' for
TO BANQUO
Doe you nothopeyour children shall be kings,
When those that gave the 'Thane of Caw-
dor' to me
Promis'd no lesse to them? — p»
BANQUO
That, trusted home,
Might yet enkindle you unto the crowne,
Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But r t is
strange :
And oftentimes, to winne us to our harme,
The instruments of darknesse tell us truths,
Winne us with honest trifles to betray ? s
In deepest consequence.
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS
Cousins, a word, I pray you.
'to' before infinitives begin-
ning with a consonant fre-
quently occurs in Ben Jon-
son, likewise "unt"' and
"int"' before following pro-
nouns. SF 120 NO LESSE,
i.e. 'nothing less than king-
ship.' The period instead of the interrogation-point after TH EM in FO. I seems to be a misprint.
It must be borne in mind that Macbeth and Banquo are jesting; cp. Holinshed, p. 170
( Stone's ed., p. 24), "this [the meeting with the witches] was reputed at the first but some
vaine fantasticall illusion by Mackbeth and Banquho, insomuch that Banquho would call
Mackbeth in jest King of Scotland; and Mackbeth againe would call him in sport like-
wise the father of manie kings." HOME is an EL. adverb meaning 'thoroughly,' 'en-
tirely,' cp. "revenged home" Lear III. 3. 13, "satisfie home" Cym. III. 5- 92, "know . .
home" All's W. V. 3- 3, and Cotgrave "a fonds de cuve, throughly, fully, largely, home."
<ff 121 ENKINDLE TO is EL. E. for 'incite to obtain,' cp. N.E.D. I b. SF 123 AND indicates
an ellipsis of "perhaps true, for." These witches are to Banquo's mind the agents of
Satan : Gifford, ' Dialogue,' Percy Soc, p. 36, says the devils "deale by such instruments"
as witches, and, p. 22, quotes S. Paul as calling the "divils" "the rulers of the dark-
nesse of this world" ; on p. 55 he writes "they make shew of doing good unto men only of a
most cruell and murtherous purpose, even to draw men deeper into the pit of hell with them."
(Thelatter citation is in Shaks. Soc. Trans.,'80-'85,pt. I, Proceedings for Feb. 9, 1 883, p. 63.)
*1F 1 25 TRI FLES in EL. E. still had its M. E. meaning of ' tricks,' cp. " some enchanted triffle
to abuse [MN.E. 'deceive'] me" Temp. V. 112 ; and this meaning, with HONEST in the sense
of 'seeming true,' as in "honest slanders" Ado III. 1.84, appears to be implied by Banquo.
Such contractions as BETRAY 'S are common in EL.E. *Ir 126 IN is EL.E. for 'into,'
cp. "draw in(to) consequence" N. E. D. 'consequence' I b. DEEPEST is EL.E. for MN.E.
'gravest,' and CONSEQUENCE has sharper reference to succession than now. So that
Banquo's words do not so much mean 'are faithful to us in matters of small importance
and betray us in matters of serious consequence,' but rather 'win our confidence in
order to seduce us into grave error.' Macbeth has affected by his jest to make light of a
prediction which at the same time promises kingship to himself and to Banquo's children:
Banquo's retort, though in jest, at once unmasks the affectation and parries its implication
that the prophecy means as much for him as it does for Macbeth — YOU has a slight
24
S"1
1
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
verse-stress: 'If you wanted to believe the prediction concerning the kingship this ap-
parent conflict in details would only serve as "yet" another confirmation of it "besides
the Thane of Cawdor."' He does not explain his words further, but their import lies in
the fact that Macbeth has no heir. In Holinshed Macbeth draws Banquo into his con-
spiracy ; but in Shakspere Banquo never even admits to Macbeth his community of interest
in the witches' prediction, though Shakspere hints that he was not unaffected by the words
of the weird sisters; cp. III. I. 6 and II. I. 20. Banquo's latter words, foreshadowing the
'deep consequence' of Macbeth's trust in the instruments of darkness, whether a dramatic
aside — and they may well be such, for asides are not indicated in the Folio — or a general
remark, the deep meaning of which Macbeth already absorbed in thoughts of his own
great future fails to catch, are the theme of the tragedy. Macbeth's "betrayal" has its
"final consequence" in a fact which is essentially tragic ; but its deeper tragedy lies in the
shattering of his whole man-
ACT I SCENE III
hood which attends the very
"first motion" of his "dread-
ful" purpose, a tragic conse-
quence which he now becomes
aware of. He unconsciously
thinks of the new and unreal
world in which he finds him-
self as a scene from a play.
IF 1 27 The significance of the
TWO lies in the fact that the
death of the Thane of Glamis
and the consequent succes-
sion of Macbeth to his father's
earldom were circumstances
which, for some reason or
other, the witches were not
likely to know of. Shakspere
leaves this to our imagination,
nor does Holinshed throw
any light upon the matter.
SF 128 HAPPY here practically
means 'felicitously written,'
cp. "happy verse" Timon I.
I. 16. PROLOGUES were
often prefixed to the several
acts of a play, as in Hen. 5.
SWELLING had in EL.E. the
connotation of ' proud,' ' mag-
nificent,' cp. Baret, 'Alvea-
rie/ " to begin to swell, to wax
proud and stately, s'en/7er," and " swelling scene " Hen.5, Prol. 4. *ff 129 IMPERI ALL illus-
trates a common EL. E. use of the adjective where MN. E. prefers the preposition and noun ;
the phrase is equivalent to 'theme of empire,' just as "generall use" in 1.2.62 corresponds
to MN.E. 'expenditures of state.' THEAME in EL.E. denotes the subject of an action as
well as the subject of a thought or discussion, cp. Cor. Ii.2.61. GENTLEMEN was often
dissyllabic in literary EL. E.and frequently printed "gent'men": 'gen'men,' heard among
cultivated people of the South and corrupted by the negroes to ' gemmen,' may be a descen-
dant of this EL. form. <1F 130 SOLLICITING is 'advocacy of my interests,' not 'temptation,'
as it is usually understood to mean ; cp. IV. 3- 149- SF 131 ILL seems to mean ' dangerous,'
25
127-138
MACBETH
ASIDE
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperiall theame.
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS
I thanke you, gentlemen.
LvXA* ASIDE
This supernaturall sollicking
Cannot be ill; cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of successe,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of
Cawdor:
If good, why doe I yeeld to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfixe my heire
And make my seated heart knock at my
ribbes ^ — . . __
Against the use of nature? Present feares
Are lesse then horrible imaginings:
S
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
'likely to turn out badly/ not 'wicked'; cp. "I told thee they [i.e. prawnes] were ill for
agreene wound" 2Hen.4 II. 1. 106 (N.E.D. 3). *ff 132 EARNEST is used in its now rather
unusual sense of 'pledge'; and SUCCESSE in EL.E. had more notion of sequence than it
now has. SF 1 33 I AM was probably intended for the contraction " I'm." SF 1 34 GOOD,
the opposite of ILL, means 'tending to well-being,' N.E.D. 7 b. Macbeth is not thinking
of the moral consequences of the "suggestion," but of the effect his yielding to it has on
his "state of man" ; as far as its relation to Macbeth's character goes, the deed is already
done. He is not struggling with temptation, as he seems to be when his words are read
as MN.E., but is becoming aware of a confusion of soul brought about by his willingness
to employ instruments of darkness whose watchword is "faire is foul and foul is faire."
He is yielding unresistantly ; his conflict with the powers of evil is over, if it ever took
place ; the mere perception of the fact that supernatural influencesare working in his favour
crystallizes his ambition so that no solvent of conscience or scruple, no "milk of human
kindness" can do other than trouble and muddy his peace of mind with realizations of
"consequence" which a sting of pride or pang of fear will straight drive back to kennel.
His 'moral reason,' if we may use the term, is dethroned.
This agitation of mind forebodes disaster: cp. "As heavines foretels some harme at
hand, So minds disturb'd presage ensuing ills" Bodenham, ' Belvedere,' ed. 1600, p. 160.
SUGGESTION in EL.E. also connotes 'temptation,' cp. "Suggestions are to other as to
me" L.L.L. 1. 1. 159- *lr 135 IMAGE expresses a realization of a situation by imagination
like MN.E. 'idea,'cp. "the image of it gives me content already" Meas. III. 1.270. UNFIXE
is of course merely 'to loosen,' and not a misprint for "upfix," cp. IV. 1.96 and Ham.
1.5- 18, a notion carried further in SF 136 SEATED [i.e. fixed]. Steevens quotes 'Para-
dise Lost' VI. 643: "From thir foundations loosning to and fro They pluckt the seated
hills." SF 137 AGAINST THE USE OF NATURE seems to mean, not that such symp-
toms of fear are unnatural, but that they are unusual to Macbeth : NATURE in EL.E. fre-
quently means 'character,' 'disposition,' cp. II. 4. 16, and USE commonly means 'custom,'
cp.I.3.I46. If THE has here the definite sense it has in 1.2.6 and is equivalent to a light
MN.E. 'my,' the expression is like that found in North's Plutarch, p. 107 1 : "Cassius . .
was full of thoughts [i.e. anxieties], although it was against his nature." FEARES is
EL.E. for ' objects of fear,' ' things to be feared,' cp. N. E. D. 5 d. PRESENT, i.e. ' present before
one,' such dangers as Macbeth has been used to confronting; Harrison, 'Description of
England,' ed. Furnivall, I. p. 13, writing of the excommunication of King John, speaks of the
then archbishop as "the present Archbishop of Canturburie," meaning the archbishop
who was present at the meeting between king and clergy at Lincoln. Macbeth's words
reveal a sense of changed character: he recognizes it by the presence of fear, which has
hitherto been a stranger to him, and of indecision, which is likewise unfamiliar ; he sees its
effects in a constraint of conduct as if he were already under suspicion, and in an inability
to determine essential relations as if he were already insane.
The passage that follows must be understood in terms of EL. psychology, by which
the ego, with its controlling powers of will, conscience, and right imagination making
for the good, is conceived as the head of a state, having the "mortal instruments"
of the body as its executive agents. The best comment on the passage is found in
Ca2s. II. I.63 ff., where Shakspere describes the effect of a murderous purpose on Brutus's
mind, saying that 'All the interval between the first conception of a dreadful purpose and
its execution is a "phantasma" or a hideous dream: the personality of the individual
("genius") and his bodily powers (the "mortal instruments") are then in secret sym-
pathy ("in councell"),' "and the state of man, Like to a little kingdome, suffers then The
nature of an [i.e. a kind of] insurrection"; i.e. will and conscience are deposed, and the
man is no longer master of himself and of his acts. It is a state of mind to which all is
nightmare, a hideous dream, which brings its subject to "thinke that which is nothynge is
somwhat, and fele that thyng which he feleth not and to se that thing which he seeth not."
26
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Such dreams are, according to Boorde's Dietary, E. E. T. S. selections, p. 79, the fore-
runner of "madnes named Mania," and a cause of them is "fantasticalnes, or collucion
or illusyons of the devyll." This awful nightmare of soul is the price of Macbeth's col-
lusion with the instruments of
ACT I SCENE III 139-144 J^bu.on ff&SES
■ » i ,i i i ip the minde" shall "lye in rest-
My thought, whose murther yet is but fan- i ess e extasie" till, spent with
tasticall, »*«» ne sh aU cry, "it is a tale
CL 1 • ^1 * * £ +U * Told by an ideot, full of sound
Shakes so my single state of man that and f U r y , Signifying nothing."
function
Is smother' d in surmise, and nothing is <ffI39 In EL - E ' ^ e wo / d
R , ' 6 THOUGHT covered a far
DUt What IS not. wider range of association
BANOUO than it does in MN.E., and in-
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS fj^l 'P ur P°se,' 'design/
'hope, 'expectation : here the
Looke how Our partner ? S rapt. purpose notion seems upper-
most, Macbeth's ambition of
MACBETH kingship now doubly strong
from the trust he has in the
witches' prediction. The word
If chance will have me king, why, chance is used in the sense of 'ambi-
may crowne me, tion ' ^ Jonm's Sejanus
, v , . J 1 V. 1.34: "I did not live till
Without my Stirre. now; this [z.e.thisis] myfirst
hower, Wherein I see my
thoughts reach'd by my power." The murderous aspects of this THOUGHT are as yet only
FANTASTIC ALL, i.e. 'imaginary' (cp. 1.3. 53) r but they shake Macbeth's hitherto SINGLE,
i.e. 'simple,' 'united,' 'harmonious,' STATE OF MAN into mutiny and insurrection. SF 140
The notion of the soul of man being a kingdom is not an uncommon one in EL.E. Jonson,
in 'Every Man in his Humour' II. 3, ed. 1640, p. 20, makes use of a similar figure:
"Is 't like [i.e. likely] that factious beauty will preserve
The publicke weale of Chastitie unshaken,
When such strong motives [i.e. impulses, " thoughts "] muster and make head
Against her single peace?"
(It is interesting to note that "Will. Shakspeare" was the first of the " Principall Come-
dians" in this play when it was acted in 1598, and probably played the role of Kitely, the
actor who speaks these words.) Cp. also Lear III. 1. 10 and 2Hen.4 IV. 3. 1 18. The same
psychology occurs in John IV. 2.245 :
"Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,
This kingdome, this confine of blood and breathe,
Hostilitie, and civill tumult reignes
Between my conscience and my cosin's death."
EL.E. FUNCTION is defined in N.E. D. as 'activity of intellectual powers' ; the word seems
here to refer to such normal activity as is revealed in outward conduct, gesture ; cp. " his
whole function suiting With formes to [i.e. according to] his conceit" Ham. II. 2. 582.
SF 141 To SURMISE in EL.E. is 'to accuse,' 'to bring forward a charge,' cp. Baret's Al-
27
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
vearie, "to surmise, or devise a forged crime" ; here, and in the phrase "such exufflicate
and blow'd surmises" Oth.III.3- 182, the noun also seems to have this connotation of
'accusation.' Macbeth's self-accusation renders him powerless to control his conduct.
Unlike Iago, who boasts " I am not what I am," whose very element is duplicity and un-
reality, Macbeth, man of action and realities as he is, is appalled by his situation : " nothing
is but what is not." SF 142 Banquo's remark and his explanation call attention to Mac-
beth's RAPT state. PARTNER, as has already been pointed out, merely means 'com-
panion' in EL.E. SF 144 STIRRE is EL.E. for 'action,' 'activity,' cp. "you shall know
.. of stirres abroad "Ant. &C1.
ACT I
SCENE III
144-152
1.4.82. Macbeth's decision
to let chance run its course
is continued in vv. 146, 147.
^ 144 COME seems to be the
verb, not the participle, and
the construction one of those
EL. and kolvov idioms through
which a single verb is made to
do duty for two subjects —
' New honors come upon him
asdo our newgarments, which
assume their proper shape
onlywith thewearing.' LIKE
as an adverb is common in
EL.E. SFI45 STRANGEhas
its EL. sense of 'new,' 'un-
familiar.' SF 147 Macbeth's
proverbial philosophy con-
tinues the thought of v. 143
and means that the most
unpromising day has its op-
portunity, not Cotgrave's" the
longest day will have a dawn-
ing," i.e. come to an end. As
Fate is on his side, he will
await Fate's opportunity, not
seek to forestall it. The prov-
erb has not yet been found
in the form which Macbeth
uses, but there can be little
doubt as to its meaning:
TIME and HOURE are con-
stantly used in EL.E. in the
sense of 'fitting time' and
'appointed hour'; cp. "Wee see which way the streame of Time doth runne, And are
enforc'd from our most quiet there, by the rough torrent of occasion" 2Hen.4 IV. 1.70 ff.
The singular verb with plural subject is an idiom found in almost every EL. writer. To
our strict classic notions of congruence it seems ungrammatical, but it is far too frequent
in the best writers of the 1 6th century to allow us to suppose that it gave offence to a 1 6th
century audience. SF 148 WEE STAY UPON YOUR LEYSURE is a conventional phrase
meaning 'we wait for you,' cp. N.E. D. 'leisure' 3 c. SF 149 Macbeth's answer is also
conventional and is tantamount to 'Pardon my absent-mindedness'; cp. "Pray give me
favour, sir" Hen.8 1. 1. 168. The division of the following verses, 149-156, in the Folio is
28
BANQUO
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS
New honors come upon him
Like our strange garments cleave not to
their mould
But with the aid of use.
MACBETH
ASIDE
Come what come may,
Time and the houre runs through the rough-
est day.
BANQUO
Worthy Macbeth, wee stay upon yourleysure.
MACBETH
Give me your favour: my dull braine was
wrought
With things forgotten.
TO ROSSE AND ANGUS
Kinde gentlemen, your paines
Are registred where every day I turne
The leafe to reade them. Let us toward
the king.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Give . . favour, My . . forgotten, Kinde . . registred, Where . . leafe, To . . them,
Let . . upon, What . . time, The . . speake. EL. WROUGHT, the preterite of " work,"
means 'anxiously occupied with'; cp. "thy heart's workings" Sonn. XCIII, 1 1, and " I
am sicke with working of my thoughts" lHen.6 V.5.86. In SF 150 we have the extra syl-
lable before the caesura as in 1.3.72. Macbeth's words already smack of sovereignty
as he tells Rosse and Angus that their services are noted down in the 'tablets of his mem-
ory.' SF 152 Such omissions of the verb are common in M.E. and EL. E. and still occur
in MN.E. poetry. TOWARD
ACT I SCENE III 153-156 ismon osyllabic; intervocalic
J -* ' w in such words, including
TO BANQUO EL?^" " ^ ^ ^
Thinke upon what hath chanc'd, and at more
time, 1FI53 at more time is
The interim having weidh'd it, let us speake \?£t better T° n ™»ti ° P '
o o » r " At our more ley sure Meas.
Our free hearts each to Other. L3.49, and "at more leasure
you shall understand of me"
BANQUO Sidney, ' Arcadia,' p. 60, illus-
, T _fi 11 trating a very common M.E.
Very gladly. a nd EL.E. use of "more" in
MACBETH the sense of 'greater,' 'bet-
Till then, enough. Come, friends. ^E^^l.obe.h!^
EXEUNT ject of HAVING WEIGH'D,
' lapse of time having enabled
us to see the matter in its true light.' It is italicized in the Folio because a foreign word
in Shakspere's time, cp. "all the Interim is" Cass. II. 1.64. There is no adverbial phrase
"the interim" in N.E. D. : when the notion is adverbial "the" is omitted. SF 155 FREE
HEARTS is EL.E. for 'frank, unrestrained thoughts,' cp. "speake his very heart" Wint.T.
IV.4.575,and "give me leave To have free speech with you" Meas. 1. 1.78. But Macbeth
and Banquo never speak "their free hearts each to other": their conversation about
their meeting with the witches is from first to last equivocal. Even here Macbeth uses a
word for 'frank' that also means 'innocent.' Banquo does "thinke upon what hath chanc'd,"
and deeply too : but to talk freely about it is impossible ; see the opening verses of Act III.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE IV
Like so many of Shakspere's scenes, this one begins with the end of an action. Cawdor's
execution, like his treason, is kept in the background, for it is the effect which flows
from it and not the fact itself which is of interest to the play. It furnishes a linking
association, too, between the scenes in the fact that Cawdor's discovered treachery is
of little consequence to Duncan compared with the intended treachery of Macbeth.
Steevens thought that Shakspere, in describing the execution of Cawdor, had in mind
Essex's behaviour on the scaffold in 1 601 : this may well be, though such scenes were
not uncommon in the London of Shakspere's day. The motive for the immediate
execution of the murder which Scene IV leads up to is contained in 48 ff. Macbeth has
been the natural heir to the crown after Duncan. Duncan's making of his son Prince of
Cumberland is tantamount to settling the succession on him, a consequence which
Macbeth's victory brings about. This act of Duncan's brings Macbeth's ambition to a
head and makes it impossible for chance to crown him king without his stir.
29
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE IV: THE PALACE
ENTER KING
DONALBAINE LENOX
AT FORRES: FLOURISH
MALCOLME
AND ATTENDANTS
I — 14
KING
S execution done on Cawdor; or
not
Those in commission yet re-
turn'd?
MALCOLME
My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have
spoke
With one that saw him die, who did report
That very frankly hee confessed his treasons,
Implor'd your highnesse pardon and set forth
A deepe repentance: nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; hee dy'de
As one that had beene studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As ? t were a carelesse trifle.
KING
There r s no art
To finde the mindes construction in the face :
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
<lr I The Folio verse division,
Is . . Cawdor, Or . . return'd,
My . . back, But . . die, Who
. . hee, Confessed . . pardon,
And . . repentance, Nothing
. . him, Like . . dy'de, is un-
doubtedly incorrect. But it is a
question whether OR is a mis-
print for "are"; such omis-
sions of the verb where it can
be supplied from the context
are frequently found in M.E.
and e. N.E., and the king's
question seems to be a double
one: cp. "And I, my Lord,
am Mandricard of Mexico,
Whose climate fairer than
Iberia's" Greene, 'Orl. Fur.'
60, where the modern editor
also assumes a misprint: the
words are therefore printed
as in the Folio, despite Dyce's
"school-girl," who would be
the person most likely to u per-
ceive that or is a misprint for
are. 11 SF 2 IN COMMISSION
is a legal expression meaning
' authorized to hold trial ' j cp.
"itismyCosin Silenceincom-
mission with mee" 2Hen.4
III. 2. 97. SF3 Perfect par-
ticiples had two forms in M.E. according as the O. E. final n was lost or retained, and
many of these double forms survived in EL.E. MN.E. usually prefers the form with-
out the -n, but in such words as * grown,' 'shown,' 'spoken,' 'taken' the -n has been re-
tained: so that Shakspere's SPOKE, which is good EL.E., appears to us ungrammatical.
*1F6 Words, like HIGHNESSE, ending in -es had no possessive case in M.E. In e. N.E.
they sometimes, especially in the case of proper nouns, make the genitive with "his," but
are often uninfected as here ; the apostrophe after the s is a modern device. SET FORTH
is in EL.E. 'to declare publicly,' a meaning still occasionally met with in MN.E. *IF 7 EL.
DEEPE, with words of emotion indicating intensity of feeling, has a somewhat wider ap-
plication than in MN. E., cp. N. E. D. 8 b ; though no instances are there cited for EL. E., this
one seems sufficiently clear. A "deep sense of sin" would be entirely consonant with
MN.E. idiom, but hardly a "deep repentance." SF 9 STUDIED, 'trained,' 'practised,' is
in EL. E. used of persons as well as of manner; cp. North's Plutarch, 1 593r P- 759r
"besides that rare gift [i.e. of speaking well] he [Ceesar] was excellently well studied, so
that doubtlesse he was counted the second man for eloquence in his time." SF 10 OWE
30\
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
has here the meaning of ' possess,' cp. 1.3. 76. SF 1 1 AS in M. E. and e. N. E. is often equiv-
alent to MN.E. 'as if and is followed by the subjunctive mood. CARELESSE is EL.E. for
'uncared for/ cp. "their careless harmes" Spenser, 4 Faerie Queene' IV. 4. 38 (N.E.D. 4 a).
ART TO FINDE is a M.E. and e. N.E. idiom whose MN.E. form would be 'art of finding.'
*1FI2 CONSTRUCTION is
ACT I
SCENE IV
14-27
'interpretation,' cp. "O ille-
gitimate construction ! " Ado
III. 4. 50. *1F 14 ABSOLUTE
was often clipped in EL. E. to
"abs'lute," cp. " I speake not
as in absolute feare of you"
IV. 3- 38. Duncan's remark
about Cawdor,followedbythe
immediate entrance of Mac-
beth, has a peculiar pathos.
SF 1 6 contains the extra syl-
lable before the caesura with
a reversal after it. *# 17 In
EL. E. the article is often omit-
ted before the superlative de-
gree : a similar instance oc-
curs in III. 3. 21, "We havelost
beste halfe of our affaire" ; cp.
"in servilst place" Drayton,
' Leg. of Duke of N .,' Sp. Soc,
II. 419- WING is EL.E. for
'flight' and is not a metony-
my as it seems to be in MN.E. ;
cp. "they stoupe with the
like wing" Hen.5 IV. 1. 1 12;
a similar notion occurs in
Wint.T. V. 2.62, "which lames
reportto follow it." SF ^PRO-
PORTION is 'portion,' 'allot-
ment ' in EL. E.,cp. "her prom-
is'd proportions Came short
of composition" Meas. V. I.'
219 ; it seems here to be used
in an active sense and mean
'proper apportioning.' ^20 MINE here means 'in my power,' cp. "let that be mine,"
i.e. 'a thing for me to attend to,' Meas. II. 2. 12. ONELY and other EL. adverbs had not
that fixity of position which they have in MN.E.; cp. "onely I say," i.e. 'I only say,' III.
6.2, and "onely in the world I fil up a place" A.Y.L. 1.2.204. Duncan means 'it is only
left for me to say.' *1F22 OWE has both meanings here (cp. note on 1.4. 10) : 'the service
I owe you and the loyaltie I feel,' for Macbeth would hardly represent his loyalty as an
obligation ; but the two notions are as one, and in the latter part of the sentence are repre-
sented by IT SELFE : ' in what I have done the pleasure of service and the honour of loyalty
reward themselves.' Macbeth's heart is not "free" and both words and rhythm reflect his
embarrassment. His thought, however, is the same as is contained in the king's words to
Wolsey, Hen.8III.2. 179 ff-> " Fairely answer'd: A loyall and obedient subject is Therein
illustrated, the honor of it Does pay the act of it," i.e. the honour of loyalty rewards the act
of obedience. ^24 DUTIES is used in both senses, 'marks of respect due to a superior'
31
ENTER MACBETH BANQUO ROSSE AND ANGUS
O worthyest cousin,
The sinne of my ingratitude even now
Was heavie on me. Thou art so farre before,
That swiftest wing of recompence is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst lesse
deserv'd,
That the proportion both of thanks and pay-
ment
Might have beene mine! onely I have left to
say,
More is thy due then more then all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyaltie I owe,
In doing it, payes it selfe. Your highnesse
part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties
Are to your throne and state children and
servants ;
Which doe but what they should, by doing
every thing
Safe toward your love and honor.
' !
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
and 'obligation/ especially that of loyalty. *IF 25 ff. The one is personal (THRONE) and in-
volves obedience (CHILDREN), the other is official (STATE) and involves loyalty (SER-
VANTS): the throne's reward of the one duty is (v. 27) LOVE, the state's reward of the
other is HONOR: as obedient children subjects are 'sure' of the one, as loyal servants
they are 'secure' as to the other. Macbeth may also mean that this loving and willing
service makes those who tender it SAFE, i.e. 'beyond the power of doing harm,' cp. 1 1 1. 4. 25
and Baret, 'Alvearie,' "I have kept my mind safe from committing anie evill or mischief."
That 'compelled services are dangerous' was a current aphorism in Shakspere's time.
'"Tis a studied not a present thought, By duty ruminated." The words SAFE, etc., have
given great difficulty to Shakspere editors : but to 'do a thing safe' is not English idiom, cp.
N. E. D. ' do ' ; " safe " as the EL. adverb for ' safely ' does not make sense ; and ' safe to ward '
spoils the metre besides causing an awkward inversion. The words refer, not to 'doing,'
but to "children and servants." The text is here printed as in FO. I except that its line
division, In . . selfe, Your . . duties, And . . state, Children . . should, By . . love, And . .
honor, is altered to make perfect verses.
^29 GROWING, 'fruitage,' cp
cing in power,' cp. " Men grow
vours" Jonson, 'Sejanus'
V. 10, and "Had he done so
to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to beare,
and he to taste Their fruites of
dutie" Rich.2 III. 4.61. SF 30
NOR .. KNOWNENOLESSE,
i.e. 'and . . no lesse acknow-
ledged,' with the common EL.
double-negative construction
and NO LESSE in the sense
of 'as much.' *ff32 Banquo
plays upon the word GROW,
thinking of it in the sense
of 'becoming fixed,' 'attached
to.' Milton puns on the word
in 'Par. Lost' XII. 351 :
"grown In wealth and multi-
tude, factious they grow."
SF 33 YOUROWNE, 'to your
advantage, not mine.' *ff 34
WANTON has here the sense
of 'capricious,' and IN FUL-
NESSE means 'by reason of
satiety/ cp. N. E. D. 4. SF 35
DROPS was more frequently
used in EL. E. for ' tears ' than
now ; cp. " drops of modestie "
Merch. II. 2. 195, "these fool-
ish drops" ibid. II. 3. 13, and
"sorrowfull drops" Titus V.
3. 154. The missing un-
stressed verse impulse marks
the pause between the two
thoughts. $37 ff.: The plural
,N.E. D.2 b; the word was also used in EL. E. of 'advan-
not in the state, but as they are planted Warme in his fa-
ACT I
SCENE IV
KING
27-40
Welcome hither:
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
That hast no lesse deserv'd, nor must be
knowne
No lesse to have done so: let me enfold thee
And hold thee to my heart.
BANQUO
There if I grow,
The harvest is your owne.
KING
My plenteous joyes,
Wanton in fulnesse, seeke to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow. Sonnes, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know,
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolme, whom we name here-
after
The Prince of Cumberland: which honor
must
Not unaccompanied invest him onely,
32
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT I
SCENE IV
41-53
But signes of noblenesse, like starres, shall
shine
On all deservers.
TO MACBETH
From hence to Envernes,
And binde us further to you.
MACBETH
The rest is labor, which is not us'd for you:
I 'le be my selfe the herbengjer, and make
joyfull
The hearing of my wife with your approach ;
So humbly take my leave.
KING
My worthy Cawdor!
MACBETH
ASIDE
The Prince of Cumberland ! that is a step
On which I must fall downe, or else o're-
leape,
For in my way it lyes. Starres, hide your
fires,
Let not lisjht see my black and deepe desires :
The eye winke at the hand; yet let that bee,
Which the eye feares,when it is done, to see.
EXIT
of majesty is usually used in
M. E. ande. N. E. when princes
speak. 'To establish the es-
tate upon' is EL. legal phrase-
ology for fixing the succes-
sion, cp. ' Phr. Gen.,' "an
estate, or right, and title, jus,
autoritas." The title PRINCE
OF CUMBERLAND was the
official style of the Scottish
heir apparent, corresponding
to 'Prince of Wales' in the
English succession. Holins-
hed says, "shortlie after [the
weird sisters episode] Dun-
cane . . made the elder of them,
called Malcolme, prince of
Cumberland as it were there-
by to appoint him his succes-
sor in the kingdome, immedi-
ately after his deceasse" ; the
prince was still underage, ac-
cording to Holinshed, and but
for this appointment by the
will of the sovereign Macbeth
was the next heir to the crown
until Malcolm came of age ;
hence his aside in vv.48ff.,and
Malcolm's "This murtherous
shaft that's shot Hath not yet
lighted" in II. 3- 147.
SF4I SIGNESinEL.E. means
'markes of distinction,' cp.
"leaving me no signe . . To
shew the world I am a gentle-
man " Rich. 2 III. 1. 25 ; there is
also a graceful reference in the
word to the constellations of
the heavens. SF 42 ENVERNES, the Folio spelling of MN.E. 'Inverness/ follows Holins-
hed. Modern Scotch place-names in "Inver-" were in Middle Scotch "Enver-," or
"Enner-," cp. Bruce, ed. Skeat, XVI. 549, IX. 34, etc. ; these earlier forms doubtless
remained in the spelling of the 1 6th century; e.g. "Innerness" occurs in Drummond's
History of Scotland, 1655, p. 65- IF 44 REST is used in its EL. sense of 'ease,' 'idle-
ness'; cp. "My rest and negligence befriends thee now" Tro.&Cr.V. 6. 17. *ff45 A HER-
BENGER was a royal messenger sent to purvey lodgings for the king and his suite, N. E. D. 2.
The late M.E (1. M.E.) form of this word, "harbeger," "harbiger," developed an n before
the g in e. N.E., like "messager," "messenger." But the form without n was still in
use in the 1 6th century, and this would be subject to the EL. syncopation and become
HAR^'GER; Shakspere probably intended this dissyllabic form here,as Middleton evidently
does in his 'Virgin Martyr,' 1622, 1. 1.6: "The harbinger to prepare their entertainment."
SF48 STEP in EL. E. means both 'round of a ladder' (cp. its gloss "climacter" in ' Phr.
Gen.') and 'promotion.' The same play of meaning is found in Hen. 8 1 1. 4. 1 12 : "You have
33
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
by fortune and his Highnesse favors, Gone slightly o're lowe steppes, and now are
mounted," etc. *ff 49 As the vowel of LEAPE was still long e in EL. E., not i as now, the
word rhymed with "step," cp. note on 1. 1.6. *ff 50 EL. STARRES included the sun and
moon as well as the stars and planets. *lr 52 WINKE in EL. E. was used to connote more
than a momentary closing of
!«ni e r y u\ cp, , Sonn ' LVI ' 6 ' ACT I SCENE IV 54-58
"fill Thy hungne eies, even ^ww^iw *» ^-r ^^
till they winck withfulnesse,"
and "good boy, winke at me, KING
Timon III. 1 . 47. The verb is
imperative
<ff54 As oi
the imagination must supply
and say thou saw'stmee not" True, worthy Banquo, he is full so valiant;
And in his commendations I am fed;
It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
IF 54 As often in Shakspere, Whose care is done before to bid us welcome :
the imagination must supply T . ° .
the preceding conversation: It is a peerelesse kinsman.
Banquo has been praising
Macbeth's jrowess and Dun- FLOURISH: EXEUNT
can agrees: 'he is quite as
brave as you say he is.' SF55 The HIS is, of course, objective genitive, 'with commen-
dations of him.' A similar notion occurs in "cram's with prayse and make's as fat as
tame things" Wint.T. 1. 2.91. SF57 CARE is 'loving regard,' cp. "The reverent care I
beareunto my lord" 2Hen.6 III. 1.34. *ff58 IT IS in M.E. and EL. E. is frequently used for
'he is' to express affection; cp. Marston, "'Tis a good boy" 'Antonio and Mellida,'
III. 1. 105.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE V
Lady Macbeth's influence over her husband, the details of her plan to murder Duncan,
and her part in carrying it out, do not belong to the story of Duncan's murder as told by
Holinshed, who merely says: "but speciallie his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the
thing, as she that Was verie ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to beare the name
of queene," p. 171. But on pp. 150 ff. is the story of the murder of King Duff, one of
Duncan's predecessors: how King Duff hanged Donwald's kinsmen; how Donwald's
wife, perceiving the manifest tokens of his grief, "ceased not to travell with him till she
understood" its cause ; how she "bare no lesse malice toward the king" and "counselled
him to make him awaie" ; how "Donwald being the more kindled in wrath by the words
of his wife determined to follow her advice." The scene opens abruptly. Lady Macbeth
is reading the latter part of Macbeth's letter as she enters. Davenant thought the opening
too abrupt, and prefixed an introductory dialogue between Lady Macbeth and Lady Mac-
duff about their absent husbands. But there can be little doubt that Davenant quite mis-
construed the scene. It is one of Shakspere's characteristics to plunge in medias res,
leaving the imagination to supply the preceding action. We are led to suppose that let-
ters were written by Macbeth in the interval between Scenes III and IV; we are made to
infer, too, from Lady Macbeth's intimate knowledge of her husband's character that she
was 'partner' in his counsels, and in her "chastise with the valour of my tongue" we read
as clearly as words can say it the secret of her influence over him. It is just such touches
as these that distinguish Shakspere's plays from those of his Elizabethan contemporaries ;
and it is this trick of his, by which he makes the mere turn of a phrase do the work of
categoric statement or of extended dialogue and action, that gives his plays their remark-
able literary interest.
34
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE V: INVERNESS: MACBETH'S CASTLE: ENTER
MACBETH'S WIFE ALONE WITH A LETTER
I — 1 5
<IFl IN THE DAY OF SUC-
CESSE means 'on the day
of victory': IN is frequently
used in EL. E. where MN.E.
requires 'on,' cp. "that our
armies joyn not in a hot day"
2Hen.4,I.2.234, and "in the
day of battell" Rich.3 IV.
4. 188. *ff3 PERFECT'ST,
'most accurate/ cp. "a per-
fect guesse"2Hen.4 III. 1.88.
REPORT may be a reference
to inquiries that Macbeth has
instituted; but if THE is
equivalent to 'their/ and RE-
PORT has its common EL.
meaning, 'a statement of
facts/ the superlative might
have its EL. absolute signifi-
cation and the whole phrase
mean 'their very accurate
statements' ; cp. "observe his
reports for me/' i.e. 'what he
says' (but Parroles is speak-
ing), All's W. II. 1.46, and
"Sonne to the Queene after
his owne report," i.e. 'ac-
cording to his own statement' Cym. IV. 2. 119; cp., too, Cooper, "nuntiatio, a report, a
shewing or declaring." The superlative ending was affixed to polysyllabic words in
M.E. and e.N.E., and EL. superlatives were commonly contracted as here: e.g. "fertilst
soyle" Drayton, 'Harmony of Church/ Per. Soc, p. 8 ; "welcomst" Jonson, 'Silent
Woman/ I640,p.462. <1F6 WHILES is an EL. form of 'while.' RAPT IN is 'carried
away by/ cp. 1.3. 142. *f7 MISSIVES, 'messengers/ cp. "did gibe my misive out
of audience" Ant.&Cl. II. 2. 74. ALL-HAILE, cp. Cotgrave, "saluer, to salute, greet, all-
haile," and Florio, "salutare, to salute, to greet, to al-haile" (latter quotation in CI. Pr.).
*l9 The notion in REFERR'D seems to be that of appealing his claim to higher power:
cp. Kersey, Diet., 1708, "refer, to leave to ones judgment or determination" ; and COM-
MING ON looks as if it related to the advent of a judge, a meaning which the phrase
seems to have in Hen. 5 1.2.289, "But this lyes all within the wil of God, To whom 1 do
appeale, and in whose name, Tel you the Dolphin, I am comming on, To venge me as I
may." But as this meaning is not supported by N.E. D. we shall have to take COM-
MING ON in its sense of 'maturing' — 'to the fulness of time.' *ff 12 DELIVER, 'tell/
'communicate/ cp. "her verie words Didst thou deliver to me" Err. II. 2. 166. *ffI3
LOOSE is an EL. spelling for 'lose/ cp. "loosing his verdure" Two Gent. 1. 1.49, and
"This deceit looses the name of craft" Merry W. V. 5-239- ('Loose' and 'lose' were
identical in M.E. ; MN.E. 'loose' with the voiceless s is due to the influence of the adjec-
tive.) THE DUES is 'thy dues/ i.e. 'thy rightful share in the joy of my success.' The
spirit of Macbeth's letter bespeaks an intimate relation between him and his wife, of
35
LADY MACBETH READING
HEY met me in the day of suc-
cesse; and I have learn'd by the
perfect'st report, they have more
in them then mortall knowledge.
When I burnt in desire to ques-
tion them further, they made themselves ayre,
into which they vanished. Whiles I stood
rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from
the king, who all-hail'd me 'Thane of Caw-
dor'; by which title, before, these weyward
sisters saluted me and referr'd me to the com-
ming on of time, with ' Haile, king that shalt
be!' This have I thought good to deliver
thee, my dearest partner of greatnesse, that
thou might'st not loose the dues of rejoycing
by being ignorant of what greatnesse is prom-
is'd thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell."
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
which Shakspere gives us
glimpses all through the early
part of the play. SF 17 FEARE
in EL. E. means 'to fear for,'
'be concerned about/ cp.
Ham. IV. 5- 122, where the
king says, " Do not feare our
person : There 's such di-
vinity doth hedge a king,"
etc. NATURE has here its
usual EL. meaning of 'char-
acter,' cp. I. 3- 137. SF 18
O'TH', cp. note to 1. 3- 7. HU-
MANE is EL. spelling for
'human'; 'human' and 'hu-
mane' is a stress-distinction
laterthan Shakspere. Theex-
pressions "milke of humane
kindnesse" and" sweet milke
of concord" IV. 3-98 were in
EL. E. striking metaphors, the
first of which has become
familiar idiom. Goneril ac-
cuses Albany of "milky gen-
tlenesse" and "harmefull
mildnesse"in Lear I.4.364ff.
(cited by CI. Pr.). SF 19 TO
CATCH THE NEEREST WAY
is 'to see the shortest road to
the fulfilment of your ambi-
tion,' cp. "He conceiveth
(catcheth) all things, who
desireth to do it" Come-
nius, 'Janua Linguarum' 12.
WOULD'ST here and in
v. 21 preserves the original
independent meaning of the
auxiliary,'desirest.' SF 2 1 ILL-
NESSE is EL.E for 'unscru-
pulousness,' cp. N.E. D. I.
ACT I
SCENE V
I6-31
Glamys thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis'd: yet doe I feare thy
nature;
It is too full o'th' milke of humane kindnesse
To catch the neerest way. Thou would'st
be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illnesse should attend it. What thou
would'st highly,
That would'st thou holily : would'st not play
false,
And yet would'st wrongly winne. Thould'st
have, great Glamys,
That which cryes "Thus thou must doe" if
thou have it,
And that which rather thou do'st feare to doe
Then wishest should be undone. High thee
hither,
That I may powre my spirits in thine eare r
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impeides thee from the golden round
Which fate and metaphysicall ayde doth
seeme
To have thee crown'd withall.
ENTER MESSENGER
What is your tidings?
EL. HIGH denotes earnest-
ness of any feeling, cp. "A high hope for a low heaven" L. L.L.I. 1. 196 and MN.E. "high
hopes." Here HIGHLY seems to refer to the intensity of Macbeth's ambition, cp.N.E.D. 5-
SF22 HOLILY frequently occurs in EL.E. with the meaning 'in a scrupulous way,' cp.
N. E. D. 2. Vv. 22-24 have occasioned great difficulty to Shakspere editors. There are no
quotation-marks in the Folio and the verse division is Thould'st . . cryes, Thus . . it, And . .
doe. Noneof the emendations and explanations clears awaythe difficulty, which seemsto lie
in an EL. and koivov construction by which CRYES is first used in its sense of 'exclaim-
ing' and is then understood in its other EL. sense of 'demanding' with a direct object
after it. This latter sense we have in Oth. 1.3-277, "Th' affaire cries hast." Such syn-
tax is found also in Merch. 1 1. 4. 30, " she hath directed How I shall take her from her Father's
house, {^sc. directed in the sense of 'communicated,' N.E. D. 2 b] What gold and jewels
she is furnisht with, What pages suite she hath in readinesse," and in Pericles, Prol.,
36
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
"to keep [i.e. retain] her still and [sc. keep in the sense of 'hold'] men in awe." The
meaning, then, is 'Thould'st have, great Glamis, that which cries "Thus must thou do,"
etc., . . and requires that which thou,' etc. SF 26 TO BE UNDONE means 'not to be
done,' cp. "un-provokes," 'fails to provoke,' II. 3. 32; this is a frequent signification of
the prefix in EL. E. HIGH is not a misprint for "hie," 'to hasten,' due to confusion of the
verb with the adjective, but a regular EL. E. spelling of the word; cp. M.E. "highen."
Lady Macbeth's shrewd and clear-cut analysis of her husband's character has already been
foreshadowed in Macbeth's own words, 1.4.52, "let that bee which the eye feares, when it
is done, to see." His weakness comes to the fore again in 1.7. 1 6 ff., and follows him
like a Nemesis all through the play, lashing him with whips of steel. She sums it up in the
words "humane kindnesse" — a strain of sentimentality, a touch of human sympathy that
makes him kin with his victim. Like many a brave man, he is both superstitious and
sentimental. He can shed blood relentlessly in the heat of battle and action, but cold-
blooded murder he balks at. Without her instigation he never would have 'screwed his
courage to the sticking-point.' *ff 27 SPIRITS, 'vigor," energy,' cp. "Faire daughter you
doe draw my spirits from me, With new lamenting ancient over-sights" 2Hen. 4 II. 3-46.
*1F 28 CHASTISE is stressed on the first syllable in EL. E., cp. note on the word in N. E. D.
It has also the connotation of putting down rebellion, N.E.D.3b. ^29 IMPEIDES
seems to be a spelling of "impede" based on the analogy of "receive," etc.; so "theis,"
"feitures," "retreit," etc., occur frequently in EL. E. ROUND is one of the words for
'circle' in M.E. and e.N.E. ;
ACT I
SCENE V
32-39
Shakspere frequently uses it
for ' crown ' ; cp. IV. 1 . 88 and
"With rounds of waxen tapers
on their heads" Merry W.
IV. 4. 50, and Coles, "a
round, orbis." SF 30 META-
PHYSICALL is EL. E. for ' su-
pernatural,' cp. Cotgrave,
"supernaturel, supernaturall,
metaphisicall, above nature."
DOTH SEEME TO is EL.E.
for 'is about to,' cp. 1. 2. 27 and
note. ^31 WITHALL,'with,'
cp. note to 1.3-57. EL. TID-
INGS, like MN. "news," is
often singular.
SF 32THOU 'RTMADTO SAY
IT : cp. " I shall be hated to
report it" Wint. T. III. 2. 144.
SF34 INFORM'D is EL.E. for
'given directions,' cp. N.E. D.
4 c. In PREPARATION the
suffix -tion is dissyllabic, cp.
1.2. 18, and the verse is there-
fore quite normal. SF36HAD
THE SPEED OF: a similar
phrase is found in "the slow
outstrippeth (gets the start of) the swift" Comenius, 'Janua' 809- In both of these
idioms the preposition retains some of its M.E. connotation 'away from.' SF37 WHO is
the connective relative, 'and almost dead for breath, he had,' cp. 1. 2. 21. SF 38 TENDING,
'attention,' cp. Cooper's Thesaurus, "curatio, diligent tending," and "tend" in v. 42.
37
MESSENGER
The king comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH
Thou f rt mad to say it.
Is not thy master with him? who, wer f t so,
Would have inform'd for preparation.
MESSENGER
So please you, it is true: our thane is com-
ming:
One of my fellowes had the speed of him;
Who almost dead for breath, had scarcely
more
Then would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH
Give him tending;
He brings great newes.
EXIT MESSENGER
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 39 RAVEN, like 'heaven,'
'seven/ and participles in
-en, is often monosyllabic in
e. N.E. It was a popular su-
perstition that the croaking of
a raven was always an omen
of ill and at times foreboded
death ; cp. Brand's Popular
Antiquities, III. 210, 211,
and especially the quotation
from Poole's Parnassus, 1 657,
"The om'nous raven with a
dismal chear, Through his
hoarse beak of following hor-
ror tells." Peele, l David and
Bethsabe,' 1599, Chor.to Sc.
Ill, also refers to this popular
belief. Shakspere again im-
plies it in Oth.IV. 1. 2 1 and
2Hen.6 III. 2.40. ^40 EN-
TERANCE (the Folio prints
" entrance ") is also trisyllabic
in Per. II. 3-64 and in Faerie
Queene 1.8.34; it is often
spelled "enterance" in EL.
prose. In e. N.E. the vowel
sound which developed out of
r frequently makes a distinct
syllable, cp. "childeren " IV. 3.
177, "rememberance" III. 2.
30, "prayers" II. 2. 25; we
ACT I
SCENE V
39-55
The raven himselfe is hoarse
That croakes the fatall enterance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortall thoughts, unsex me
here,
And fill me, from the crowne to th' toe, top-
full
Of direst crueltie! make thick my blood,
Stop up th' accesse and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keepe peace be-
tweene
Th' effect and hit. Come to my woman's
brests,
And take my milke for gall, you murth'ring
ministers,
Where-ever in your sightlesse substances
You wait on nature's mischiefe ! Come, thick
night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoake of hell,
That my keene knife see not the wound it
makes,
Nor heaven peepe through the blanket of
the darke,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
still have "fire," "power,
and u hour" as dissyllables in
MN.E. <ff4I The lacking
impulse after the caesura is
supplied by the pause before
COME. SPIRITSisoften mon-
osyllabic in EL. E., 'sprites'
(whence MN.E. 'sprightly'),
and is probably so here, for the rhythm is smoother if v. 41 ends in a rising wave. ^42
MORTALL THOUGHTS is not 'human thinking' but 'deadly purposes'; cp. note to 1.3.
139. These 'devilish spirits of murder' Shakspere refers to in 2Hen.6 IV. 7. 80. ^43
TOTH'TOE is "to the toe" in FO. I ; but the printer probably neglected to mark the
elision, cp. 1. 1.5 note. The whole expression is idiomatic in EL. E., cp. "from the top to
the toe, a capite ad calcem usque 11 Baret, ' Alvearie' ; and TOPFULL, 'brimful,' is likewise
a usual word, cp. "Topfull with Faith" Taylor, Works, Sp. Soc, II. 230. SF 44 MAKE
THICK MY BLOOD : cp. "if that surly spirit melancholy Had bak'd thy bloud and made it
heavy thicke, Which else runnes tickling up and downe the veines" John III. 3.42; see
also Wint. T. 1. 2. 1 7 1 and Ham. 1.5. 70. 4 45 ACCESSE frequently has its M. E. stress "ac-
cesse" in e.N.E., cp. e.g. "get swift accesse" Jonson, 'Sejanus' II. 2. REMORSE does
not here correspond to the MN.E. word, but connotes the idea ' compassion ' ; cp. " We know
yourtendernesseof heart, And gentle, kinde, effeminate [i.e. womanly] remorse" Rich.3IIL7.
210, and "Not doubting but to finde such kinde remorse As naturally you are enclyned
38
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
to" 'Faire Em Ml. 1. 132. *ff 46 COMPUNCTIOUS was a rare word in Shakspere's time,
if, indeed, not coined by Shakspere himself. NATURE, 'natural feeling,' 'sympathy/ cp.
"You, brother mine, that entertaine ambition, Expell'd remorse and nature" Temp. V.I.
75- It is only in the light of Shakspere's psychology in 1.3. 1 39 that this picture of Lady
Macbeth's mind becomes clear. In ^48 HIT (the M.E. form corresponding to MN.E.
'it' which occasionally appears in e. N.E. as here) refers to "nature," and TH' EFFECT is
equivalent to MN.E. 'its accomplishment,' cp. N.E. D. 7, and "Could have attained th' effect
of your owne purpose" Meas. II. 1. 1 3. Lady Macbeth deliberately invokes the devils of
murder to forestall the "shaking" of her fell purpose and the "hostilitie and civill tumult"
between her conscience and Duncan's death — to use the phraseology of John IV. 2. 245 —
by blocking up all avenues to pity and compassion. *ff 47 NOR KEEPE PEACE, therefore,
is tantamount to 'and make war' between my "thought" and the "mortal instruments"
which are to execute it; cp.the notion of "single peace" in the passage from Ben Jonson
above, and "In absence of her knight the lady noway could Keepe trewce between her
greefes and her, though nere so fayne she would . . Yet did her face disclose the pas-
sions of her hart" Brooke's Romeus and Juliet, ed. 1562, vv. 1 78 1 ff. (quoted in part by
Malone), where we have again the 'microcosmic' psychology. The conscienceless strength
of Lady Macbeth is thus luridly contrasted with her husband's 'infirmity of purpose' : only
one 'visiting of nature' does she show in II. 2. 13, "Had he not resembled My father as
he slept, I had don 't," and she refers to this with an implied apology for a momentary
weakness. The fact that Lady Macbeth had been a mother, cp. 1.7.54, adds more horror
to her imprecation. *1F 49 TAKE is explained by Schmidt as referring to malignant su-
pernatural influences, as in "he blasts the tree and takes the cattle" Merry W. IV. 4. 32,
and in " No faiery takes " Ham. 1. 1 . 1 63 ; but the syntax does not permit such an interpreta-
tion ; the idiom is TAKE FOR, not "take"; TAKE FOR in the sense of 'turn into' is not
English idiom ; 'take away my milk and put gall in its place' is a far-fetched use of "take"
in the sense of 'exchange.' It is better to understand the word in its usual sense of 're-
ceive.' GALL, 'poison,' 'venom,' cp. " Poyson be their drinke ! Gall, worse then gall the
daintiest that they taste" 2Hen.6 III. 2. 322. In EL. psychology the gall was the seat of
the bitter and violent passions of hatred and revenge, cp. N.E.D. 3. So Hamlet, using
the concrete for the abstract, says he 'lacks gall to make tyrannous violence bitter' Ham.
II. 2. 605. Minsheus. v. 'gall' says "it is the humor which nourishes wrath," and this seems
to be Lady Macbeth's notion here, carrying out the idea in v. 42, "unsex me here, and fill
me . . topfull of direst crueltie!" MINISTERS in e. N. E. usage denoted the "in-
struments of darknesse " as well as " ministers of grace " ; cp. Titus V. 2. 6 1 , where Murder
and Rapine are spoken of as "ministers," and Rich.3 1.2.46, "dreadfull minister of hell."
Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.,' 1 62 1, speaks of the "devil and his ministers." The clipped form
of the word, "min'sters," is probably intended here. *ff 50 SIGHTLESSE is a common EL.
synonym of 'invisible'; it is used again in 1.7.23- One of the nine kinds of bad spirits
mentioned by Burton, I.ii. 1.2, instigates to fury; another is 'those vessels of anger in-
ventors of all mischief (cp.v. 51). 'These unclean spirits go in and out of our bodies
as bees do in a hive and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive our temperature [i.e.
temperament] inclined of itself and most apt to be deluded.' They are 'corporeal and
have aerial bodies' ; 'the air is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisi-
ble devils.' These devils or spirits in EL. metaphysics, taking possession of the body and
working upon its ' humours,' produced all those forms of insanity and mental disorder which
were termed melancholy. Shakspere's psychology, while it is not a bald transcription
of it, nevertheless reflects the doctrine in a general way, and Macbeth's soul "blasted with
extasy" and Lady Macbeth's "mind diseased" are each conceived in the terms of its phi-
losophy. They are both 'possessed of devils,' Macbeth through his allowing the witches
to help on his ambition, Lady Macbeth through the obsession of the unclean spirits which
she invokes to her aid. The one passively submits to the supernatural control, the other
actively invokes it. The ruin of the man's cankered soul is gradual, opposed always by
39
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
resisting forces of his character; the ruin of the woman's "mind diseased" swiftly cul-
minates in insanity and self-destruction. SF 52 PALL THEE, 'cloak thyself; Shakspere
seems to have made the verb from the noun, cp. Cooper, "palliolatim, clad in a mantle,
pall, or robe." DUNNEST, 'murkiest,' cp. N.E.D. and Coles, "obfuscus, black, dark,
dun." Peele has a somewhat similar phrase in ' David and Bethsabe, X. II, "O would my
breath were made the smoke of hell ! " *IF 53 Lady Macbeth here intends herself to com-
mit the murder ; Macbeth speaks of doing it in 1. 7. 1 6 ; he has sworn to do it in 1.7.58;
both together are to perform it in 1.7.69 j in II. 2. 13 Lady Macbeth tries and fails ; finally
Macbeth does the deed in II. 2. 15. Thus by keeping vague the outlines of the act does
Shakspere intensify the horror of its circumstances. *IF 54 Such figures as BLANKET OP
THE DARKE were common in EL. E., cp. "Come seeling night, Skarfe up the tender eye of
pittifull day" III. 2. 46. A similar association of ideas occurs in Drayton's Barrons Warres,
III. 17. 18, ed. 1605, "The sullen night hath her blacke curtaines spread, Lowring [i.e.
scowling because] the day had tarried up so long, Whose faire eyes closing softly [in MN. E.
sc. 'she'] steales to bed when all the heavens with duskie clowdes are hung . . The glim-
mering lights, like sentinels in warre, Behind the clowdes stand craftily to pry And through
false loope-holes looking from afarre To see him skirmish with his desteny." The first
verse was cited by Malone in its earlier form,ed. 1596, "The sullen night in mistie rugge
[i.e. blanket] is wrapp'd"; CI. Pr. also adds Drayton's notion of night as "heaven's
black nightgowne." The homely figure was taken exception to by Coleridge, and vari-
ous foolish emendations, 'blackness,' 'blankness,' 'blank-height,' 'blankest,' etc., have
been proposed. But one who will criticize such figures in Shakspere shows little know-
ledge of Elizabethan literature. It has also been suggested that "blanket" refers to the
'curtain of a theatre' with 'heaven 'in its EL. sense of 'roof of the stage'; but the N.E.D.
records no such usage of the word 'blanket.' The associative interests of the earlier
passages, "milk," "woman's
breasts," suggest motherhood a^T T qpcmc \r cc ri
—cp.also 1.7.54 ff.-and this AU [ [ bUbJN b V 55-61
culminating figure brings to
the mind the picture of 1 ter- ENTE * MACBETH
ror-stricken child peering over Great Glamys ! worthy Cawdor !
the edge of his blanket into the Greater then both, by the all-haile hereafter!
awrul gloom or night. Kobthe rni . . J i i i
context of these associations 1 hy letters have transported me beyond
and the marvellous power of This ignorant present, and I feele now
the thought is gone from it. rrri £ • fi
WehavemuchtothankShak- The future m the instant.
spere scholarship for, but MACBETH
surely its cavilling at this pas- xn j . i
sage is little to its credit. % dearest love,
Duncan comes here to nidht.
SF58 IGNORANT is probably ,,. rnRT „
used here, as in Wint.T. 1.2. LADY MACBETH
397, with the sense of 'keep- And when s*oes hence?
ing one in ignorance' (cp. MACBETH
N.E.D. s.v. 3 b): "If you _, 1
know ought. . imprison 't not 1 ° morrow, as he purposes.
In ignorant concealement."
The rhythm of the verse, like that of IV. 3. 28, lacks a stressed impulse after PRESENT, if
"ign'rant" is so syncopated: Pope supplied "time" after PRESENT to fill the measure,
preferring a limping verse to an 'incorrect' one; Lettsom proposed "e'en now" — there is
some ground for this, cp. 1.4. 15, IV. 1. 148, IV. 3- 121, V. 2. 10 ; Abbott reads "fe-el," but
while the development of an extra syllable out of r is a general EL. phenomenon not pecu-
40
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
liar to prosody, and has had its due effect on MN.E., there is no evidence for / having
thus produced an extra syllable after e in EL. E. The verse is probably correct as it stands.
IN THE INSTANT, 'on the instant,' is an EL. phrase meaning 'at this moment'; cp.
N. E. D. s. v. 3 and " in the in-
ACT I
SCENE V
LADY MACBETH
61-74
O
never,
stant came The fiery Tibalt"
Rom.&Jul.I. I.II5- SF60The
rhythm of Lady Macbeth's
words, "And when goes
hence?" aptly reflects the
gravity of her question.
<1F63 Macbeth's appalling
realization of the significance
of "O never shall sun that
morrow see" — MORROWalso
means 'morning' in EL. E. —
is reflected in Lady Macbeth's
words. SF64 STRANGE,'un-
usual'; cp. " Looke like the
time" v. 65. MATTERS,
' subject matter,' cp. " I read
in 's looks Matter against
me" Hen.8 1. 1. I25,and"Was
ever booke containing such
vile matter So fairely bound ? "
[i.e. as Romeo's beauty]
Rom.&Jul. III. 2. 83- BE-
GUILE THE TIME, 'deceive
the world' ; EL. E. frequently
uses THE TIME in the sense
of ' men and things about one,'
'the world,' 'the times'; cp.
"he did serve the time cun-
ningly, omnium horarum ho-
minem se agebat" Phr. Gen.
s.v. 'time.' The word occurs
again in this sense in 1. 7. 81,
"Mock the time," and in IV.
3.72, "the time you may so
hoodwinke." The editors of
FO. I seem to have misunderstood the word BEGUILE, and punctuate with comma after
MATTERS and period after TIME. SF 65 THE TIME here means 'the moment,' and re-
fers to the welcoming of Duncan, cp. "it spoyles the pleasure of the time," i.e. the feast,
III. 4. 98. Shakspere is fond of thus varying the significance of a word by its context.
<ff66 TH' INNOCENT places stress on the second syllable of the word; but "the inn'cent,"
a usual EL. contraction (cp. II. 2. 36), makes equally good rhythm. The sense of the word
seems to be 'innocuous,' 'harmless.' The earliest quotation in N.E. D. 5 for this meaning
is dated 1662, but in Baret's Alvearie "innocent " is glossed "innocuus" and "inno-
cently," " innoxie" ; so likewise in Phr. Gen. SF 68 Lady Macbeth's PROVIDED FOR sug-
gests a grim irony. SF 69 DISPATCH is 'management,' cp. N.E.D. 5 b. SF 72 SPEAKE,
'confer,' cp." Have you spoke" All'sW. V.3- 28. CLEARE is an adverb meaning 'frankly,'
cp. N.E.D. 'clearly,' 7. In M.E. and O.E. the usual adverb suffix was -e : when this was
lost in late M.E. (1. M.E.) and e. N.E. monosyllabic adverbs and adjectives became iden-
41
Shall sunne that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a booke where men
May reade strange matters. To beguile the
time,
Looke like the time; beare welcome in your
eye,
Your hand, your tongue: looke like th f inno-
cent flower,
But be the serpent under 't. He that's com-
ming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great businesse into my dispatch,
Which shall to all our nights and dayestocome
Give solely soveraigne sway and masterdome.
MACBETH
We will speake further.
LADY MACBETH
Onely looke up cleare;
To alter favor ever is to feare:
Leave all the rest to me.
EXEUNT
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
tical in form. «ff73 FAVOR is EL.E. for 'face,' 'countenance/ cp. N. E. D. 9 b. TO
FEARE seems to mean 'to give cause for alarm/ cp. N.E.D. I (though not illustrated in
this intransitive sense).
SCENE VI: BEFORE MACBETH'S CASTLE
HOBOYES AND TORCHES
ENTER KING MALCOLME DONALBAINE BANQUO LENOX
MACDUFF ROSSE ANGUS AND ATTENDANTS
mm
I — 10
KING
HIS castle hath a pleasant seat;
the ay re
Nimbly and sweetly recommends
it selfe
Unto our gentle sences.
BANQUO
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting marlet, does approve
By his lov'd mansionry that th 'heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttrice, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant
cradle ;
Where they most breed and haunt, I have
observ'd
The ayre is delicate.
ENTER LADY MACBETH
Duncan arrives in the even-
ing,hencetheTORCHESofthe
stage direction, cp. I. 7. 25.
HOBOYES is the English
spelling of 'hautboy': the
word was used in EL.E. for
the player of the oboe as well
as for the instrument itself.
So TORCH in EL. scene di-
rections is usually the ' bearer
of a torch* or 'link-boy.'
*lr I SEAT, 'site'; cp. Jonson,
'Poetaster' II. I, "You are
most delicately seated here . .
an excellent ayre"; Burton,
' Anat. of Mel.' I.ii. 2. 5," How
can they be excused that have
a delicious seat, a pleasant air
and all that nature can af-
ford..?" AYRE is somewhat
generally used in EL. E. for
'climate.' In FO. I THE AYRE
is part of v. 2. *ff 3 It is not
necessary to suppose that
G ENTLE is proleptically used
for 'our senses made gentle by the air/ as it is usually understood; Duncan merely says
that his senses, gentled and tamed by age (cp. N.E.D. 8), ill endure a rough climate.
This suggestion of the peace and quietness of his mind is tragically contrasted with
1.5.40 ff. It is well borne out, too, by the easy-flowing rhythm of the passage, with its
freedom from reversals and its lack of tensely stressed syllables. The notion of the even-
ing quiet is added to by the suggestion of the swallows which flit in and out the eaves,
with a further suggestion of the holy time in the epithet "temple-haunting." It is the
flitting martin, summer's guest, not the boding raven, that welcomes Duncan. 9f4
MARLET— the "Barlet" of FO. I is obviously a misprint— is an EL. form of 'martlet'
(O. FR. merlette), cp. Skinner, "marlet quasi martlet"; it is used for 'swift' or 'swallow.'
Minsheu says "they are called Martlets or Martens, because they come unto us about
the end of March and goe away before s. Marten's day, that is about the twelfth of No-
vember, by reason of cold"; the same fanciful etymology is found in Junius's Etymo-
42
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
logicon — and repeated, alas, in modern dictionaries: hence Shakspere's GUEST OF
SUMMER. APPROVE is 'prove," show,' cp. N.E.D. I. SF 5 LOV'D is an instance of the
suffix -ed (which, like the past participle ending, was often syncopated) in its EL. sense of
'full of,' ' characterized by/ and the word is an adjective and corresponds to MN. E. 'loving,'
not ' loved.' The FO. reads " mansonry," for which Pope conjectured " masonry " and Theo-
bald MANSIONRY. Either word makes fitting sense. 'Masonry' in EL. E. connotes the
art of putting together rubble or brick with plaster as well as that of hewing and placing
stones; cp. Cooper, "ccementarius, a dauber, a parzetter, a rough mason": in Minsheu
and Skinner mason is glossed "ccementarius" ; so also in Baret's Alvearie. The work of
the martin could therefore be called "masonry" ; cp. "the artificiall [i.e. skilful] nest-com-
posing swallow" Robert Chester's Love's Martyr, 1 60 1 (ed. Grosart), p. 122. On the other
hand, mansionarium in Mediaeval Latin (cp. Du Cange s.v.) denotes the residence of a canon
in a cathedral: and the O.FR. and M.E. form of this word would have been mansionrie ;
though the word is not found in O.FR. Shakspere may have known it, nevertheless, and
most beautifully used it here; cp. "temple-haunting": / and fi were single types in EL.
typography, and, like f and fi or /Y, are easily confused in printing. But MANSIONRY
may simply mean 'house-building.' *ff 6 SMELLS seems in EL. E. to have meant
'breathes upon,' cp. Florio, " oreggiare, to breathe, to blow as aire or winde, to sent, or
smell pleasantly"; cp., too, "The ayre breathes upon us here most sweetly" Temp. II.
1.46. WOOING LY : in EL. present participles of verbs ending in a long vowel, like 'doing,'
'being,' etc., the suffix is frequently taken with the preceding vowel to make a single syl-
lable. JUTTY: cp. Cotgrave,
SCENE VI
ACT I
10-20
KING
See, see, our honor'd hostesse!
The love that followes us sometime is our
trouble,
Which still we thanke as love. Herein I teach
you
• Howyou shall bid God-eyld us for your paines,
And thanke us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH
All our service
In every point twice done, and then done
double,
Were poore and single businesse to con-
tend
Against those honors deepe and broad where-
with
Your majestie loades our house: for those
of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
We rest your ermites.
43
" soupendue . . juttie, or part
of a building that juttieth be-
yond or leaneth overthe rest."
*ff9 FO. I reads "must" for
MOST ("most" is a M.E.
form of " must "), with comma
after CRADLE and colon after
HAUNT. HAUNT, 'resort
habitually,' cp. N.E.D. 7. ¥ 10
DELICATE, 'pleasant,' 'de-
lightful,' cp. N.E.D. I a.
<f II THAT FOLLOWES US,
i.e. is the concomitant of king-
ship ; cp. "the libertie that
followes our places" Hen. 5
V. 2.297. SOMETIME is a
common EL. E. form of 'some-
times.' SF 12 STILL, 'always.'
AS, 'as being,' 'because it is,'
cp. "as his host" i.e. in that I
am his host, I. 7. 14. The mo-
mentary change to " I " gives
Duncan's words a personal
turn. TEACH has here its EL.
sense of 'teaching by exam-
ple,' cp. I. 7. 8. <ff 13 SHALL
BID GOD-EYLD US, 'shall
pray G od reward us,' with BID
in its e. N. E. sense of 'ask,'
'pray,' and GOD-EYLD an
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
EL. phrase, like MN.E. 'good-bye/ composed of 'God' and 'yeld,' i.e. reward; cp.
N.E.D. 'God,' 8, and A.Y.L. III. 3. 76. <lr 16 SINGLE in EL.E. often means 'trivial,'
'trifling,' cp. "He utters such single matter in so infantly a voice" Fletcher, 'Queen of
Corinth' III. I (Cent. Diet.), and Jonson, 'Every Man out of his Humour' II. 3' "Mit.
But he might have altered the shape of his argument and explicated 'hem better in single
scenes. Cor. That had been single indeed." BUSINESSE has probably its EL. significa-
tion of 'care,' 'attention,' cp. N.E.D. 6; it seems to be the notion of loving attention to
Duncan's comfort that Lady Macbeth has in mind. SF 17 DEEPE, 'weighty,' 'important,'
cp. 1.4.7 and N.E.D. 7 b. SF 18 MAJESTIE is prosodically equivalent to a dissyllable here,
as it is in III. 4. 2. The verse division of FO. I is Against . . broad, Wherewith . . house,
For . . dignities, Heap'd . . ermites. OP OLD is an EL. phrase meaning 'formerly'; cp.
"even for that our love of old" Caes. V.5-27, and Phr. Gen., "He was my tutor of
old, o/fm mihi pcedagogus erat." SF 19 TO, 'in addition to,' cp. 1.2. 10. SF 20 REST,
' remain,' cp. I Hen. 6 V. 5-95. ERMITES is the EL. spelling of ' hermits,' and the word is here
used in the sense of 'beadsmen,' N.E.D. 2 c. Steevens cites a similar passage from 'Arden of
Feversham' III. 6. 120: " God save your honour ; I am your bedesman bound to pray for you."
Lady Macbeth's compliment
ACT I SCENE VI 20-28
has reference to Duncan's
'You shall pray God's bless-
ing on my head,' v. 13; she
replies, 'we will spend our
lives praying for you.' The
difference between the easy
flow of Duncan's words and
the tortuous rhythm of Lady
Macbeth's is worth noting.
<ff2I COURST,'chased,"pur-
sued.' AT THE HEELES,
cp. "follow him at foote"
Ham. IV. 3.56. SF22 TO BE
is EL. syntax for 'of being.'
A PURVEYOR— "cater"isan
EL. synonym of the word —
was, according to Cowel's
Law Dictionary (ed. 1684),
"an officer of the King or
Queen, or other great per-
sonage, that providith corn
and other victual for their
house." Duncan in v. 24
applies it to the preparation
of a loving reception for Mac-
beth. The word is stressed
on the first and third syllables,
cp. EL. E. 'pursue,' "In all their drifts and councells pursue profit," Jonson, ' Sejanus '
III. 2. *ff 23 HOLP is the M.E. strong form of the verb — it is still used in the Au-
thorized Version — which the weak form 'helped' had not yet supplanted in e.N.E.
Both forms occur in Shakspere, cp. Schmidt s.v. SF 24 For TO HIS "to 's" was proba-
bly intended by Shakspere. In the Epilogue to Jonson's Poetaster we have "t' him-
self" ; in Drayton's Barrons Warres 11.46. 7, "T' an open smile convert"; so "t' our"
III. 28. 6 and "unt' her," Sidney, 'Arcadia,' ed. 1590, 243 b. SF 26 The first THEIRS is
EL.E. for 'their family and retinue'; cp. "points at them for his" IV. 1. 124, and "I can-
44
KING
Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
We courst him at the heeles, and had a pur-
pose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well,
And his great love, sharpe as his spurre, hath
holp him
To his home before us. Faire and noble
hostesse,
We are your guest to night.
LADY MACBETH
Your servants ever
Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs,
in compt,
To make their audit at your highnesse plea-
sure,
Still to returne your owne.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
not perswade myself that you will either forget or neglect this point concerning the insti-
tution of yours" Florio's Montaigne, 1.25 ; the second THEIRS has its MN. sense of 'their
property.' HAVE . . IN COMPT (an EL. form of 'account/ cp. N. E. D. s.v.) seems to
mean 'to hold subject to account.' SF 27 HIGHNESSE is an instance of the e.N.E. inflec-
tionless genitive as in 1.4.6,23.
ACT I SCENE VI 28-31 * 28 STILL has here its EL.
ww* ~^ j x sense or 'always, 'in order
always to return to you what
KING is yours.'
Give me your hand;
Conduct me to mine host: we lovehim highly, ^"^"o^relsproS
And shall continue our graces towards him. bly intended a union of the
By your leave, hostesse. \ as { s / llable ° f continue
J J (it had not yet become iu, but
EXEUNT was still u in EL.E.) and the
first syllable of OUR. FO. I
has a comma before 'our.' SF 3 1 BYYOUR LEAVE in Merry W. III.2.28and Merch. II. 4. 15
is a ceremonious expression of farewell : but here it seems to mean ' Permit me, madam'
and to refer to some action, like his kissing Lady Macbeth's hand, or his preceding or
following her through the door.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE VII
Macbeth's welcome of Duncan is left to the imagination. The banquet with which he
entertains his royal guest is likewise unrepresented. Macbeth, unable longer to endure
the strain, has escaped from the banqueting-room. The court ringing with his praises has
made him for the first time realize what the court really is. Not only the king must be
murdered, but the suspicions of Rosse, Donalbaine, Macduff, and the rest must be allayed ;
Malcolm's legitimate claims must be 'o'erleaped' ; Banquo's hopes, based on the witches'
prediction, must be nipped in the bud. He thus sees his deed stretch away in its long
train of bloody consequences and murderous practice, with possibly himself the victim at
the last. Then the thought of the king's gracious meekness — the pity of being forced
to sacrifice such an innocent victim on the altar of his ambition — no, it cannot be done.
Here Lady Macbeth enters to prick the sides of his intent with taunts of cowardice, and
threatens him with the loss of her love and respect on account of his unmanly weakness
and faithless vacillation. As each taunt goes home through the weak spots of Macbeth's
armour, she seizes her advantage. Her plot comes from the "Historic of Scotland" (Bos-
well-Stone, p.27) where Holinshed describes the murder of Duff by Donwald and his
wife. The scene is a wonderful illustration of Shakspere's dramatic power: its words
teem with interest ; every line is crowded with pictures, association succeeding associa-
tion in rapid panorama. Some of them are startlingly new : the kingdom of Scotland has
been ringing with Macbeth's praises, v. 32 ; Macbeth is a lover as well as a husband, v. 39 ;
the thought of a violent seizure upon the crown is not for the first time entering Macbeth's
mind, v. 51 ; Lady Macbeth has known the joys of motherhood, v. 54. All of these unite
and blend like varying chords in music. The scene opens with the banquet well under way :
music in the outer room, servants passing formally into the hall with a new course. The
SEWER in EL. households was the chief butler, cp. "Clap me a cleane towell about you,
like a sewer ; and bare-headed march afore it [i.e. the dinner] with good confidence " Jonson,
'Silent Woman' III. 3 (cited in part by Steevens), and "the gentleman sewer that goeth
before the meat to his lord or master's table, vide maestre sala" Percivale's Spanish
Dictionary, 1623. SERVICE means 'a course,' cp. Ham. IV.3-25-
45
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE VII: THE COURT OF MACBETH'S CASTLE
HOBOYES TORCHES
ENTER A SEWER AND DIVERS SERVANTS WITH DISHES AND
SERVICE OVER THE STAGE: THEN ENTER MACBETH
I-I2
MACBETH
F it were done when 't is done,
then 't wer well
It were done quickly: if th' assas-
sination
Could trammell up the conse-
quence, and catch
With his surcease successe ; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all heere,
Butheere,upon this bankeandschoole of time,
Wee 'Id jumpe the life to come. But in these
cases
We still have judgement heere, that we but
teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, re-
turne
To plague th' inventer. This even-handed
justice
Commends th' ingredience of our poyson'd
challice
To our owne lips. Hee ? s heere in double
trust :
*ff I The first DONE here, as in
1. 1.3* corresponds to MN.E.
'over' (cp. N. E. D. 'do,' 8;
but in this instance its quota-
tions are not sharply discrimi-
nated). InM.E.ande.N.E.the
word is used of things running
a course as well as of things
brought about by a definite
agency. The second DONE
refers to the accomplishment
of the act of murder; DONE
in v. 2 refers to the execution
of the act. The stress "'t is
done" seems awkward in
MN.E., but cp. "must do" I.
5.24. *ff3 TRAMMELL UP,
'net up' ; cp. Cotgrave, u tra-
meau, a kind of drag-net or
draw-net for fish," " tramail-
ler, to weave, bind, fasten or
insnare by threfold meshes,"
"trameller, to trammel for
larkes." CONSEQUENCE,
'sequel,' 'all that follows';
cp. N.E.D.2 and "My mind
misgives Some consequence
. . shall bitterly begin his
fearefull date with this night's
revels" Rom. & Jul. I. 4. 106.
CATCH carries out the meta-
phor of a net. *ff 4 H I S is the EL. possessive case of ' it,' and refers to " consequence " ; cp.
the quotation from Rom. & Jul. above. SU RCEASE, ' cessation,' cp. " no pulse Shall keepe his
native [i.e. natural] progresse, but surcease" Rom.&Jul. IV. 1. 96, and Baret, ' Alvearie,'
"to surcease, or to cease from doing something, supersedeo." THAT, as in 1.3- 113, re-
peats the connective 'if.' BUT THIS BLOW, 'only this blow,' 'this one blow.' SF5
BE-ALL and END-ALL are instances of a form of noun composition common in EL. E.,
like "mar-all," "spend-all," "do-all." *ff6 BUT, 'only.' The BANKE AND SCHOOLE
of FO. I has given much difficulty to editors, some of whom take it for 'bench and school' ;
others, following Theobald, assuming a misprint in SCHOOLE for 'shoal,' read 'bank and
shoal' : but the latter assumption is unnecessary, as EL. sh is sometimes spelled sch ; we
have retained one of those scA-forms in 'schedule' ; in Purchas, ' Pilgrimage,' 2d ed., vol.
v, p. 109, "shoole-master" occurs, illustrating the opposite confusion. The e.N.E. spell-
ing of school (of fishes) is "shole." But the oo ( = u) in "schoole" would not represent
46
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the EL. E. o in "shoal," whose EL. forms are "shole," "shoale," "shoul." BANKE can
be either 'bench' or 'shoal' ; cp. Cotgrave, "banc, a bench, banke, forme, seat . . ; also a
long shole, shelfe, or sandie hill in the sea against which the waves doe break." The as-
sociation of 'teaching' that follows, "teach Bloody instructions," supports the literal
reading, and "this banke and schoole of time" might be an EL. E. hendiadys for 'this bench
of time's school,' a notion found in Lucr. 995 (cited by Nichols), "Time thou art tutor both
to good and bad." The notion of time as the shore of eternity is undoubtedly poetic and
Shaksperian withal; and BANKE in EL. E. also means 'beach,' cp. Baret, 'Alvearie,'
"the banke, properly of the sea and sometimes of any great river," and "I was the other
day talking on the sea-banke with certaine Venetians" Oth.IV. 1. 137. For the whole no-
tion cp. "The tyde of pompe That beates upon the high shore of this world" Hen. 5 IV. I.
281, and "The varrying shore o'th'world" Ant.&Cl. IV. 15. 1 1. It is, and always will be,
impossible definitely to decide between the two readings ; the reader must make his own
choice. *ff 7 J U M PE, ' risk,' ' hazard ' ; cp. " you must . . jump the after-enquiry on your owne
perill" Cym. V. 4. 188, and "Our fortune lyes Upon this jumpe" Ant.&Cl. I II. 8. 6, and "it
putteth the patient to a jumpe or great hazzard" (cited from Holland's Pliny in N.E. D.
6b). *ff8 STILL, 'always.' HAVE JUDGEMENT, i.e. 'receive sentence,' cp. " He con-
fessed the inditement and had judgment to bee hanged" Halle, 'Chronicle' 244 b. THAT
has here its common EL. meaning of 'because,' and TEACH connotes 'teaching by ex-
ample' as in 1. 6.12, with INSTRUCTION, v. 9, in the sense of 'methods'; cp. "The
villanie you teach me I will execute, and it shall goe hard but I will better the instruction"
Merch. III. 1.74 ff. SF 10 IN-
ACT I
SCENE VII
13-25
VENTER, 'contriver,' as in
"purposes mistooke, Falne on
the inventors' heads" Ham.
V.2.395. *TF 1 1 COMMENDS,
not 'recommends,' but 'of-
fers,' 'presents'; cp. "to her
white hand see thou do com-
mend This seal'd-up coun-
saile" L. L. L. III. I. 169, in
N.E.D.Ia. INGREDIENCEis
an EL. E. spelling of 'ingre-
dients,' and means 'mixture'
N.E.D. I a.
*ffl3 AS, 'because I am,' cp.
1.6. 12; Macbeth was Dun-
can's cousin, see 1. 2. 24. *ff 1 7
FACULTIES, 'authority,' is
an EL. E. legal term glossed
in Cowel's Law Dictionary
"a priviledge, or special power
granted unto a man by favour,
indulgence, and dispensation,
to do that which by the com-
mon-law he cannot do." It is
here applied to the prerogative
of the king, who is supra legem and habet omnia jura in manu sua. CI. Pr. cites Hen. 8 1.2.73.
MEEKE is an instance of the EL. adverb without the -ly suffix. Sf 18 CLEERE, 'faultless,'
N.E.D. 15; cp. "least my life be cropt to keep you clear" Per. 1. 1. 141. *ff 19 AGAINST,
according to the punctuation of FO. I, goes with trumpet-tongued and means 'in view
of.' *ff 20 TAKING OFF, 'death,' cp. III. 1. 105 and " His speedy taking off " Lear V. 1.65
47
First, as I am bis kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed ; then,asbishost,
Who should against his murtherer shut the
doore,
Not beare the knife my selfe. Besides, this
Duncane
Hath borne his faculties so meeke, hath bin
So cleere in his great office, that his vertues
Will pleade like angels, trumpet-tongu'd
against
The deepe damnation of his taking off:
And pitty, like a naked new-borne-babe,
Striding the blast, orheaven'scherubinhors'd
Upon the sightlesse curriors of the ayre,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That teares shall drowne the winde.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
(cited by Delius). SF2I A similar association occurs in Ham. III. 3.70 : "heart with strings
of Steele, Be soft as sinewes of the new-borne babe." In the three passages where the
murder is realized by the imagination, 1. 5. 4 1 ff., here, and 1.7.55 ff., its horror is heightened
by association with the innocence of childhood. Such associations are implied also in
II. 2. 13 and II. 2. 54. SF 22 STRIDING, 'mounted on'; cp. "strideth, straddleth" Co-
menius, 'Janua'944; Coles, " divarico, to stride or straddle"; and " I meane to stride
your steed" Cor.I.9.7I. CHERUBIN seems to be intended for a plural ; see N.E.D. s.u.for
an interesting account of the
ACT I SCENE VII 25-30
form development of the word
*ff 23 SIGHTLESSE, 'invisi-
ble,' as in 1.5.50 q.v. CUR-
RIORS is the EL. spelling of
'couriers.' SF 24 BLOW,etc,
'proclaim [N.E.D. 13] the
deed in the sight of every one ' ;
cp. N. E. D. ' eye ' 4 c and Ham.
IV. 4. 6. <ff25 Cp. "Where
are my teares? Raine to lay
this winde, or my heart will be
blowne up by the root ! "
Tro.&Cr. IV.4.55.
*1F26 INTENT is a stronger
word in M. E. and EL. E. than
in MN.E., cp. "That nys no-
thyng the entent of myn la-
bour" Chaucer, 'Legend of
Goode Women' Prol. 78, and
" He thought by their meanes
the soner to come to his en-
tent" Berners, ' Froissart ' I.
cxl, 1 67 (cited from N. E. D. 6)
I have no spurre
To pricke the sides of my intent, but onely
Vaulting ambition, which ore-leapes it selfe
And falles on th f other —
ENTER LADY MACBETH
How now? What newes?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supt: why have you left the
chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
SF 27, 28 The meaning here has been the subject of consid-
erable controversy, and various emendations have been needlessly proposed. To "ORE-
LEAPE oneselfe," like "over-shoot ones selfe," "over-study ones selfe," is an idiomatic
locution in EL. E. ; cp. " he that in this action contrives against his owne nobility in his proper
streame ore-flowes himselfe " All'sW. IV. 3- 28 ; we still have ' over reach one's self ' with ' over '
connoting too violent action for the end in view. The fact that the anacoluthon in v. 28 is
followed by a period in FO. I is not very significant, for the printer of the Folio punctuates
such anacolutha variously, probably because he did not always understand them : e.g. in
III. 1. 128 he uses a double hyphen, in IV. 1.69 a period, in V. 3. 13 a single short dash. In
Lear 1.4.356 we have in FO. I, "If she sustaine him, and his hundred knights When I have
shew'd th' unfitnesse. Enter Steward How now Oswald?" Such expedients as "it
selle" [i.e. its saddle], "it sete" for IT SELFE, or that of supplying "side" or "one" after
OTHER — a German has solved the problem by reading "author" for OTHER (the pro-
nunciation of the two words was similar in EL. E.), and an English editor would read
"earth" for OTHER! — are good illustrations of the torture which Shakspere's text has
undergone at the hands of modern editors. Macbeth's sentence would probably have been
completed by "side" if Lady Macbeth had not entered. His figure is taken from a com-
mon EL. athletic sport, cp. "a vaulter that leapeth up and downe from a horse, desultor"
Baret, 'Alvearie'; Cooper, "desultores, horsemen that in battaile had two horses, and
quickly would change horses, and leape from one to an other," " desultura, vaulting from
one horse to another." It is possible that OTHER means the other horse. Strutt,
'Sports and Pastimes of the People of England' ed. 1898, p. 318, writes: "William Stokes,
48
,
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
a vaulting-master of the seventeenth century, boasted, in a publication called 'The
Vaulting Master,' &c, printed at Oxford in 1652, that he had reduced ' vaulting to a method.'
In his book are several plates containing different specimens of his practice, which con-
sisted chiefly in leaping over
ACT I SCENE VII
one or more horses, or upon
them, sometimes seating him-
self in the saddle, and some-
times standing upon the
same." SF 30 ASK'D FOR
(sentence stress on FOR), 'in-
quired about,' 'missed'; cp.
"if he aske for me I am ill and
gone to bed" Lear III. 3. 17.
«1F32 BOUGHT, 'obtained,'
cp. "his silver hairs will pur-
chase us a good opinion, And
buy mens voyses [i.e. votes]
to commend our deeds" Caes.
II. I. 144. SF 33 SORTS,
'classes,' the usual EL. E.
meaning ; cp. " of all sorts en-
chantingly beloved" A.Y.L.
1. 1. 174. SF 34 The auxiliaries
"will" and "shall" were not
sharply distinguished for per-
son as in MN.E. literary idi-
om, and WOULD here means
'ought to be.' SF35 Cp. "O
where hath our intelligence
bin drunke? Where hath it
slept?" John IV. 2. 1 1 6 (cited
by Malone). HOPE in EL. E.
means 'confidence,' a mean-
ing still retained in Bible
English ; cp. N. E. D. 2. <1F 36
Perhaps enough of the origi-
nal meaning of DRESS was
preserved in Shakspere'stime
to warrant our supposing that Lady Macbeth had in mind the notion of 'addressing one's
self to a task' as well as 'arraying one's self ; cp. Phr. Gen., "to dress one's self . . com-
parare se." SF 37 G REENE, ' sickly ' — a sense the word still bears in MN. E. — and PALE are
EL. adverbs. SF 38 DID repeats the verb " look on," a use of the auxiliary which was more
common in EL. E. than it is now. Not understanding this, one Shakspere editor reads
"eyed," assuming that the word was first corrupted to "dyed" and then to "did" ! SF 39
Lady Macbeth's SUCH was probably accompanied by a gesture like snapping the fingers.
AFFEAR'D, cp. note to 1. 3- 96. SF40 Such contrasts as this were common in EL. litera-
ture, cp. e.g. "Wise in conceit, in Act a very sot" Drayton, 'Idea' 860, and echo the
mediaeval distinction between "life active" and "life contemplative." *1F 42 ORNAMENT
OF LIFE, i.e. honour, cp. "Yet know I not whether in all his life he shewed . . an ornament
[i.e. honorable act] so . . famous" Florio's Montaigne, 1, 23- SF 45 The proverb referred to is
common in e. N.E., cp. Heywood, 'Three Hundred Epigrammes,' ed. 1562, No. 258 (Sp.
Soc. reprint, p. 1 66)," The cat woulde eate fyshe but she wyll not weate her feete,"and Ray's
49
31-45
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this businesse:
He hath honour'd me of late, and I have
bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worne now in their newest
glosse,
Not cast aside so soone.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunke
Wherein you drest your selfe? Hath it slept
since?
And wakes it now to looke so greene and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou affear'd
To be the same in thine owne act and valour
As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have
that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine owne esteeme?
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would/
Like the poore cat V th' addage?
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT I
SCENE VII
45-59
Proverbs, p. 84, " Fain would
the cat fish eat, But she 's loth
her feet to wet."
*ff47 For DO, Rowe's correc-
tion, FO. I reads "no," which
seems to be a misprint ; n was
immediately under d in the
EL. type-case. Lady Mac-
beth's reply shows that NONE
isequivalent to ' not one,' with
'one' referring to 'man'; cp.
•"I am none of those that
thynke," etc., Florio's Mon-
taigne, I. 25 (Temple reprint
of 1 632 ed., p. 254), and " Our
Lord Jesus Christ regarded
not what manner of ones men
are" Golding's Translation of
Calvin, Galatians, 1574, p.
206. Asimilarnotionisfound
in Meas. II. 4. 135 (cited by
Steevens), " Be that you are,
That is a woman ; if you be
more, you ? r none." BEAST
frequently in EL. E. connotes
the notion ' not man/ cp. " Un-
seemely woman in a seeming
man, And ill beseeming beast
in seeming both" Rom.&Jul.
III. 3- H2 (see ibid. v. Ill),
and "for, the philosopherssay,
amongst all other thinges be-
ware of those persons thatfol-
lowe drunkennes, for they be
accompted for nomen because
they live a life bestiall " Vicary,
'Anatomie,' 1577, E.E.T. S.,
p. 15. In EL. E. the word connotes the stupidity and cowardice of a beast as negatives of
manly character as well as coarseness and vulgarity ', see quotations in N. E. D. under
' beast* 5. The point of Lady Macbeth's taunt here is its implication of unmanly cowardice.
SF 48 BREAKE is EL. E. for 'disclose,' cp. "therefore . . Katherine, breake thy minde to
me in broken English" Hen. 5 V. 2.265. SF 50 In EL. E. the infinitive often corresponds to
the MN.E. participial phrase, e.g. " Thou gainestfaire to lose thyselfe" Purchas, ' Pilgrimage'
V, p. 27, and "O why should Fortune make thecitty prowdTo give that more than isthecourt
allow'd" Drayton, 'Heroical Epistles' p. 69- Lady Macbeth says 'by being more [i.e.
stronger] now than you were then, you would be so much more the man.' In attempting to
make MN.E. sense out of the passage, editors have changed BEAST in v. 47 to "boast,"
Collier, to "baseness," Bailey, and THE in v. 51 to "than," Hanmer. SF52 ADHERE,
'suit,' 'agree,' 'be fitting,' N.E.D.4. Shakspere uses the word in the sense of 'agree' in
Merry Wives II. 1.62; a similar notion with "cohere" occurs in "Had time cohear'd with
place or place with wishing" Meas. II. 1. 1 1. SF53 THAT THEIR FITNESSE, 'their very
fitness.' SF 54 UNMAKE : Cooper glosses diffingo by "To marre : to unmake" ; Coles, by
50
MACBETH
Prythee peace:
I dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was 't then
That made you breake this enterprize to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man:
And to be more then whatyou were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor
place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make
both:
They have made themselves, and that their
fitnesse now
Does unmake you. I have gjiven sucke, and
know
How tender r t is to love the babe that milkes
me:
I would, while it was smyling in my face,
Have pluckt my nipple from his bonelesse
c^ummes,
And dasht the braines out, had I so sworne
As you have done to this.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
"unmake, mar, undo." It 55 TENDER, 'exciting to commiseration,' cp. ''tender objects,"
Tro.&Cr. IV.5.I06. SF 58 THE BRAINES corresponds to MN.E. 'its brains'; cp. note on
1.2.6. SO SWORN E TO: "to swear to" in EL. E. is 'to swear to do'; cp. "you swore to
that," i.e. not to see ladies, L. L. L. 1. 1.53* The verse has an extra impulse after the
pause. It has been urged that vv. 50-52, 58, 59 refer to a scene or scenes that have been
cut out of or lost from the play, since the action which they describe is too important to
have been overlooked by Shakspere ; see' Jahrbuchderdeutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft,'
I.I45ff. But this is not likely: we have already seen that in 1. 3* 1 30, where the notion
of Duncan's murder is first presented, it is not in the light of a new and unexpected
temptation, if Shakspere's words are clearly understood in their EL. signification. We
have seen, too, how Shakspere is prone to represent only culminating points of interest ;
that successions of time and place are not connected in his work, sometimes not even
logical : e.g. in Ham. 1. 1 , at the beginning of an apparently continuous dialogue, it is twelve
o'clock ; thirty-nine lines later it is one. The imagination is not a logical faculty, and
often in Shakspere successions of time and place as in a dream blend into one another
to make complete pictures rather than successive series. Here, therefore, there is no
real inconsistency : a thought is simply represented in a new light, turning, as it were, a
new facet for us to look upon. Indeed, to have represented in action what is here left to
the imagination would have
ACT I
SCENE VII 59-72
MACBETH
If we should faile?
LADY MACBETH
We faile?
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And wee ? le not fayle. When Duncan is
asleepe,
Whereto the rather shall his
layes
hard
journey
Soundly invite him, his two chamberlaines
Will I with wine and wassell so convince,
That memorie, the warder of the braine,
Shall be a fume, and the receit of reason
A lymbeck onely: when in swinish sleepe
Their drenched natures lyes as in a death,
What cannot you and I performe upon
Th' unguarded Duncan ? What not put upon
His spungie officers, who shall bearethe guilt
Of our great quell?
phrases which in EL. E. were
evidently regarded as interrogative — as they really are — and were therefore punctuated
with an interrogation-point, though in modern printing they require a mark of exclamation.
Both the query-mark and the exclamation-point were originally variations of the semi-
51
interfered with the dramatic
interest of the play and have
marred its unity, for the mur-
der of Duncan is its starting-
point, not its end. Shakspere
magnifies the awful horror of
the deed by continually shift-
ing its outlines, else it would
find a fixed lodgement in our
imaginations and become a
vulgar crime. We are never
allowed to see its real face : it
is a deed of darkness which
we see as through a glass
darkly.
SF59 The Folio punctuation
of Lady Macbeth's answer is
a question-mark, which mod-
ern editors, following Rowe,
alter to an exclamation-point.
The printer of FO. I makes
but sparing use of the ex-
clamation-point, setting in its
stead sometimes an interro-
gation-point, sometimes a
period or colon. Most of the
former cases, however, are in
such phrases as" Hownow?"
v.28or "What hoa?" II. 2. 9,
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
colon and early printers do not sharply distinguish between them. Here, however, it
is better to retain the Folio pointing, for WE FAILB seems rather to be a surprised
inquiry at the notion of failure than 'the calm deduction of a mind which, having
weighed all circumstances, is prepared, without loss of confidence in itself, for the worst
that can happen,' as Steevens would have it. It is not the effect of failure on her own
mind, but how the possibility of it is affecting Macbeth, that Lady Macbeth is con-
cerned about, and in her assured confidence she echoes her husband's words with an
ironical rising inflection : she will not contemplate the notion — the thing is too easy
for failure, if only Macbeth will not play the "poor cat in th' addage " — how easy she
goes on to show. Moreover, she knows that they dare not fail: "th' attempt and not
the deed Confounds us" II. 2. II. It is better, therefore, to take the words as they
are printed in FO. I, 'Are you thinking of failure?' with heavy secondary stress on WE,
"We faile?" SF60 BUT, if we follow the punctuation of the Folio for "We faile?"
is probably used in its adverbial sense of 'only,' and not as an adversative conjunction;
cp. v. 6. Steevens thought that the reference in this verse was to the screwing up of
a stringed instrument. But there is an incongruity of association between the tuning
of a musical instrument and Macbeth's nerving himself to his task — an incongruity
that Shakspere would have avoided. It is more likely that Lady Macbeth is thinking
of the cross-bow rack or gaffle, a small detachable winch to draw the string of the bow
to its STICKING PLACE, the action of which would naturally be connoted by SCREW.
There seems to be an echo of this in Macbeth's "bend up" in v. 79. Cp., too, "As
[i.e. as if] he had seen 't or beene an instrument To vice you to V Wint. T. 1. 2.41 5 and
"Wrench up thy power to th' highest" Cor. 1.8. II (cited by CI. Pr.) and "I partly know
the instrument That screwes me from my true place" Tw. N. V. 1. 125 (cited by Steevens).
The rhythm "And wee 'le_n&t_f4y!e_L' reflects the tensity of Lady Macbeth's purpose: if
"We faile" is a mere declaration, and not an inquiry, the rhythm is difficult to catch,
for too much stress thus falls upon NOT. SF 62 WHERETO, 'to which'; M.E. and
EL. E. frequently made use of the adverb where MN.E. prefers the relative phrase.
RATHER has here its original sense of 'earlier,' and the instrumental article THE seems
to be used as in III. 1.26, 'earlier than usual.' SF 63 SOUNDLY, 'heartily,' cp. "love me
soundly" Hen. 5 V. 2. 105. SF 64 WASSELL, 'carousing,' cp. "Antony, leave thy lascivious
wassailes" Ant.&Cl. 1.4.56. CONVINCE, 'overpower,' cp. N.E.D. I and IV. 3- 1 42. SF 65
In mediaeval psychology the MEMORIE had its "seat and organ" in "the back part of the
brain," fantasy or imagination in the middle "cell," the "Common sense," i.e. sensation,
in the fore part, cp. Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' Li. 2.7. Vicary's division is somewhat dif-.
ferent : "Common sense" in the fore part; in the one part of this same ventricle is the
"vertue that is called Fantasie"; in the other part is the "Imaginative vertue"; "in the
middest sel" the "cogitative or estimative vertue; for he rehearseth, sheweth, declareth
and deemeth those things that be offered unto him [hence Shakspere's "receit of reason"
v. 66] by the other"; in the third ventricle "the vertue Memorative." Comenius,
'Janua' 343, in giving the same psychology adds, "This [i.e. the fore part] in sleep time
is stopped up by moist steams : hence cometh insensibleness." But it is not clear
why Shakspere calls memory the WARDER OF THE BRAINE: that would rather
be sensation — the "five wittes" are sometimes spoken of in mediaeval literature as the
"watchmen" in the foremost cell. There is a similar difficulty in L.L.L. IV. 2. 70, where
the fancy is referred to as "memorie," but there the confusion may be intentional: it is
Holofernes that is speaking. The quotation from Comenius, too, points to the senses as
being overpowered by the "fume." SF 66 FUMES were vapours produced in the body
and rising to the brain : we still speak of the fumes of alcohol mounting to one's brain.
Here memory itself becomes a fume, cp. "The charme dessolves apace . . their rising
senses Begin to chace [i.e. drive away] the ignorant [i.e. blinding, keeping in ignorance, cp.
note to 1.5.58] fumes that mantle Their clearer reason" Temp. V.I. 64. RECEIT, 'place
of receipt,' 'treasury,' still familiar to us from Matt. IX. 9> "the receipt of custom" ; cp.,
52
I
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
too, "The most convenient place that I can th'nke of For such receipt of learning is
Black- Fryers" Hen.8 II. 2. 139- ^ 67 LYMBECK, 'an alembic or still,' cp. N.E.D. 'alem-
bic': 'their confused brains shall collect not ideas but fumes.' SF 68 DRENCHED, 'sub-
merged,' 'drowned,' cp. N.E.D. 6 and "till you have drench'd our steeples" Lear III. 2. 3.
NATURE frequently in EL.E. stands for 'life,' 'vitality,' cp. II. 2. 7. A DEATH does not
mean 'a kind of death,' but is an instance of the common EL. use of the indefinite article
before abstract nouns where in MN.E. it is omitted; cp. "I require a clearenesse"
III. I. 1 33? "the waight of present miserie pressing him, the dread of a death, and
a death attending him" Purchas, 'Pilgrimage' V, p. 33, and "but with a crossebowe
sent a death to the poore beast" Sidney, 'Arcadia' p. 40. SF 70 PUT UPON, 'accuse
of,' cp. "put on him what forgeries you please" Ham. II.I.I9. SF 72 QUELL, 'mur-
der/_usually a verb in EL. E. ;
SCENE VII
ACT I
72-82
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children onely;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd,
When we have mark'd with blood those
sleepie two
Of his owne chamber, and us'd their very
daggers,
That they have don't?
cp. Florio, "mazzare, to kill,
to slay, to quell," and "syth
I did father quell" New-
ton, 'Thebais' (Sp. Soc,
p. 94); in Comenius, 'Janua'
669, " manslayers" is glossed
"manquellers, assassinats."
The word seems to be slightly
euphemistic, like Macbeth's
"taking off" in v. 20.
SF72 Macbeth's amazement
at his wife's courage is admir-
ably reflected in the rhythm,
contrasting as it does with
the rapidly moving verses
which precede. SF 73 UN-
DAUNTED is another of those
EL. adjectives in -ed, 'un-
dauntable,' 'fearless.' In
Upon his death? EL.E. METTLE and "metal"
had not yet been distinguished
by different forms, and the
word still retained its mean-
ing of ' material,' ' constituent
elements'; cp. " I am made
of that selfe-same mettle as
my sister" Lear- 1:1.71.
SF74 RECEIV'D, 'believed';
cp. " It is reported to them
for my humour and they re-
ceive it so" Ben Jonson,
'Silent Woman' III. I ; cp., too, Meas. 1.3- 16. With a touch of vulgar criminality Mac-
beth begins to give active support to Lady Macbeth's plot. *1F 77 OTHER is still an
adverb in EL. E.,' otherwise.' SF 78 AS, rather 'when' than 'since.' RORE in EL. E. was
a more dignified term for loud weeping and sobbing than it is now ; cp. " Did I say before,
they began to weep? I can assure you when she had done they roared outright" ' Patient
Grissel,' 1 6 1 9, Per. Soc, p. 31 ; cp. Oth. V. 2. 1 98. SF 79 SETTLED, 'determined'; cp.
"No he's setled, Not to come off, in his displeasure" Hen.8 III. 2. 22. The verse has an
extra impulse after the pause unless I AM is to be read "I 'm": the printer of FO. I does
not always mark contractions with an apostrophe, e.g. IV. 2. 16, IV. 3- 149- SF80 The
53
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefes and clamor rore
>on his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporall agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart
doth know.
EXEUNT
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
CORPORALL AGENTS are, of course, 'the "mortal instruments/' the spirits which exe-
cute the will of the ego. ^81, 82 To finish a scene with a couplet, as here, was a common
practice with Elizabethan dramatists, cp. e.g. the end of the next scene and of II. 3, II. 4,
III. 2, IV.3 r etc. The effect of such verses, after the freedom of Shakspere's easy-flowing
blank verse, is unfortunately mechanical ; scholars, therefore, forgetting the taste of the
time, are prone to consider them spurious. The action closes with Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth returning to the banqueting-room.
The first act has presented the murder of Duncan as a "thought," an idea assuming the
aspects of a malicious purpose. In the prologue scene it is foreshadowed as a malicious
intention of the powers of evil brooding over and controlling, through their witch instru-
ments, the action which is to follow. Scene II prepares for its lodgement in Macbeth's
mind by creating for him the opportunity of power. Scene III gives the idea a lodgement
there by playing on the ambitions of a man naturally superstitious. Scene IV furnishes
the opportunity of place for its execution. Scene V reveals it as a malicious design
already in the mind of Lady Macbeth, but now ineradicably fixed there by her invocation
of the powers of evil. Scene VI brings together the two "thoughts" — Lady Macbeth's
and her husband's — and welds them into one consuming ambition that will devastate the
soul of each, and drive them both to madness.
The harmonious unity of this first act is often missed because the modern reader is
quite unaware of the seriousness and awful reality which demoniacal possession assumed
in the Elizabethan mind. To get the full significance of the tragedy one must remember
that the reality and malignity of supernatural influences for evil was doubted by few in
Shakspere's time. Even Bacon, despite the scientific acuteness of his mind, has this
to say about them : " But the sober and grounded enquiry into the nature of angels and
spirits which may arise out of the passages of Holy Scriptures, or out of the gradations
[i.e. processes] of Nature, is not restrained [i.e. subject to restriction] ; so that of de-
generate and revolted spirits ; the conversing with them or the employment of them is
prohibited: much more any veneration toward them. [Macduff in V.8. 14 speaks of
Macbeth as having continually served the devil.] But the contemplation or science of
their nature, their power, their illusions, either by scripture or reason, is a part of spiri-
tuall wisdome " 'Advancement of Learning, The Second Booke' (I633)> p- 136.
It is only from such a point of view that one can clearly grasp the magnificent unity
of Shakspere's involution. For the tragedy lies in the spiritual significance and fatal
consequence of Macbeth's yielding to the powers of evil, not in the action itself. And,
like Hamlet, Macbeth is a tragedy of character, not a tragedy of events. Its evolution
does not begin until Act III. Act I, therefore, is but the preparatory stage, despite the
fact that it is so crowded with cumulating detail, and its theme is the 'thought' of Dun-
can's murder, the moving cause of Macbeth's insanity. Shakspere has embodied this
theme in Macbeth's words in 1.3- 139-142. Act II will have for its theme the act of
murder and its immediate consequence.
54
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THE SECOND ACT
SCENE I: INVERNESS: THE COURT OF MACBETH'S CASTLE
ENTER BANQUO AND FLEANCE WITH A TORCH BEFORE HIM
1-9
BANQUO
OW goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE. Themooneis downe; I have not heard
the clock.
BANQUO. And she goes downe at twelve.
FLEANCE. I take r t, f t is later, sir.
BANQUO. Hold, take my sword: there f s hus-
bandry in heaven,
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavie summons lyes like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleepe : mercif ull powers,
Restraine in me the cursed thoughts that
nature
Gives way to in repose.
EXIT FLEANCE
As usual, there is no place
direction in FO. I, but from
what follows there can be lit-
tle doubt that Banquo and
Fleance are crossingthequad-
rangle or inner court of the
castle on the way to bed ; see
the introductory note to
Scene II. The stage direction of modern editions reads "bearing a torch," etc. ; but TORCH in
EL. E. frequently means ' link-boy,' ' torch-bearer/ cp. introductory note to 1. 7. SF 4 HOLD
. . HEAVEN is two verses in FO. I, the first ending at SWORD. The words are addressed to
Fleance. That Banquo parts with his sword may be an evidence of "confidence in the in-
tegrity of his host " (CI. Pr.), or merely a suggestion to the audience that he intends to retire
for the night. HUSBANDRY, 'careful management/ N. E. D. 4 b : " If you suspect my hus-
bandry . . Call me before th'exactest auditors" Timon II. 2. 164. It is one of those homely
associations such as occurs in "blanket of the dark" 1.5.54. SF 5 THEIR is an instance of
M.E. and EL. E. syntax by which the third personal pronoun is used indefinitely with ref-
erence to an antecedent implied, not expressed. THEE: in EL. E. the personal pronoun
is frequently used to denote the person interested in the action ; cp. " Kalander . . never
having heard [EL. E. for 'heard of '] him his beloved guestes" Sidney, 'Arcadia' p. 324, and
"That Blaunche be sent me home again" ' Faire Em' III. 5-46. The construction is fre-
quent in an imperative idiom where, according to MN.E. notions of syntax, the reflexive
pronoun of the second person takes the place of a subject ; see Schmidt for instances,
"stay thee," "hark thee" (cp. dial, "harkee"), "run thee," etc., and Spies, 'zur Geschichte
der englischen Pronomens' (Halle, 1897), pp. 152 ff. THAT is probably a reference to his
dagger. Fleance goes out here, leaving his father to walk in the courtyard for a while before
going to bed. There is no EXIT FLEANCE in FO. I ; but that Fleance does not hear the
colloquy between Macbeth and his father is evident from the EXIT BANQUO after v. 30,
55
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
and from the fact that Macbeth would hardly be so rude as to ignore Fleance's presence
in saying "good night." It is more likely that the exit has been omitted here than that the
EXIT BANQUO after v. 30 is a printer's error for " Exeunt Banquo and Fleance" ; the omis-
sion is rendered still more probable by the fact that v. 5 ends the page in FO. I : thus EXIT
FLEANCE would have come in the lower right-hand corner, and to the proof-reader would
have looked like a mistaken catchword. In Lear 1.4.362 (FO. I, p. 289) an "Exit Oswald"
has obviously been lost after v. 362, which ends the page, only the catchword "and" stand-
ing in the corner. SF 6 HEAVIE, 'overpowering,' N.E. D. 26; cp. "the heavy offer of it
[i.e. sleep] "Temp. II. 1. 194. SF 7 WOULD NOT, 'do not want to.' SF 9 GIVES WAY TO
means 'gives rein to,' not 'succumbs to'; cp. "gave him way, In all his owne desires"
Cor. V. 6.32. In EL. psychology the "Phantasie" was "evermore stirring" (Comenius,
' Janua' 343)- That Banquo's fantasy has been working on the meeting with the weird sis-
ters we are explicitly told in v. 20 ; that these fancies are not unaccompanied by tempta-
tion we gather from the word "cursed," and at the same time we learn that Banquo has
put the temptation behind him. Alone with his son in Macbeth's castle, clearly realizing
on what a slender thread the life of the king hangs J knowing, as he alone does, the secret
of Macbeth's ambition ; having noticed, too, in all probability, Macbeth's departure from
the hall and his return with Lady Macbeth, and realizing that he has only to give his sup-
port to Macbeth's interests to ensure the kingly honour for his son — amid such surround-
ings there is little wonder that he should be anxious. His anxiety is reflected in the dia-
logue as it is in that of the opening scene of Hamlet — short, tense sentences relating to the
time of night. The reader, in thinking of Macbeth's entrance, must remember that " Enter"
in EL. stage directions means
merely that the actor noted Af^TTT QrCMR I a t 7
begins his part. Macbethand AU [ U dUttiNE, 1 )-U
his servant are supposed to be „ „ „
unrecognizable in the gloom ENTE * MACBETH AND A SERVANT WITH A TORCH
until quite near to Banquo; Give me my sword : who T s there? 9> 10
cp. Ham. 1. 1. 14, where mod-
ern editors displace the " En- MACBETH
ter Horatio and Marcellus" : A friend. n
in FO. I it comes before Fran-
cisco's "Who 's there?" BANQUO
_ _, , What, sir, not yet at rest? the kind 's a bed.
Sr 10 Banquo hears some one tt 1 1 1 • 111 1
approaching, and in his ner- He hath beene in unusuall pleasure, and
vousness calls for his sword : Sent forth £jreat largesse to your offices:
either Fleance returns mo- Thi diamQnd he ^ reetes wife wit hall,
mentanlyto give it to him and © J
goes to bed when he discovers By th ? name of most kind hostesse; and
that the stranger is their host, shut UD
or Banquo's words are merely T * ,
a realization of his defenceless ln measurelesse content.
position. SFI3 The verse di-
vision of FO. I is He . . pleasure, And . . offices, This . . withall, By . . hostesse, And . .
content. PLEASURE, cp. " I am full of pleasure" Temp. III. 2. 125. SF 14 LARGESSE is
plural in EL. E., like " richesse," and means ' gifts.' OFFICES, ' the apartments of domestics,'
cp. "empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walles, unpeopel'd offices, untroden stones" Rich. 2
1.2.68; it is not a misprint for "officers," as Malone thought. The king intends to
leave on the morrow. SF 15 WITHALL, cp. 1.3-57 and note. SF 1 6 "By the name" of
FO. I is probably the printer's error for BY TH' NAME. SHUT UP (FO. 2, FO. 3, FO. 4
"shut it up") used intransitively for going to bed has not yet been found in EL. E. In
Marston, 'Antonio and Mellida' V. 1. 150, occurs the locution "shut up night": "I was
56
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
mighty strong in thought we should have shut up night with an old comedy." It may
be that in EL. E. u shut up " with a similar connotation was used intransitively, as in " Actions
begunne in glory shut up in shame" (cited by Cent. Diet, from Bishop Hall's Contem-
plations II. 2, published in 1 6 1 2) : the change in tense would not be unusual in EL. E., cp.
note to 1.2. 15- But it is quite possible that AND SHUT UP, etc., has been misplaced, be-
longing after PLEASURE, v. 1 3 ; see the verse division of the Folio. The fact that the two
passages begin with the same word makes this likely. Putting it in as an independent
verse after "pleasure," omitting the "and" before "sent forth," or making it exchange
places with "and . . offices," gives us excellent sense. SHUT UP IN will then have its
EL. meaning of 'restricted to' ; cp. "shut us up in wishes," i.e. confine us to expressions
of goodwill, All's W. I.I. 197, and "So shall I cloath me in a fore'd content, And shut my
selfe up in [i.e. confine myself
jfT TT crcur; t 1 n n a to ] some other course To For-
AC1 11 bCbNb 1 17-24 t une'salmes"Oth. III.4. 120.
Such an idea sounds like Dun-
MACBETH can,cp.I.4.2I ; butwearenot
Bein^ unprepar'd warranted in makingthealter-
O-ll 1 .1 i. J r j. ation until we are sure that
ur will became the servant to defect, „ shut up „ in EL> E> cannot
Which else should free have wrought. mean "retired for the night."
BANQUO <ff 18 DEFECT in EL. E. means
All T S Well. 'faultiness,' cp. N. E. D. 3.
I dreamt last nidht of the three weyward ^ ***** !**■*!», con-
J notes iaultlessly as well as
Sisters: ' unrestrainedly,' cp. 1.3. 155.
To you -they have shew'd some truth. wrought is the preterite of
'work,' as in 1. 3. 149>and here
MACBETH means 'had its due effect';
I thinke not of them: cp. "The better shall my pur-
•v . 1 1 pose worke on him" Oth.
Yet, when we can entreat an houre to serve, 1.3.397. <|F2i shew'd 'dis-
We would spend it in some words upon that closed,' 'told,' cp. "Shew me
businesse, ^ thought" Oth.in.3.116.
T „ '. . nanquo evidently thinks it
II you would graunt the time. wise for him to be the first to
broach the subject which he
knows is uppermost in Macbeth's mind, displaying that "wisdom to act in safety" which
Macbeth remarks on in III. 1.53. This terse dialogue, with its thrust and parry, is a fine
illustration of Shakspere's power to depict the thought behind the word. EL. E. was an
admirable tool for this purpose. The language was then gaining much of its modern ac-
curacy and definiteness of connotation, without yet having lost the richness of the M.E.
vocabulary. Its virility, too, had not yet been impaired by a literary consciousness begot
of grammars and dictionaries, and many direct and forceful idioms which are now become
dialectic or vulgar still remained in good literary usage. And wide as was Shakspere's
range of expression, we must not forget that it lay within the limits of current Elizabethan
idiom. Contemporary critics, though they did not hesitate to say that he borrowed his
matter and padded out his verse, never accused him of unintelligibility. I THINKE NOT
OF THEM, 'I pay no heed to them,' cp. "not a thought but thinkes on dignitie" 2Hen.6
III. 1.338. The word occurs with the same meaning in III. 1. 132, "alwayes thought That
I require a clearenesse," i.e. always bearing in mind, etc. : Macbeth affects indifference,
as in 1.3- 1 19- SF 22 ENTREAT, either 'induce,' 'get' (N.E.D. 10 a) with 'to serve' as
complementing infinitive, or used in the sense of 'passing the time,' cp. " My lord, we must
57
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
intreat the time alone" Rom.&Jul. IV. 1.40. SF 23 WE is taken by CI. Pr. as referringto Mac-
beth, who adopts "the royal we by anticipation." But such an explanation is awkward;
"consent" below would have been far more likely to occasion such a usage. In view of
Macbeth's affected indifference in v. 21 and of his evident desire to entrap Banquo into
compromising overtures, it is much more likely that WE is the ordinary plural, and WE
WOULD expresses merely futurity as the apodosis of " If you would grant." The rhythm
requires the contracted form "we'd"; it is probable that the contraction was over-
looked by the printer, as is often the case in EL. texts, e.g. "I would scratch that face"
Drayton/ Heroical Epistles,'
ACT II SCENE I
24-30
leysure.
Sp.Soc.,p.27I. BUSINESSE
in the 1 7th century means
'topic,' N.E. D. 17, but per-
haps here merely 'matter,' as
understood by N.E.D. 18.
SF24 KIND'ST, cp. note
on 1.5.2. SF25 Macbeth's
CLEAVE TO MY CONSENT
seems to be equivocal, cp.
note to I. 3-155* he may
mean 'if you should concur
with my opinion,' cp. N. E. D. 6
and " By my consent wee 'le
even let them alone" I Hen. 6
1.2.44; or 'if you will join
my party,' N. E. D. 7, inviting
Banquo to enter into con-
spiracy with him, but leaving
himself the loophole of es-
cape if Banquo refuses. He
intends to learn, too, whether
Banquo'sinterest inthematter
is philosophical or personal.
Many foolish conjectures have been proposed for CONSENT in order to make the phrase
into MN.E. WHEN 'T IS, i.e. when the time comes; the line division of the Folio is
If . . consent, When . . you. SF 26 HONOR, also, is a purposely vague word. It may
have, if the words are jestingly taken, its EL. meaning of 'reputation,' 'it will redound to
your credit,' cp. "to cause honour or make men much esteeme and reverence one"
Baret, 'Alvearie' s.v. ; or it may have its meaning of 'rank,' 'position,' as in 1.6. 17,
if the words are seriously taken. Banquo, by a platitudinous and non-committal answer,
quite evades the issue that Macbeth has raised. NONE, i.e. honor, integrity, or rank.
SF 27 IT, i.e. reputation, position. STILL, 'always.' ^ 28 FRANCHIS'D seems here to
refer to moral freedom, but in N.E. D.I b no instance later than 1483 is given for the
word with this meaning. Banquo seems to be thinking of the word in association with
HONOR in its feudal sense, 'lordship,' and to mean to say that if he is to have honours
they must be honours of "free tenure" as far as Macbeth is concerned. He carries the
notion further in ALLEGEANCE CLEARE; cp. Cowel, 1687, s.v. 'ligeancy,' " Ligeancy is
such a duty or fealty as no man may owe to more than one Lord, and therefore it is
most commonly used for that duty and allegiance which every good subject owes to his
Liege Lord the King" : he cites the' Grand Customary of Normandy,' cap. I3> to show that
the duty of loyal vassals to their lord is " ei se in omnibus innocuos [cp. Shakspere's " cleare "]
exhibere, nee ei adversantium partem in aliquo confovere." It has long since been pointed
out that Shakspere was not ignorant of the technical forms and verbiage of English.
58
BANQUO
At your kincTst
MACBETH
If you shall cleave to my consent, when 't is,.
It shall make honor for you.
BANQUO
So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keepe
My bosome franchis'd and allegeance cleare,
I shall be counsail'd.
MACBETH
Good repose the while!
BANQUO
Thankes, sir: the like to you!
EXIT BANQUO
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
law, and his representation of Banquo's thought shows marvellous skill in implicating a par-
ticular situation in general legal terms. SF 29 TO BE COUNSAIL'D is an EL. phrase mean-
ing 'to take advice,' cp. u pray be counsail'd," i.e. take my advice, Cor. III. 2.28. Banquo's
words show a wisdom, not
ACT II
SCENE I
31-43
only to act in safety, but to
speak in safety, and Macbeth
is little wiser than he was at
first : he knows Banquo's
"royalty of nature," but he
does not know how deep Ban-
quo's suspicions are. SF 30
Modern editors here read
" Exeunt Banquo and Fle-
ance," cp. note to v. 5.
^31 BID isusedinitse.N.E.
sense of ' ask.' The omission
of "that" in EL. E. where
modern idiom requires its
presence is not unusual ; cp.
1.6. 13 and "Obedience bids
I should not bidagen " Rich. 2
I. I. 163. DRINKE, a night
drink or posset, like that re-
ferred to in II. 2. 6. That it
was customary to take them
before goingtobedisshownby
Merry W. 1. 4. 8 and V. 5- 1 80.
Cp., too, "Andrew Boorde
[commends as a remedy
against terrible dreams] a
good draught of strong drink
before i one goes to bed"
Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.' II. 2. 5. It is probable that Macbeth intends Banquo to hear these
words as he leaves him for the night in order to give him the impression that he is going
at once to bed, as well as to afford his servant a natural reason for leaving him alone.
SF 36 FATALL in EL.E. means 'prophetic,' N.E.D. 4 b; cp. "fatall bell-man" II. 2. 3 and
"fatall raven" Titus II. 3. 97; this seems to be its meaning here, cp. vv.42,43- SENSI-
BLE, 'perceptible,' cp. Cotgrave, "perceptible, perceivable, sensible," and Florio, "percet-
tibile, perceivable, sensible." SF 39 Macbeth's explanation of the phenomenon is similar
to that in Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.' 1.3-3: 'As Lord Mercutius proves, by reason of inward
vapours and humours from the blood, choler, &c, diversely mixed, they apprehend and see
outwardly, as they suppose, divers images which indeed are not. . . Corrupt vapours, mount-
ing from the body to the head and distilling again from thence to the eyes,' are the causes
of these visions. It is the Aristotelian explanation of hallucinations, " Mira vis concitat
humores, ardorque vehemens mentem exagitat" (i.e. a strange energy stirs up the humours
and oppressive heat excites the brain) : Macbeth echoes the mediaeval phraseology.
But Shakspere himself all through the tragedy represents Macbeth's fits as being due
to hallucinations put in his brain by "instruments of darkness," quite the view Burton
takes in ' I may not deny that oftentime the devil deludes them, takes opportunity to
suggest and represent vain objects. . . I should rather hold with Avicenna and his asso-
ciates that such symptoms proceed from evil spirits which take all opportunities of
humours, decayed or otherwise, to pervert the soul of man.' Shakspere never states
59
MACBETH
Goe bid thy mistresse, when my drinke is
ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
EXIT SERVANT
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me
clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatall vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the minde, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed braine?
I see thee yet, in forme as palpable,
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was
And such an instrument I was to use.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
this explanation explicitly : the nearest approach to it is in V. 8. I9ff. ; but the educated part of
Shakspere's audience no doubt saw the connection between Macbeth's hallucinations and
his traffic with the witches. SF 42 MARSHALL'ST, 'leadest,'cp. " Reason becomes the mar-
shall to my will" Mids. II. 2. 120. SF43 TO USE: in EL. E. the substantive verb followed
by the infinitive was often employed to express necessity; cp. "Minos is not to learne
how," etc., Jonson, 'Poetaster' II. 4, and "that ancient painter . . being to represent the
griefe of the by standers . . drew," etc., Florio's Montaigne 1.2, and "I am to breake with
thee of some affaires" Two Gent. III. I.59« Macbeth's words in MN. E. suggest that he
has been directed to use a dagger: in EL. E. they mean that he is obliged to use one.
<ff 44 ARE MADE THE FOOLES O', 'are made the laughing-stock of; the definite ar-
ticle is omitted in the corresponding MN.E. phrase. SF 46 Hafts of weapons were fre-
quently made of boxwood, and DUDGEON, whose earliest English meaning is 'boxwood,'
cp. N.E.D. I, is used here for the haft itself. From Cotgrave's " dague a roelles, a Scot-
tish dagger, or dudgeon haft dagger," one would infer that the word in Shakspere's time
had special reference to a Scottish weapon. GOUTS, 'drops' in EL. E. ; but from a mis-
understanding of this passage the word has taken on the meaning of 'splotches' in MN.E.,
see N.E.D. 5- The verb "are" is often omitted in EL. E. SF 47 SO is more widely used in
EL. E. than in MN.E. to represent a preceding sentence; cp. "Where was she born? In
Argier. O, was she so?" Temp. 1. 2. 259- SF 48 THE, probably 'my.' BUSINESSE, either
'task,' N.E.D.II, or 'purpose,' N.E.D.IO. INFORMES, 'takes visible shape,' N.E.D.2.
*ff 49 HALFE-WORLD, 'hemisphere'; cp. Comenius, 32, "the half-ball," and Cotgrave,
s.v. horison, "half-sphere." The stress halfe-world seems unusual to modern ears; but
Jonson's "the sun as loth to part from this halfe-spheare" ' Entertainments,' ed. 1640, p. 85,
shows that it was normal in EL. E. Cp., also, MN. E. "man-kind" with EL. E." man-kind."
"Sweet-heart," "life-blood," "like-wise," "fore-father" occur in the verse of good EL.
writers. SF 50 ABUSE, 'deceive,' a common EL. meaning of the word; cp. "Abuses me
to damne me" Ham. II. 2. 632. SF5I The fact that there is lacking to the verse an un-
stressed impulse before the pause has exposed it to various emendations which supply
such a word as "now" before WITCHCRAFT, or turn SLEEPE to 'sleeper.' See note
to 1. 1.7. To CELEBRATE is 'to perform with ritual,' N. E.D.I. SF 52 HECCAT: the
word is not evidence of Shak-
spere's ignorance of the clas-
sics, but merely an illustra-
tion of the varying forms
which classical proper names
assumed in EL. E. ; some-
times they were M.E. ver-
sions of O. FR. words, some-
times these were altered to
be more in accord with their
Latin originals, and some-
times they entirely gave place
to the Latin originals. We find
Ixion, Pactolus, Cinthea in a
poetic miscellany of the time
of James I ; Atrides rhyming
with "brides" in John Hey-
wood's Marriage Triumph ;
Delphes in North's Plutarch ;
Helenie for Helen in Robin-
son's Handefull of Pleasant
Delites. Hecate was the
ACT II
SCENE I
44-52
Mine eyes are made the fooles o' th' other
sences,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There ? s no such
thing:
It is the bloody businesse, which informes
Thus to mine eyes. Now o're the one halfe-
world
Nature seemes dead, and wicked dreames
abuse
The curtain'd sleepe: witchcraft celebrates
Pale Heccat's off rings; and withered murther,
60
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT II
SCENE I
53-64
Alarum'd by his centinell, the wolfe,
Whose howle f s his watch, thus with his
stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing slides, towards his
designe
Moves like a ghost. Thou sowre and firme-
set earth
Heare not my steps, which way they walke,
for feare
very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now sutes with it. Whiles I threat,
he lives:
Words to the heat of deedes too cold breath
patron goddess of classic and
medieval witchcraft ; cp. Jon-
son's note to "three-formed-
star" in ' Masque of Queenes,'
p. 1 68, " Hecat : . . She was
beleev'd to governe in witch-
craft and is remembered in
all their [cp. note to II. 1.5]
invocations." WITHER'D,
' colorless,' 'ghastly,' cp.
"These eyes . . shall see thee
withered, bloody, pale, and
dead" lHen.6 IV. 2. 38.
A BELL RINGS
I goe, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
SF53 ALARUM'D, 'aroused,'
Thy very stones prate of my where-about, C P- " m y best alarum'd
spirits" Lear II. 1.55. CEN-
TINELL is an illustration of
a common M. E. and e. N. E.
use of initial c before a palatal
vowel to represent the sound
of s; MN.E. 'city,' 'cele-
[ives. brate,' 'century,' etc., are in-
stances where it has been
preserved. SF 54 WATCH
seems in EL. E. to have been
applied to any instrument for
telling time. In Phr. Gen.
" a watch or clock " is glossed
horarium ; this is followed by
EXIT "pocket watch"; cp. "A
woman that is like a Ger-
mane clocke . . beinga watch But beingwatcht that it may still goe right" L.L.L. III. 1. 194.
In "Give me a watch" Rich. 3 V. 3.63, the word appears from the context to mean a
'watch-candle.' To speak of the wolf-howls as murder's watch is not, therefore, an
inapposite figure in EL.E. A similar association of ideas occurs in 2Hen. 6 IV. 1.2 : "And
now loud houling wolves arouse the jades That dragge the tragicke melancholy night." But
it is possible that EL. WATCH meant 'watchword,' cp. "an alarum, alarm, or watchword
shewing the nearnesse of theenemies" Phr. Gen. ; if this were the case, the passage would
echo the phraseology of Lucr. 365 ff. SF55 SLIDES : the "sides" of FO. I seems to be a
misprint : Pope suggested ' strides,' which has been followed by the Cambridge text and is
supported by "stalkes" in Lucr. 365. But 'slides' involves only one confusion, that of
the tall / and //, which were single types: cp. note to 1.6.5. The word in EL. E. con-
noted an even, gliding movement and was applied to the creeping of a serpent or to the
approach of a thief; cp. Cooper, 'Thesaurus,' " lapsus serpentum, the sliding, gliding, or
creeping of a serpent," and Cotgrave, "griller: . . to glide, slip, slide, steal"; "glisser:
to slip; to slide or glide"; " glissade: gliding, sliding"; "glisse: slipped; slid; crept, or
stollen along." This would make the passage echo the phraseology of Lucr. 305, where
Tarquin is a 'creeping thief,' or of v. 362, where he is a 'lurking serpent.' The word is
used as a noun, though in a different sense, in Bacon, who speaks of the "slide and easi-
ness" of Homer's verses, cp. Cent. Diet., 'slide,' n.3- RAVISHING was syncopated in
EL.E. to "rav'shing" (cp. M.E. "parisshe" and "parshe"); the use of the word as an
adjective meaning 'relating to ravishment' has been found fault with: some editors put a
61
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
said
s her
comma after it, making the word a substantive ; others assume a misprint for " Ravishing
Tarquin V ; it has even been proposed to read "with Tarquin's ravishing ideas"! In
M.E. the word seems to have had the meaning of 'rapid/ 'swift' : Chaucer translates
Boethius's rapido turbine by "ravysshynge sweighe," see ' Globe' Chaucer, p. 360. This
meaning may have been preserved in EL. E. Cotgrave, who usually points off different
senses of the same word by a semicolon, has " ravissant, ravishing, ravenous, violent,
greedy, swift." Skinner, 1 67 1, gives among his obsolete words "Ravish" in the sense of
'take,' 'carry,' and notes "ejusdem familiae est Ravishing, quod exp. a swift sway," evi-
dently having in mind Chaucer's phraseology. But in the lack of better evidence we
hardly dare take the word in the sense of 'sweeping,' though enough of this meaning may
have clung to it in Shakspere's time to make the epithet a natural one. SF 56 SOWRE
of FO. I is usually taken for a misprint for "sure" : but if the word be misprinted, it is
much more likely that Shakspere wrote "sowrd," 'deaf.' d was next to e in the EL.
type-case, and "sowrd" would not be an abnormal EL.E. spelling; cp. Coles's Diet., 1713,
"sourd, deaf," and ' Glossographia,' 1707, "surdity, deafness, dulness"; the same gloss
is found in Phillipps, 'New World of Words,' 1678, and in Kersey's Diet., 1708. In EL.E.
the word seems to have been associated with dullness, stupidity; cp. "a surd and earless
generation of men, stupid unto all instruction," Sir Thos. Browne (1605-1682), 'Chris-
tian Martyr' III. 6 (cited from Cent. Diet.). Shakspere elsewhere applies the epithets
"dull" and "sullen" to the earth, and insensibility to sound and motion seems to be the
association in Macbeth's mind : 'hear not and prate not with your echoes.' But EL.E.
"sowre" has a somewhat wider range of association than the MN.E. word; cp. Cotgrave,
" rebarbatif, grim, stern, sowre," and "saturnien, rude, harsh, unpleasant, rough, sowre" ;
"sowre earth" therefore is not such an artificial locution for 'sullen earth' as to make it
quite improbable that the Folio represents the word Shakspere wrote. SF57 HEARE in
EL.E. means 'listen to,' cp. "I stood and heard them" II. 2.24. WAY THEY is "they
may" in FO. I, clearly a misprint, first corrected by Pope. SF58 As WHERE-ABOUT
and "whereabouts" were common EL. forms of the adverb (see 1.5.6), "whereabout" as
a substantive was no more unusual to EL. ears than "whereabouts" is to ours. SF 59
PRESENT, 'attendant,' cp. note to I. 3- 137. SF 60 WHILES, 'whilst,' cp. 1.5.6. SF6I
Macbeth's thought seems to be like that in IV. 1. 146, with TO THE HEAT construed as
indirect object, BREATH taken as meaning 'breathing-space,' 'respite,' N.E.D.8, and
COLD as meaning 'dispiriting,' N.E.D.9. A similar form of expression occurs in "the
great breath that was given the states in the heat of their affairs," cited from Temple, 1673,
in N.E. D. s.v. 'breath.' For the singular verb with plural subject, see note to 1.3- 147.
SF62 THE BELL is probably Lady Macbeth's summons, cp. v. 32; some have taken it
as a reference to the clock striking the hour of two. The scene would have been stronger
if it had ended, as does Scene V of Act I, with the short verse after the couplet : the con-
trasts, too, in INVITE and SUMMON and TO HEAVEN OR TO HELL do not sound like
Shakspere. The thought is similar to that of I Hen. 6 IV. 2. 39: "Harke, harke, the Dol-
phin's drumme, a warning bell, Sings heavy musicke to thy timorous soule, And mine
shall ring thy dire departure out."
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE II
Davenant arranges the action of this scene as continuous with that of Scene I. Some
modern editors also expunge the scene division. But the action marks a separate stage in
the drama, and demands an interval for the imagination to grasp the horror of the impending
calamity, though the actual time interval between the scenes is slight. In III.4:-62 Lady
Macbeth evidently refers to this scene in "This is the ayre-drawne-dagger which you "'
Led you to Duncan." It is likely that Macbeth tells her of his vision when he joins
62
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
at the end of the last scene. In V. 1.35 ff. Lady Macbeth fixes the time of the murder at
two, counting off the strokes of the bell : " One : two : why then 't is time to doo 't." There
is thus a brief time interval between the two scenes: what is more likely, then, than that
this is spent in perfecting the last details of the tragedy as the two sit over their possets
in the hall? The place is usually given as the same as that of the previous scene, viz. "a
courtyard." But the courtyard is so dark that Banquo does not recognize Macbeth in
II. 1. 10 : how, then, can Macbeth say "This is a sorry sight" in II. 2.21 ? If we recall for -
a moment the castle architecture with which Shakspere was familiar, — for instance, that
of Kenilworth, — we have a large courtyard with a flight of steps in one corner leading up
to the sleeping-rooms, such as is shown in the cut of Kenilworth in 1620 which is prefixed
to the New Shaks. Soc.'s ed. of Robert Laneham's Letter. It is in this courtyard that
Scene I takes place. In these quadrangular houses the hall occupied one side of the build-
ing, and out of this, at one end, a flight of steps led to a lobby which opened on the guest-
chamber: see the rooms lettered E and V in the cut referred to above. In the theatre
this lobby would, of course, be the usual gallery or balcony at the back of the stage.
Duncan and his two grooms of the chamber would naturally be lodged in the guest-
chamber; back of this would be the "second chamber," occupied by Donalbaine and an-
other. Such an arrangement would be familiar to an EL. audience, and explains clearly the
action of the scene. At its opening Lady Macbeth is in the hall below, waiting for her
husband's return. She has been in Duncan's chamber to see that all is ready, and has
laid the daggers of the two grooms where Macbeth "could not misse 'em." The grooms
are fast asleep : the doors are open, and she can distinctly hear their drunken snoring.
The servants have retired to their quarters, and there is still late carousing through the
castle: hence the noises that startle the murderers, and Macbeth's imagined "voice"
crying "Sleep no more!" In v. 66 the guilty pair retire to their chamber to wash their
hands and put on their night garments, so that it will look as if they had gone to bed.
SCENE II: THE HALL OF MACBETH'S CASTLE
ENTER LADY MACBETH
1-8
LADY MACBETH
HAT which hath made them
drunk hath made me bold:
What hath quench'd them, hath
given me fire. Hearke ! peace !
It was the owle that shriek'd,
the fatall bell-man,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is
about it,
The doores are open, and the surfeted groomes
Doe mock their charge with snores: I have
drugg'd their possets
That death and nature doe contend about
them,
Whether they live or dye.
sn^/
63
*1r I Thesecondarystresseson
THEMandMEgivetherhythm
tenseness. <lr2 QUENCH'D
has a double sense, 'allayed
their thirst' and 'smothered
their vital energy.' A similar
play of meaning occurs in 'A
bottle of ale to quench me,
rascal, I am all fire' Jonson,
'Bartholomew Fair' II. I. For
the other meaning, cp. " Dost
thou thinke in time she will
not quench?" Cym. I. 5.47.
SF3 FATALL, 'death-boding,'
cp. II. 1.36. BELL-MAN, cp.
"a bellman which goeth be-
fore a corps, praeco feralis "
Phr. Gen. *ff4 For form of
STERN'ST see note to 1.5-3.
\~J<
:)
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT II
SCENE II
9-14
The word is used in its sense
of 'gloomy," grim.' SF 5 SUR-
FETED: probably a dissylla-
ble here; cp. "with forfeited
credits make 'em wish a
change" Massinger, ' Believe
as you List' I.I (Per. Soc,
p. 22), and u Macro, most wel-
come as most coveted friend"
Jonson, ' Sejanus' V. 6. SF7
NATURE, i.e. life, cp. note to
1.7.68.
*ff9 The stage direction
"Enter Macbeth" is usually
removed by modern editors
to a place before MY HUS-
BAND. Macbeth comes into
the lobby — the gallery above
the stage — on his way down
into the hall, but hears a noise
in the second chamber, cp. v. 19, and softly calling WHO 'S THERE? goes back to see if
any one has awakened. The house is full of noises, young courtiers carousing in their
rooms and drunken servants in the "offices," and Macbeth's nerves are strung to the
point of breaking. Lady Macbeth, too, has heard the noise and fears their plans have
miscarried. IF 1 1 They are prepared to explain the 4 act' of the murder, but to be
caught in the ATTEMPT will ruin them. Baret, 'Alvearie' s.v. 'to attempt,' gives "to
assayle a man"; Shakspere was probably thinking of the attempt on the king's life
in its legal aspect. < IF 1 3 'EM is now a colloquial clipping of the pronoun 'them': in
Shakspere's time it was a common literary idiom, frequent in Ben Jonson and the most
careful writers. The contraction is not necessary to the rhythm here, but is found in
FO. I. The representative interest in v. 13 is something more than "very artful," as
Warburton called it : it is a
ENTER MACBETH
MACBETH
Who 's there? what hoa?
LADY MACBETH
Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd
And 't is not done: th r attempt, and not the
deed,
Confounds us. Hearke! I lay'd their daggers
ready,
He could not misse 'em. Had he not re-
sembled
My father as he slept, I had don 't.
startlingly human "touch of
nature," one of those associa-
tions of childhood that flash
into consciousness in a crisis
like this. The stress seems
to fall upon the pronoun I,
the unstressed impulse being
omitted, cp. 1. 1.7. The verse
is independent and not com-
pleted by the words "My
husband" below, as editors
generally print it.
Sri 4 If we take the punctua-
tion of the Folio, MY HUS-
BAND? is an exclamation of
inquiry as Lady Macbeth
hears the sound of approach-
ing footsteps. She does not
know but that some one may
ACT II SCENE II 14-17
My husband?
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not heare
a noyse?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owle schreame and the crickets
cry.
Did not you speake?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
64
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
have awakened and be coming into the hall. The modern punctuation takes the words
as an exclamation of admiration— her woman's recognition that Macbeth is worthy of her
love : a tempting explanation. But we have just had one exhibition of sentiment in Lady
Macbeth: is it likely that Shakspere would add another? If "My husband?" is spoken
before Macbeth comes down, and we take I HAVE DONE THE DEED, i.e. ' It 's over now,'
cp. I. 7. I ff., as muttered by Macbeth to himself as he descends and indistinctly heard
by Lady Macbeth, we have an easy explanation of her "Did not you speake?" He
does not need to tell her that he has done the deed: the bloody daggers and the omi-
nous stillness above speak for themselves. *lr 17 DID NOT YOU SPEAKE? (the phrase
is in its normal EL. E. word order, the parent of our colloquial "Did n't you speak?"):
some editors, not understanding the action of the scene, alter the text so as to give
this speech to Macbeth, and
ACT II
SCENE II
17-26
19
WHEN? as well as NOW? to
Lady Macbeth, pointing DE-
SCENDEDwithaperiod. But
if we may take such liberties
with Shakspere, we might as
well rewrite the play to suit
our own notions, as Davenant
did, and have done with it.
Lady Macbeth is evidently
referring to something that
she heard Macbeth say as he
came into the hall.
IF 17 The sharp, broken dia-
logue makes a panting rhythm
admirably adapted to the
thought : in FO. I each part of
thedialogue between "When"
and " I " makes a separate
verse : if we arrange them to-
gether they fall rather into
two verses, each of four
stresses, with pauses occa-
sionally taking the place of un-
stressed impulses, than into
one verse of five stresses
followed by two broken
verses, as in the Cambridge
Text. Lady Macbeth's I is
the normal EL. spelling of the
particle of assent, now ' aye' ;
the earliest diphthongal spell-
ing in N.E.'D. is dated 1637:
'yes' has taken its place in
literary MN.E. Macbeth does
not answer, his attention
being distracted by another
alarm. SF20 LYES is, of
course, the EL. word for MN.E. 'sleeps.' By the SECOND CHAMBER was probably
meant the one next the chamber of state, either connected with it by a gallery or inde-
pendent as in Kenilworth Castle. If the latter, Macbeth hears the mutterings of the rest-
65
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
I.
MACBETH
Hearke!
Who lyes i' th f second chamber? 20
LADY MACBETH
Donalbaine.
MACBETH
MARKING THE DAGGERS
This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
MACBETH
There 's one did laugh in 's sleepe, and one
cry'd, ' Murther!'
That they did wake each other: I stood and
heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and addrest
them
Againe to sleepe.
LADY MACBETH
There are two lodg'd together.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
less sleepers through the open windows. Lady Macbeth's answer seems to satisfy him
for the moment. He then notices with a start his blood-stained hands, probably holding
up the daggers which he still clutches. MARKING THE DAGGERS is not in FO. I : stage
directions occur but sparsely in EL. dramatic texts. Pope added 'Looks on his hands/
and 'Looking on his hands' is usually given in modern editions. Some direction is un-
doubtedly necessary to point the reference; but 'looking on his hands' is hardly appo-
site when each hand grips its bloody 'instrument'; see v. 48. SF 2 1 THIS IS A SORRY
SIGHT: may not these words be a first realization of his helplessness? — he cannot
do to find out what is the
cause of the noise with these
things in his hands. He then
recalls that when he went
backtowardthe room whence
the sounds came there were
two voices. SF 23 THERE'S,
the EL. contraction for ' there
was,' cp. note to 1.2. 15- SF 24
THAT, 'so that.' STOOD,
'stood still,' cp. "take leave
and stand not to reply"
3Hen.6 IV. 8. 23- HEARD,
'listened to,' cp. II. I. 57.
<ff 25 PRAYERS is dissyllabic
in EL.E.,cp. note to 1.5-40.
THEM, 'themselves': inM.E.
and e. N.E. the pronoun of
the third person is used re-
flexively. ADDREST TO
SLEEPE is an EL. idiom like
that in 'address one's self
to a task,' and is here equiva-
lent to little more than ' went.'
Lady Macbeth's explanation
is natural and matter of fact :
she has assigned two guests
to a single chamber.
SF28 AS, 'as if,' cp. 1.4. II.
HANGMAN in EL.E. means
'executioner,' N. E. D. I ; cp.
" the hangman's axe " Merch.
IV. I. 125. *1F29 LISTNING,
'listening to the expression
of,' cp. "To listen our pur-
pose" Ado III. I.'ll. Mac-
beth's surprise at not being
able to say AMEN to a GOD
BLESSE US is not a note of
hypocrisy in his character, but
due to his failure to realize the
fact that he has sold himself to
the powers of darkness. It
was a popular superstition of
ACT II
SCENE II
27-40
MACBETH
One cry'd ' God blesse us ! ' and * Amen f the
other,
As they had seene me with these hangman's
hands:
Listning their feare, I could not say 'Amen/
When they did say 'God blesse us. f 3°
LADY MACBETH
Consider it not so deepely. 30
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce
'Amen' ?
I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH
These deeds must not be thought
After these wayes: so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
Me thought I heard a voyce cry i Sleep no
more!
Macbeth does murther sleepe' — the inno-
cent sleepe,
Sleepe that knits up the ravel'd sleave of
care,
The death of each dayes life, sore labor's
bath,
Balme of hurt mindes, great nature's second
course,
Chiefe nourisher in life's feast, —
66
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT II
SCENE II
40-47
LADY MACBETH
What doe you meane?
MACBETH
Still it cry'd * Sleepe no more!' to all the
house:
* Glamis hath murther'd sleepe, and therefore
Cawdor
Shall sleepe no more; Macbeth shall sleepe
no more.'
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cry'd? Why, worthy
thane,
You doe unbend your noble strength to thinke
So braine-sickly of things. Goe get some
water,
And wash this filthie witnesse from your
hand.
Shakspere's time that 'God
bless us' was a charm against
sorcery and witchcraft ; cp.
Comenius, 'Janua' 793, "Be-
witchings are driven away by
amulets, spels, or charms, yea
by this one word c Praefiscini,
God forfend, God bless us,
&c, spoken to prevent envie
or witchcraft." Shakspere
again refers to this supersti-
tion in Merch. III. 1. 22, "Let
me say Amen betimes, least
the devill crosse my praier."
There can be little doubt that
Shakpere's audience under-
stood the sleeper's cry as
an invocation of protection
against the devil, and well
knew why it was Amen stuck
in Macbeth's throat. SF 33
THESE in EL.E. is sometimes
equivalent to 'such as these,'
cp. IV.3- 118 and IV.3-74.
DEEDSin EL.E. means 'acts,'
'actions,' without the conno-
tation of importance which we
usually attach to the word, a
sense still retained in phrases like 'in word and deed'; and so Macbeth says in III. 4. 144
that he and his partner are "young in deed," i.e. inexperienced in action. THOUGHT
means 'looked at," considered,' 'regarded': see note to II. 1. 21. SF 34 AFTER THESE
W AYES, 'in this fashion,' cp. "after this downe-right way" Meas.III.2. 112. SO: i.e. 'if we
regard them in this way,' see note to II. 1.47. *1F35 The voice, 'procedingfrom a corrupt
imagination' (Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' 1.3. 1), may have had its origin in the shouting of
drunken revellers in another part of the house. It is another symptom of Macbeth's insanity.
As in 1. 5- 24 ff., there are no quotation-marks in FO. I : but it is not likely that the quotation
extends beyond "more." SF36 INNOCENT is probably "inn'cent," cp. 1. 5. 66. <ff 37
KNITS UP, 'binds up,' cp. "let me teach you how to knit againe This scattred corne into
one mutuall sheaf e" Titus V. 3-70. RAVEL'D, 'entangled,' cp. "as you unwind her love
from him, Least it should ravell and be good to none" Two Gent. III.2.5I. SLEAVE in
EL.E. is the name for unwrought or unspun silk; cp. "thou idle, immateriall skiene of
sleive silke" Tro.&Cr. V. 1.35- In Florio, 1598, sfillazza is glossed "any kind of ravelled
stuffe, or sleave silk," cited by Malone ; CI. Pr. adds "bauellare, to ravell as raw silke."
Both these entries show that "ravelling" was a common association with this "unwrought
silk." Skinner, in attempting to trace sleave silk to Dutch sleyp, says that it is so called
because, before it is knit up, netum sir, it hangs to the ground in a long train, syrmate :
Dutch sleyp is a translation of Latin syrma. The Folio spelling "sleeve" seems to be
abnormal, as the e is generally written as an open vowel in EL. E. ; in Tro.&Cr. the Quarto
spelling is "sleive," the Folio spelling "sleyd," but this latter may have been corrupted
from "slev'd," another form of the adjective. The history of 'sleave' has not yet been
made out, and it may be that a form with close e existed in Shakspere's time. SF 38
DEATH OF EACH DAYES LIFE; cp. "death-counterfeiting sleepe" Mids. III. 2. 364 and
"To see the life as lively mock'd as ever Still sleepe mock'd death" Wint.T. V.3« I9>
67
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Notwithstanding the aptness of the association between sleep and death, Warburton pro-
posed 'birth' and Becket 'breath' for "death," and Jennens conjectured 'grief for "life."
SF 39 BALME OF HURT MINDES: Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.,' says that sleep sometimes is a
sufficient remedy for 'head-melancholy' 'of itself without any other physic' SECOND
COURSE : in ' For to Serve a Lord,' written at the end of the 1 5th or the beginning of the
1 6th century, and printed on p. 366 of the ' Babees Book,' ed. Furnivall, the "second
course" is described as the substantial course of a dinner, with a long list of dishes,
p. 370, preceded by the " potage " and followed by the "dessert." SF 40 NOU RISHER seems
here to be syncopated to "nour'sher." The reader will do well to compare 2Hen.4 III.
1.6 ff. and Hen. 5 IV. 1.274 ff. with this passage. SF 41 As in vv. 22 and 27, Macbeth, in
his rapt state, pays no attention to Lady Macbeth's words. SF 43 The verse echoes the
rhythm of 1.3. 50, and by its repetition also suggests " All haile, Macbeth ! " — a fact which
hardly leaves room for doubt as to where the quotation-marks belong. SF45 TO THINKE
is normal EL. syntax corre-
ACT II SCENE II
sponding to 'by thinking' or
'when you think' ; cp. 1. 5. 32.
SF46 BRAINE-SICKLY: EL.
adjectives in -ly formed ad-
verbs without the suffix. The
word means 'insanely,' not
'foolishly' : "brain-sickness"
is the usual EL. gloss for
mania, "a disease rising of
too much abundance of good
bloud having recourse to the
head, which causeth the partie
to bee braine-sicke and to fall
into furie and rage." SF 47
FILTHIE in EL. E. was not
so strong a word as now, cp.
note to 1. 1. 10, and WIT-
NESSE is the usual term in
EL. E. for 'evidence.'
<ff49 CARRY in this sense
of 'taking to a place' is
now obsolete, N. E. D. 5,
though still used in Virginia.
SF50 SLEEPIE, 'plunged in
sleep,' as in I. 7.75, cp. Cot-
grave, u sommeillant , sleep-
ing; sleepie." SF 56 GUILD:
the redness of gold gave rise
to various word associations
in EL. E. which now seem
unnatural; "to gild" was to
smear with blood, as here and
inJohnII.I.3l6,"allgiltwith
Frenchmen's blood" — this
and other citations in N.E. D.
Id. Duncan's "golden blood"
in II. 3- 1 18 is not afar-fetched
figure, but another instance
48-59
Why did you bring these daggers from the
place?
They must lye there: goe carry them, and
smeare
The sleepie groomes with blood.
MACBETH
I f le goe no more:
I am afraid to thinke what I have done;
Looke on r t againe, I dare not.
LADY MACBETH
Infirme of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the
dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of child-
hood
That feares a painted devill. If he doe bleed,
I T le guild the faces of the groomes withall,
For it must seeme their guilt.
EXIT
KNOCKE WITHIN
MACBETH
Whence is that knocking?
How is 't with me, when every noyse appalls
me?
What hands are here? hah ! They pluck out
mine eyes!
68
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of this same association of ideas — unfortunately overlooked in N. E.D. So Shakspere writes
" guilded pale lookes, Part shame, part spirit renew'd " for flushing of the face in Cym. V. 3. 34,
and "this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em" for the flushing of drink in Temp. V. I. 280.
WITHALL, 'with his blood'; cp. note to 1.3-5. SF57 THEIR GUILT is a grim jest: such
puns were more acceptable to EL. ears than to ours. The same play of meaning is found in
Hen. 5 II. Chor. 26 (cited by Steevens). The insistent knocking, though it cannot be that
which is the subject of the Porter's soliloquy in the scenethatfollows,neverthelessconnects
the two scenes. It further carries on the interest of this scene by affording occasion to con-
tinue the starts and breaks of thought and rhythm which mark its progress. SF 58 HOW I S 'T
WITH ME, 'In what condition am I?' 'What is the matter with me?' cp. "you see how all is,
i.e. the case stands, things go, with me ; quo in loco sint res et fortunae meae vides " Phr.
Gen. s.v. ' how.' The words show that Macbeth as well as his wife is ignorant of the cause
of his delusion. *ff 59 WHAT, i.e. what sort of, cp. 1.3.39. The interjection HAH is often
interrogative in EL. E. and
ACT II SCENE II 60-63 ESS " ?« £»EE3£
w/--ii ii j xt » 11 fore, that HAH belongs with
Will all great Neptune S Ocean wash this the first clause rather than
blood with the second: in FO. I it
Q£ 1_ J "j kt a1_ ■ i J is followed by a colon.
eane irom my hand: JNo, this my hand J
will rather *ff 62 The aptness of the asso-
The multitudinous seas incarnadine, ciation in multitudinous
..... . SEAS perhaps accounts tor
Making the greene one red. the fact that incarnadine
now means 'to stain with
blood': but before Shakspere wrote this passage the word meant 'to make flesh-colored' or
'rose-colored'; cp. N.E. D. s.v. A. The Folios read "incarnardine" : but such a spelling is
anomalous and here probably a mere misprint. SF 63 MAKING THE GREENE ONE RED
has occasioned much difficulty to Shakspere scholars. The phrase is punctuated in the
first three Folios with a comma after ONE; evidently the editors of FO. I took GREENE
ONE together. The fact that " Greene" and " Red" are capitalized in FO. I may be taken
as an indication that they understood "Greene one" to be a reference to Neptune above.
Shakspere speaks of "thegreene Neptune" in Wint.T. IV.4.28 and in Ant.&Cl. IV. 14.58;
"Mars the red" is a common M.E. phrase, though Shakspere only once refers to Mars's
color and then indirectly in "as red as Mars his heart" Tro.&Cr. V.2. 1 64. Shakspere
may have had in mind the notion of the rosy sea dyeing Neptune in Mars's color. If one
objects to this on the ground that Macbeth would scarcely be guilty of such an artificial
metaphor under the circumstances, he must remember that such notions were not so
artificial to EL. ears as they are to ours: he must, moreover, be prepared to excuse
"incarnadine," an epithet that was highly artificial in EL. E., as has been pointed out.
But another interpretation is possible: "one" is very common in EL. E. as a grammatical
substitute for a noun just mentioned, and is often used when in MN.E. such a locution
would be avoided; "making the greene one red" can therefore be equivalent to 'making
the green sea red,' as in Steevens's citation from Heywood, "He made the green sea red with
Turkish blood." Many modern editors say this reading is ridiculous : but unfortunately
their judgement is not always to be trusted as to what is ridiculous or not ridiculous in EL. E. ;
and when one thinks of the hopelessly absurd idiom that they are from time to time will-
ing to put in Shakspere's mouth if they do not happen to understand his EL. phraseology,
one can only smile at their eagerness to lay on the printer the burden of their own igno-
rance. One editor 'feels instinctively that the passage has been corrupted,' yet his
instinct leads him to 'surmise that the passage originally read: Making the green zone
red'! One might exclaim with Falstaff, 'Beware instinct!' Moreover, the substitute
69
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
proposed, 'making the green uniformly red/ is, as Malone maintained, neither good EL.E.
nor good MN.E., however well such a reading may satisfy our modern literary sense.
Such a notion takes the form "all one" in M.E. and N.E., with "one" in its M.E.
sense of 'same/ "One red" is not in Shakspere's English the equivalent of 'one uni-
form redness,' nor are the "total gules" of Ham. II. 2. 479 and Milton's "one blot" in
Comus, v. 133, parallel idioms to "one red." The phraseology of this modern reading — it
begins with Johnson, 1795 — is therefore as much open to question as is the taste of the
Folio reading. That it now passes muster as good English is rather due to the fact
that the syntax of the pas-
sage, so often quoted with ACT jj SCENE II 64-74
this idea in mind, has be-
come familiar to our ears.
It seems better therefore to
take "greene" and "one" to-
gether than to assume with-
out evidence that the Folio
misprints the verse.
ENTER LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour, but I shame
To weare a heart so white.
KNOCKE WITHIN
I heare a knocking
At the south entry: retyrewe to our chamber:
A little water cleares us of this deed:
How easie is it then! Your constancie
Hath left you unattended.
KNOCKE WITHIN
Hearke! more knocking:
Get on your night-gowne, least occasion
call us
And shew us to be watchers: be not lost
So poorely in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed 't were best not know
my selfe.
KNOCKE WITHIN
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would
thou could'st!
EXEUNT
*ff 64 YOUR COLOUR, i.e.
red, cp. v. 55 and V. 1.48.
SHAME : Lady Macbeth can
hardly mean that she is
ashamed to be such a coward
as her husband is : in the
Cent. Diet, is cited a sen-
tence from Greene in which
the verb seems to mean to
'avoid with a sense of shame' :
"My master sad — forwhy
[i.e. wherefore] he shames
the court — is fled away"' Jas.
IV ' V. 6. Perhaps " shame "
has some such meaning here
and is used like MN.E.
'scorn' in "to scorn to do."
*ff 68 A similar notion occurs
in Sidney's Arcadia, p. 293 b,
"His mind was evill wayted
on by his lamed force," re-
flecting the EL. psychology
referred to in the note on p. 26.
Lady Macbeth here and in the
last part of v. 64 shows by
her words that the knocking
creates a panic in Macbeth's
mind each time he hears it. SF 70 NIGHT-GOWNE here and in V. 1.5 is 'dressing-gown,'
the usual meaning of the word in EL.E. OCCASION, 'necessity,' as in "My master is
awak'd [i.e. impelled] by great occasion " Timon II. 2. 21. SF7I A WATCHER in EL.E. is
not only 'one who watches,' but also 'one who sits up late.' LOST, 'bewildered,' 'not
knowing what to do,' as in "I 'm lost in it, my lord" Ham. IV. 7. 55. *ff 72 POORELY,
'spiritlessly,' cp. "To looke so poorely and to speake so faire" Rich. 2 III. 3. 128. SF 73
TO KNOW MY DEED, 'to know what I am to do': DEED in EL.E. had the sense of
'thing to be done'; cp. N.E.D.3 and especially the quotation from North's Plutarch,
70
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
"You shall set the poor distressed city of Syracusa again on foot, which is your deed."
Macbeth is not thinking of the past, but of the future. Utterly bewildered and horror-
stricken, this last knocking rouses only the impatience of impotence and the helpless re-
gret of one who for the first time realizes the irrevocableness of his past action.
SCENE III: MACBETH'S CASTLE: ENTER A PORTER
1-27
KNOCKING WITHIN
PORTER
ERE 'S a knocking indeede! If
a man were porter of hell gate,
hee should have old turning the
key. [knock within.] Knock,
knock, knock! Who 's there,
i T th T name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer,
that hang'd himselfe on th' expectation of
plentie: come in time; have napkins enow
about you; here you 'le sweat for 't. [knock
within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in
th' other devil's name? 'Faith, here 's an
equivocator, that could sweare in both the
scales against eyther scale; who committed
treason enough for God's sake, yet could not
equivocate to heaven: oh, come in, equivoca-
tor. [knock within.] Knock, knock, knock !
Who 's there? 'Faith, here 's an English
taylor come hither, for stealing out of a
French hose: come in, taylor; here you may
rost your goose, [knock within.] Knock,
knock! Never at quiet! What are you? — but
this place is too cold for hell: I'ledevill-porter
it no further. I had thought to have let in
some of all professions that goe the prim-
rose way to th' everlasting bonfire, [knock
within.] Anon, anon! I pray you remember
the porter. opens the gate
was prospect of plenty of corn
in the summer and autumn of that year. But the fact that the story had already been used
by Jonson in 1599 makes his argument of little weight. *1F 7 EXPECTATION, 'prospect,'
71
*ff 2 HELL GATE, 'the gates
of hell': 'hell' here, as in
"hell-hound" V. 7. 32, and in
MN.E. "hell-fire," is really a
genitive from M.E. "helle,"
and 'gate' is a plural form
from M.E. 'gate'; "hell-kite"
IV. 3- 217, and "hell-broth"
IV. 1. 19, are later imitations
of these earlier phrases. *lr 3
OLD is an EL. expletive word,
loosely used for emphasis
sake, like our MN.E. "jolly."
In MN.E. "high old time"
there is perhaps a survival
of this EL. E. idiom. Cotgrave
under diable gives "faire le
diable de vauvert, to keep an
oldcoyle"; Shakspere again
uses the idiom in "we shal
have old swearing" Merch.
IV. 2. 15. SF4 The half-awake
porter falls a-dreaming that
he is the porter of hell. The
allusion in SF 6 seems to be
to a current jest of the time :
it is also found in Jonson's
Every Man out of his Hu-
mour, 1599, HLvii: u Sor-
dido. Soule, if this [i.e. the
good weather] hold, we shall
shortly have an excellent crop
of corne spring out of the high
wayes . . goe to, I '11 prevent
the sight of it." He then
hangs himself, "falls off" the
stage direction reads. Ma-
lone argued that Shakspere's
words pointed to 1 606 as the
date of the play because there
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
'promise/ cp. "A good plotte, good friends, and full of expectation" lHen.4 II. 3- 19,
and see N. E. D.4. *ff 8 COME IN TIME, 'an early arrival,' "come" being the past par-
ticiple, cp. Phr. Gen. "timely, in time, mature. 11 NAPKINS, 'handkerchiefs/ cp. "a napkin
or handkerchiefe wherewith wee wipe away the sweate" Baret's Alvearie s.v. 'hand' ; also
Oth. III. 3. 287. The form ENOW in e.N.E. is usually the plural of "enough" as it is
here, preserving an O.E. and M.E. form distinction; see N. E. D. s.v. *ff9 To SWEAT
FOR 'T in EL. E., as in MN. E., meant to pay the penalty for a wrong done, see Cent. Diet.
SF 1 1 TH' OTHER DEVIL'S NAME that the porter could not recall may have been Behe-
moth or Demogorgon, both of which were used as names for devils in media2val demon-
ology. *ff 12 The Jesuitical doctrine of equivocation, according to which the making of
a false statement under oath was not perjury if the speaker could put any sense, however
extravagant, upon the words of which he made use, became prominent at the time of the
trial of the Gunpowder conspirators in the spring of 1 606 ; cp. Gardiner's History, vol. XI,
pp. 281 ff. The mention of TREASON in the connection would indicate that this passage
was written after the trial. IF 1 3 SCALES in EL. E. are the scale-pans of the balance.
BOTH seems here to be used in the sense of 'either of two/ uterque, 'he could swear on
either side of the case against the other.' *ff 19 HOSE, 'breeches/ N.E.D. 2. The pecu-
liar enormity of the tailor's crime consisted in the fact that one kind of French hose
"contained neither length, breadth, nor sideness [i.e. fullness]" Stubbes's Anatomie of
Abuses, I583,ed. Furnivall, p. 56, cited by CI. Pr. Shakspere calls them "short blistred
breeches" in Hen. 8 1. 3- 31- SF 2 1 AT QUIET is an EL. phrase like 'at rest'; Phr. Gen.
gives 'at quiet' as a synonym of 'quiet.' The interrogative WHAT frequently occurs in
EL.E. where MN.E. employs 'who.' SF 24 The porter's PRIMROSE WAY, which Shak-
spere also uses in All 's W. IV. 5- 56 and in Ham. 1.3- 50, seems to have been a cant phrase
of the time. His notion is something like one in Dekker's Knight's Conjuring : " You have
of all trades, of all professions, of all states, some there," i.e. in hell. There is regret in his
I HAD THOUGHT as the morning chill wakens him to the realization that some one is
really knocking at his gate. His sleepy ANON, ANON ! ('coming, coming! ') and his
mechanical demand for a
gratuity, I PRAY YOU RE-
MEMBER THE PORTER,are
touches of nature which only
Shakspere would have given
the scene.
ACT II
SCENE III
28-37
SF28 Macduff's words call
attention to the fact that the
porter has over-slept himself ;
they can be construed into a
sort of blank verse — indeed,
the whole passage is in that
rhythmic prose which EL.
dramatists often fall into :
such prose differs from poetry
in not having a clearly marked
coincidence of phrase and
verse division. FO.I divides
in verses : Was . . bed, That . .
late, 'Faith . . cock, And . .
things ; what follows until
Macbeth enters is printed as
prose. *ff 30 THE SECOND
COCK,cp. "The second cocke
ENTER MACDUFF AND LENOX
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
that you doe lye so late?
PORTER
' Faith, sir, we were carowsing till the second
cock: and drinke, sir, is a great provoker of
three things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drinke especially
provoke?
PORTER
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleepe and urine.
Lecherie, sir, it provokes and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it takes away the
72
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT II
SCENE III
38-50
perfoi
with which it is compounded.
SF40 SETS ON, 'eggs on.'
«ff 41 TAKES OFF, cp. "He
endeavors to take me off,
operam dat tit me abstrahat "
Coles. <lr42 STAND TOO,
'maintain one's ground' : the
form distinction between 'to'
and 'too' is modern. *ff 43
IN sometimes in EL. E. corre-
sponds to MN.E. 'into/ cp.
I.3« 126. This seems to be its
sense here. SF 44 There is un-
doubtedly a double meaning
hath crow'd . . 't is three a
clocke" Rom.& Jul. IV. 4. 3
.i_p 1 1 • 1 1 (cited by Malone). SF 36
>rmance: therefore much dnnke maybe V ELE u y n _ in composition
said to be an equivocator with lecherie: it frequently means to undo the
makes him and it marres him; it sets him on effcct conn °ted by the verb
and it takes him off ; it perswadeshim and dis-
heartens him; makes him stand too and not
stand too; in conclusion, equivocates him in
a sleepe, and giving him the lye, leaves him.
MACDUFF
I beleeve drinke gave thee the lye last night.
PORTER
That it did, sir, i f the very throat on me:
but I requited him for his lye, and, I thinke,
being tOO Strong for him, though he tooke in the porter's words: Autoly
up my leddes sometime, yet I made a shift g? m * kes ■ similar jest in
U- Wint.T. IV. 4. 745, where the
to cast nim. unsuccessful effortstoexplain
or emend the passage into
MN.E. sense show that the phrase "give the lye" in EL. E. had a double meaning. The
N.E. D. throws no light on the difficulty. The notion here seems to be that of 'providing
sleeping quarters for,' cp. 'lie' in the sense of 'lodge.' Autolycus's words will bear such a
meaning : " it [i.e. lying] becomes none but tradesmen [cp. Stubbes, ' Anatomie of Abuses,'
ed. Furnivall, p. 87], and they often give us souldiers the lye, but wee pay them for it
with stamped coyne, not stabbing Steele, therefore they doe not give us the lye. Clo.
Your worship had like to have given us one if you had not taken your selfe with the
manner [i.e. 'in the act,' playing on 'give' and 'take']." And so here: "giving the lye"
has obvious reference to putting one to bed. Shakspere is fond of punning on the word.
At all events, the phrase undoubtedly had to Shakspere's audience a meaning appropriate
to the context, and was not the sheer nonsense that modern editors of Shakspere are
willing to suppose it. SF 46 I' THE THROAT is a common EL. expletive of giving
the lie, cp. "you lye in your throat" 2Hen.4 1.2.97, and "gives me the lye i' th' throate
As deepe as to the lungs" Ham. II. 2. 601. ON was frequently used in EL.E. where
MN.E. requires 'of,' especially in colloquial idiom: MN.E. 'to have the law on one'
seems to be due to such syntax. SF 47 LYE in this instance, as Delius pointed out, seems to
mean 'a fall in wrestling,' echoing the sense of the word in v. 45. No such meaning is
given in N.E.D. nor any such wrestling term as TAKE UP ONE'S LEGS; but that this
is the reference seems clear from CAST, 'to throw in wrestling,' N.E.D. 1 3. The quibble
turns on this meaning and that in N.E. D. 25 ; Ben Jonson has a similar quibble in Every
Man in his Humour I.iv, using the word as referring to the laying of a stake in gambling
as well as to the disturbance of the stomach caused by excessive drinking : "You shall find
him with two cushions under his head . . as though he had neither won nor lost, and yet
I warrant he ne're cast better in his life than he has done tonight. cMat. Why? was he
drunke?" Such quibbling as this of the porter's was conventional for clowns and
rustics on the EL. stage, cp. the clowns in Wint.T. and Hamlet and the dialogue between
the porter and his man in Hen. 8. V. 4, where the porter's obscenity is even worse than it
is here. That EL. notions of propriety were not shocked by such language is evident
73
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
from the fact that it occurs in the work of the best dramatists. Shakspere in this respect
is neither better nor worse than his time. It is interesting to find in Jonson's arraign-
ment of the indecency of contemporary dramatic literature words and expressions which
to our modern ears are, to
ears are,
saytheleast, indelicate. How
really indecent the drama can
be, and yet strictly conform
to correct notions of pro-
priety in its phraseology, our
modern stage, alas ! will bear
eloquent testimony. Inde-
cency of language is quite
another thing from indecency
of imagination, and in judg-
ing of the moral tone of EL.
or M.E. literature we must
be careful to make the dis-
tinction clearly if we would
escape the imputation of hy-
pocrisy.
<ff48 HERE HE COMES
shows that the scene takes
place in the porter's lodge or
near it. SF 49 GOOD MOR-
ROW, the conventional salu-
tation 'Good morning/ cp.
1.5.62. SF 51 TIMELY, 'early,'
cp. note to v. 8 and" The beds
i' th' east are soft and thanks
to you, That cal'd me time-
lier then my purpose hither"
Ant.&Cl.II.6.5I. *ff 52 SLIPT
THE HOURE, 'let slip the
appointment,' cp. "And we
. . Had slipt our claime un-
till another age" 3Hen.6 II.
2. 1 61. *ff54 ONE, i.e. a trou-
ble. The sentence stress upon
"one " seems unusual to mod-
ern ears : possibly no contrac-
tion of IT IS was intended.
<ff55 PHYSICKS,'heals,'cp.
"it is [see 1.4.58] a gallant
child, one that indeed phys-
icks the subject" Wint.T. I.
1.42. PAINE, 'trouble,' cp.
"The paine be mine but thine
shal be the praise" Sonn.
XXXVIII. 14. SF56 SO is
frequently used in EL. E. with-
out its correlative " as " before
a following infinitive, cp. "So
ACT II
SCENE III
47*-58
ENTER MACBETH
MACDUFF
Is thy master stirring?
Our knocking has awak'd him; here he
comes.
LENOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipt the houre.
MACBETH
Tie bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyfull trouble to you;
But yet 't is one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physicks paine.
This is the doore.
MACDUFF
Tie make so bold to call,
For f t is my limitted service.
EXIT MACDUFF
LENOX
Goes the king hence to day?
MACBETH
He does: he did appoint so.
* The text returns to the standard numeration.
74
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT II
SCENE III
59-68
LENOX
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blowne downe, and, as
say,
Lamenting heard i' th' ayre, strange
schreemes of death
And prophecying, with accents terrible,
Of dyre combustion and confus'd events
New hatch'd to th'wofull time: the obscure
bird
Clamor'd the live-long night: some say, the
earth
Was fevorous and did shake.
rough night.
good, sir, to rise" Meas. IV.
3.29. LIMITTED/appointed,'
cp. u having the houre limited
and an expresse command"
Meas. IV.2. 175. As far as
the language goes it is not
necessary to suppose that
they say, Macduff was a 'lord of the
bed-chamber': he merely
says that he has an early ap-
pointment with the king. SF 59
When one thinks of what was
happening at the time, this
picture of the storm adds new
horror to the idea of Duncan's
murder. Shakspere in repre-
senting it here may have had
in mind a popular notion like
that reflected in ' Besides, the
devil many times takes his
opportunity of such storms,
and when the humours of the
air be stirred he goes in with
them, exagitates our spirits
and vexeth our souls ; as the
sea waves, so are the spir-
its and humours in our bod-
ies tossed with tempestuous
winds and storms' Burton,
'Anat. of Mel.' I.ii. 2. 5. LAY of course means 'lodged' as in II. 2. 20. <ff6l DEATH
in EL. E. can mean 'bloodshed,' 'murder,' cp. N.E. D. 6 and "Death or slaughter of man
or beast, occisio, ccedes" Phr. Gen.; so that SCHREEMES OF DEATH corresponds to
MN. E. ' shrieks of murder.' The ee seems to be anomalous, pointing to the sound i rather
than e when the Folio was printed. But e before n and r was in many instances a close
vowel toward the end of the 1 6th century, and it may be that after r also the change was
taking place. *1F 62 PROPHECYING is probably an adjective limiting "schreemes" and
connected with "strange," i.e. 'screams of death strange and prophesying combustion,'
etc.; such word order was not uncommon in EL. E., and is preserved in MN.E. phrases
like "good men and true," cp. "a wise man and of great pollicy" Bacon's Atlantis, 30,
18 (ed. Moore-Smith); see also the citation from I Hen. 4 in the note to v. 7. The word
"prophecying" is of three syllables, see note to 1.6.6. SF63 OF is often used in EL. E.
before the direct object of present active participles ; the idiom now survives only in
dialect English. COMBUSTION, 'political confusion,' 'tumult,' a sense of the word which,
according to N.E. D., was very common in the 1 6th and 1 7th centuries, but is now some-
what unusual; cp. "kindling such a combustion in the state" Hen. 8 V. 4. 51- CON-
FUS'D may have the meaning 'full of confusion,' 'distracting,' for adjectives formed by
the suffix -ed had such wide range of meaning in EL. E. that they often corresponded to
MN.E. present participles, cp. 1.6.5, "dishonored [i.e. dishonouring] peace" Drayton,
'Barrons W.' IV. 4. 2; "these thraled [i.e. enthralling] dumps" ' Faire Em' 1. 1.25; "A
custome More honour'd in the breach then the observance" Ham. 1.4. 15- *ff64 NEW
HATCH'D : Malone aptly compared this with the passage cited in note to 1.3-58 ; but, failing
to see that "such things become the hatch and brood of time" shows that TO here refers
to time as the mother of events, he construed the preposition in the sense of 'to suit.'
75
MACBETH
'T was a
LENOX
My young remembrance cannot paralell
A fellow to it.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
The perplexing events can surely be thought of as being already hatched but not grown
to maturity. OBSCURE has word stress on the first syllable, like "oblique" in " By
oblique glance of his licentious pen" Jonson, ' Sejanus' III. I ; it has this stress in Merch.
II. 7. 5 1 also, "In the obscure grave." The word is here used in its sense of 'haunting
the darkness,' cp. "with obscure wing Scout far and wide" Milton, 'Paradise Lost' II.
132 (Cent. Diet.); Shakspere speaks of the "nightly [i.e. night-loving] owle" in Titus II.
3.97. SF65 CLAMOR'D in
EL. E. had not the association
of rapidly repeated sounds
which it has in MN.E., but
could well describe the owl's
hooting: it is used of wailing
in 1.7.78. 1F66 FEVOROUS,
cp. "feavorous life" Meas.
III. 1.75; in Shakspere'stime
the word suggested the shak-
ing of an ague as well as high
temperature of the blood.
SF67 PARALELL, 'bring into
comparison with,' cp. " I had
thought once to have paral-
lelled him with the great Alex-
ander"Jonson,' Sejanus' 1. 1.
(Cent. Diet.).
ACT II
SCENE III
69-74
ENTER MACDUFF
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror I tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee.
MACBETH AND LENOX
What r s the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his master-peece:
Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope
The Lord's anoynted temple, and stole thence
The life o ? th r building.
SF 69 Such chiastic construc-
tions as this were a common ornament of style in EL. writers. *1F7I CONFUSION,
'ruin,' as in " Make large confusion and, thy fury spent, Confounded be thy selfe" Timon
IV.3-I27. HIS, 'its.' SF 72 MOST SACRILEGIOUS: superlatives were very frequently
used absolutely in EL. E., e.g. " most glorious exploits of warre" Florio's Montaigne,
1.23; "chastest bed of mine" Sidney, 'Arcadia' p. 173. IF 73 ANOYNTED: it is not
necessary to suppose that the metaphor is confused as Delius does: "anointed" is used
in EL. E. as a synonym for 'consecrated,' cp. "Barring the anointed liberty of laws"
Daniel, 'Civil War'. III. 23 (cited by N.E. D.). The word has a peculiar fitness here in its
reference to the king as the Lord's anointed, cp. I Sam. XXIV. 10 (CI. Pr.). Richard
calls himself the Lord's an-
ointed in Rich. 3 IV. 4. 150
(Herford). SF 74 THE LIFE
O'TH' BUILDING seems to
be a recollection of " For ye
are the temple of the living
God"IICor.VI.l6(Cl.Pr.).
To "reave of life" is an old
association in English, and
Shakspere makes frequent
use of it. The notion of the
temple and the "life of the
building" may have a remote
association with the vestal
fire. Shakspere speaks of
breaking within the "bloody
[z.e. full of blood] house of
life" in John IV. 2.210, and of
ACT II
SCENE III
74-78
MACBETH
What is T t you say? the life?
LENOX
Meane you his majestie?
MACDUFF
Approch the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon: doe not bid me speake;
See, and then speake your selves. Awake,
awake !
EXEUNT MACBETH AND LENOX
76
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the "empty casket where the jewell of life By some damn'd hand was rob'd" in John V.
1.40. SF 76 SIGHT is here used in its now somewhat restricted sense of 'power of see-
ing.' SF 77 Shakspere did not necessarily draw the GORGON notion from Ovid : we may
surely suppose him familiar with the classic mythology of his time. As a boy at school
he would have been stupid
ACT II SCENE III 79-91
Ring the alarum bell ! Murther and treason !
Banquo and Donalbaine ! Malcolme ! awake !
Shake off this downey sleepe, death's coun-
terfeit,
And looke on death it selfe! up, up, and see
The great doomes image! Malcolme!
Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walke like
sprights
To countenance this horror. Ring the bell!
BELL RINGS. ENTER LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
What f s the businesse,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speake, speake!
MACDUFF
O gentle lady,
f T is not for you to heare what I can speake:
The repetition in a woman's eare
Would murther as it fell.
indeed if he had not known
the Medusa fable, and the
story was accessible to him
in almost any Latin dictionary
of his time.
SF 79 The castle bell sum-
moned all the retainers and
servants, cp. V.5-5L *ff8I
Shakspere, in order to height-
en the horror of Macbeth's
doom, 'sleep no more/ all
through this play introduces
associations of softness and
quietness when speaking of
sleep, even when such notions
are unnatural and artificial
as here. COUNTERFEIT,
'portrait,' N.E.D. 3. InWint.
T. V.3- 18 Paulina with the
words "prepare To see the
life as lively mock'd as ever
Still sleepe mock'd death"
draws the curtain and shows
Hermione standing like a
statue. *IF 83 IMAGE, 'repre-
sentation,' cp. "This play is
the image of a murder done
in Vienna" Ham. III. 2.248.
SF84 SPRIGHT and "spirit"
are different forms of the
same word in EL. E. SF 85
The N.E. D. takes COUNTENANCE here as meaning 'to keep in countenance,' a sense of
the word for which this passage alone is cited ; it is rather the appearance and actions of
Malcolm and Banquo as haunting spirits, and not the persons themselves, that Shakspere
is putting before the mind; so the word may have the meaning given in N.E. D. 4, es-
pecially that illustrated in the quotation from Laneham's Letter, "who for parsonage [EL.
form of 'personage'] gesture and utterauns beside countenaunst the matter too ['to']
very good liking"; cp., too, 2Hen.4 IV. 1.35- It is a play that Macduff is thinking of,
and he adds the figure as he calls to Malcolm and Banquo and Donalbaine to rise from
their "downey sleepe" — RISE UP is used as in "they rose up early" Mids. IV. 1. 137;
cp. "the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his spright" Mids. V. 1.387. Mac-
duff's words may contain a suspicion that Banquo and Malcolm also have been mur-
dered. RING THE BELL has been frequently taken by editors for a stage direction that
has slipped into the text ; but the words may well be a natural expression of impatience at
the slowness with which the alarm spreads through the castle. SF 86 BUSINESSE, 'com-
motion,' 'tumult,' cp. N.E. D. 7 b and its citation from Holinshed, " Argudus sent forth . .
with a power to appease this business." This, dated 1 587, is the latest quotation in N. E. D. J
77
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
but in Phr. Gen. (a century later) "Business or trouble" is glossed turba r tumultus: the
same gloss occurs in Holyoke, 1677. ^87 TO PARLEY, 'to conference* ; cp. " Our trum-
pet call'd you to this gentle parle" John 11.205. SF88 SPEAKE, SPEAKE ! Of two suc-
ceeding imperatives the second receives a heavier stress than the first, so the verse is quite
rhythmical, though Macduff's words make it one of six waves. SF90 REPETITION,
'utterance,' cp. " if it should be told The repetition cannot make it lesse" Lucr. 1284, the
utterance of a thought being conceived as a repetition of its form. Macduff's unsus-
picious concern for Lady
ACT II SCENE III
Macbeth's womanly feelings
heightens the interest of the
situation.
9 1 — 1 01
SF93 SurelyIN OUR HOUSE
may be taken in its natural
sense: 'What! here in the
midst of friends? It is im-
possible!' Lady Macbeth's
words, thus addressed to
Banquo, are probably in-
tended to forestall a suspicion
that Duncan's being in Mac-
beth's house had anything to
do with his murder. Ban-
quo's TOO CRUELL ANY
WHERE, 'a deed of sav-
agery even if committed by
his enemies,' answers Lady
Macbeth's exclamation. His
epithet CRUELL in MN.E.
seems weak; but in EL. E.
the adjective meant 'wild,
fierce, savage,' N. E. D. 2. SF 94
PRYTHEE and "prethee"
were common EL. forms of
'pray thee,' the diphthong be-
ing weakened by its lack of
stress. SF 95 The difference
ENTER BANQUO
O Banquo, Banquo!
Our royall master 's murther'd.
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
BANQUO
Too cruell any where!
Deare Duff, I prythee contradict thy selfe,
And say it is not so.
ENTER MACBETH, LENOX, AND ROSSE
MACBETH
Had I but dy'd an houre before this chance,
I hadliVd a blessed time; for from this instant
There's nothing serious in mortalitie:
All is but toyes : renowne and grace is dead ;
The wine of life is drawne, and the meere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
ENTER MALCOLME AND DONALBAINE
between an entrance and a re-
entrance is not noted in the Folio stage directions. Sr96 CHANCE in EL. E. often means
'misfortune,' 'calamity'; cp. "Ah! what an unkind houre Is guiltie of this lamentable
chance!" Rom.&Jul. V.3.I45. SF 98 SERIOUS, 'important," of value'; cp. "our rash
faults Make triviall price of serious things we have" All 's W. V. 3.60. SF 99 ALL, a com-
mon EL. E. idiom for the 'sum of things,' 'everything.' TOYES: the EL. sense of the
word as used here has gone over to MN.E. 'trifles,' i.e. meaningless nothings ; later Mac-
beth will strangely come to realize the truth of his words, " Life . . is a tale Told by an
ideot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing" V.5.26. SF 100 LEES, as in MN.E., is
usually plural, but Shakspere has used it here as a collective noun. SF 101 VAULT is
here used in a double sense, 'wine-vault' and 'earth.' SF 96 ff. Such highly wrought lan-
guage as Macbeth employs did not offend Elizabethan taste. Hamlet, in 1.5.29, when he
hears of his father's murder, declares that he will sweep to his revenge "with wings as
swift As meditation or the thoughts of love." Othello, V. 2.350, declares that his eyes,
'subdued' by his sorrows, "Drops teares as fast as th' Arabian trees Their medicinable
gumme." Highly wrought phraseology was an every-day matter in the Elizabethan age.
78
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBET1
ACT II SCENE III 102-119
DONALBAINE
What is amisse?
MACBETH
You are, and doe not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountaine of your
blood
Is stopt; the very source of it is stopt.
MACDUFF
Your royall father f s murther'd.
MALCOLME
Oh, by whom?
LENOX
Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had
done 't:
Their hands and faces were all badg'd with
blood;
So were their daggers, which unwip'd we
found
Upon their pillowes:
They star'd, and were distracted ; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
O, yet I doe repent me of my furie,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amaz'd, temp'rate and
furious,
Loyall and neutrall, in a moment? No man:
Th' expedition of my violent love
Out-run the pawser, reason. Here lay Dun-
can,
His silver skinne lac'd with his golden blood,
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in
nature
79
SF 102 AMISSE, in its refer-
ence to Malcolm, seems to
mean 'at a loss.' SF 103 HEAD,
i.e. fountainhead. SF 105 Mal-
colm's first question BY
WHOM? must have been a
shock to Macbeth. SF 107
BADG'D, cp. " Steep'd in the
colours of their trade " v. 1 2 1 .
SFIIO DISTRACTED, 'mad,'
'crazed,' 'insane,' N.E.D. 5.
SFII3 Something in Mac-
beth's manner must have
aroused Macduff's suspicions
to make him put this direct
question. *]FlI4 Enough of
the M.E. meaning of 'pru-
dent,' 'having presence of
mind,' must have clung to the
wordWISEin EL. E. to justify
Macbeth's contrasting it with
"amaz'd." Baret gives it the
meaning sollers as well as sa-
piens and prudens. AMAZ'D,
'dazed,' 'stupid,' N.E.D. I.
TEMP'RATE, i.e. self-con-
trolled. SFII5 NEUTRALL,
'indifferent,' cp. "one that 's
of a newtrall heart" Lear III.
7.48. IN A MOMENT, i.e.
at the same instant. ' Mo-
ment ' in MN. E. usually means
'a brief space of time' as dis-
tinct from 'instant.' In EL. E.
"in a moment" is equiva-
lent to "in the twinkling of
an eye" as the Phr. Gen.
explains it. *ff 1 1 6 EXPEDI-
TION, i.e. haste, swiftness.
«ff 1 17 OUT-RUN : 'run' is a
regular past tense of 'run' in
M.E. and EL.E. PAWSER
is neither a noun of agent in -er
meaning 'one who makes to
pause,' nor an adjective mean-
ing 'slower,' as it is usually
explained: but an EL. noun
meaning 'loiterer,' cp. Cot-
grave, "musard, a pawser,
lingerer, deferrer, delayer,"
and "rumineur, one that de-
liberates or pauses on a mat-
ter": Coles also glosses "a
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
pauser on meditator"; and ACT J] SCENE III 120-124
Hamlets 'must give us
pawse," i.e. must make us o . » (1 , ,
deliberate, in. 1.68. SFiis For ruines wastfull entrance: there the
silver, i.e. pure white, cp. murtherers,
"silver cheekes" Lucr. .61. Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their
1 he word still means white , r 7
in silver maple, silver birch, daggers
silver dawn, lac'd: Cot- Unmannerly breech'd with dore : who could
grave defines chamare "laced r
thick all over; aslope, ore- retraine,
crosse, or billetwise," show- That had a heart to love, and in that heart
ing that the word refers to Courade to make's love knowne?
reticulate ornamentation by °
interlaced bars or cords. In
Rom.&Jul. III. 5.7, "envious streakes Do lace the severing [i.e. parting] cloudes in yonder
east," the word aptly describes the effect of dawn streaks crossing bars of low-lying cirrus
clouds. GOLDEN, 'red,' cp. note to II. 2. 56 and Lucr. 57 ff. Macbeth's words with their
EL. associations are not artificial, though it is little wonder that they should be thought
far fetched when one understands "laced" as meaning 'covered with lace-work' and ignores
the association of redness that attached to "golden" in EL. E. With such an interpretation
one can sympathize with Johnson, who, with his usual intolerance of what he could not un-
derstand, and in despair of patching the verse into what he thought good English, — for it
is a difficult line to amend, as Warburton's 'laqu'd' for ' laced' clearly shows, — pronounced
the passage hopeless and not to be amended 'but by a general blot.' SF 119 NATURE,
'life,' as frequently; the figure seems to be the same as that in " Poore soule, the center
of my sinfull earth, [Hemmed by] these rebbell powres that thee array" Sonn. CXLVI. I.
*lr 120 WASTFULL is used in its common EL. sense of 'devastating,' cp. "When waste-
full warre shall statues overturne" Sonn. LV.5- *ff 122 UNMANNERLY BREECH'D
WITH GORE: the words have been the subject of much controversy. The attempts at
explanation worth considering are (I) that Shakspere thought of the blades of the daggers
as indecently covered with blood instead of properly sheathed in their scabbards ; (2) that
"breech" is used for 'hilt' in EL.E. ; and (3) that the phrase is misprinted. In making
good the last explanation the emendations proposed are 'unmanly rech'd' (explained as
meaning 'soiled with dark yellow') Warburton ; 'unmanly drenched' Johnson; 'unman-
nerly hatched' Seward; 'in a manner lay drenched' Heath (the two latter are good
illustrations of the emendatorial instinct!); 'unmanly breech'd' T ravers ; etc. If the ne-
cessity for emendation is once granted the easiest and most natural word for Shakspere
to have used would have been 'imbrewed,' cp. Baret's Alvearie, "to imbrue, or make foule,
to smeere, or make foule round about, 06/fno"; "to imbrue or die with some colour, im-
buo" ; "to imbrue his handes with bloud, sanguine respergere dextram." Baret also gives
"embrew, ferrum tingere sanguine" ; "all bloudie, all embrewed with bloud, perfusus
cruore" i "to embrew the harnesse with bloud"; "daughters embrewed with the bloud
of their mother." There was an aphetic form of the word, viz. 'brewed,' 'brued,' 'brude,'
two instances of which are cited in N.E.D. from literature of Shakspere'stime. This'brew'd,'
written in a handwriting in which the right arm of the w had a curving ascender, as, e.g.,
in Queen Elizabeth's, might have looked like 'breech'd' written with an h which did not
go below the line, a form of the letter not unusual in EL. manuscripts. But even grant-
ing this, there still remains the fact that 'unmannerly' is hardly the word to go with
'embrewed' or 'brew'd.' As to the second explanation: there is no evidence that
'breeched' was used in EL. E. for the hilt of a dagger, see N.E. D. ; and if there was,
'hilted with gore' would of itself require a deal of explanation to make it intelligible.
We are forced to conclude, for the present at least, that the words are as Shakspere
80
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
wrote them. The "strippe your sword starke naked" Tw.N. III. 4. 274, cited by Cl.Pr.,
presents a similar figurative phraseology, though one not so violent as 'breeched with
gore.' "Breeches" in EL. E. described the long hose of the time as well as that part
of the clothing which we now know as breeches. Shakspere has used the florid idiom of
EL. E. in the early part of the passage, describing Duncan's appearance in terms of EL.
dress ; it is likely that he would continue the same idiom in the latter part of his contrast.
UNMANNERLY means 'boorish,' 'vulgar,' 'rustic,' in EL.E. "Unmannerly breech'd
with gore" may thus easily describe the lower parts of the daggers, their blades, inde-
cently and only partially covered with clotted blood and not properly clad with scabbards
as they should have been. As we have already pointed out, Shakspere in using such
highly figurative language as this was but following the custom of his time. In EL.E. it
was scarcely possible to think at all without falling into the rich idiom then current. Even
the sober writers on theology constantly employ forms of expression that to our notions
are absurdly and grotesquely overwrought. Bacon, accurate and scientific as he is, con-
stantly employs figurative idiom in his closest reasoning. Such books, too, as Spenser's
Faerie Queene, Sidney's Arcadia, and Lyly's Euphues — very gardens of florid phrase-
ology — were not frowned at, but considered to be the highest literary achievement of their
time. A look into Puttenham will show pages of prescription in which these usages are
reduced to classic rule and method. Shakspere, it is true, in employing figurative lan-
guage usually weaves it into his thought so that his word associations are rarely far
fetched and dear bought ; but the modern editor is not justified in botching the text when-
ever he finds a figure loose-
APT TT SPFNF ITT T94 T9^ ly thrown into the context.
A^ 1 11 Sl^ClNC 111 124-1^5 <ff 124 MAKE'S, 'make his,'
another of those enclitic pro-
LADY MAC BET H nominal contractions so com-
Helpe me hence, hoa! mon in EL. E.,cp. "betray 's"
r 1.3. I25,"under't"l.5.67,and
MACDUFF note to 1.6.24.
Looke to the lady. , I24 The faiming fit of
Lady Macbeth interrupts the
dialogue and for the moment throws the scene into confusion. The stage business must
be supplied by conjecture from the context: not even the 'Lady Macbeth is carried out'
below is to be found in FO. I, and Davenant alters the action entirely. HELPE ME
HENCE indicates that Lady Macbeth tries to get away, and as faintness overpowers her
calls for her servants. Whether she succeeds in leaving the stage or not would probably
depend on the actors' interpretation of the scene ; if she does Macbeth must have run to
her assistance, returning in v. 139, and Macduff's and Banquo's LOOKE TO THE LADY
are to be taken as directions to the excited servants coming on the stage in answer to the
HOA ! If Lady Macbeth swoons upon the stage Macbeth and the others surround her
and carry her out, Malcolm and Donalbaine drawing apart and conversing with one an-
other in asides. That Lady Macbeth should really swoon, 'murdered by the repetition in
her woman's ears' of the ghastly and bloody details of Duncan's murder, introduces no
inconsistency. In all the devilish fury of her purposes, we are never allowed quite to forget
that she is a woman. Her language is womanly even in her terrible soliloquy, and her
inability wholly to control her sentiment comes clearly forth in " Had he not resembled
my father as he slept, I had don 't." Her "undaunted metal" is only intellectual, a quick
intelligence and a shrewd mind grasping a situation with masculine vigour: emotionally
she is still the woman. That Macbeth should not take part in the dialogue here has been
over-subtly construed by some critics as an evidence of his indifference. But these
critics do not tell us what Macbeth should have said. If the scene is naturally construed
surely his silence means the very opposite of indifference.
81
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
<lrI26 MOST is used in its
EL. absolute sense and corre-
sponds to MN. E. 'best.' AR-
GUMENT, 'theme,' 'subject
of conversation,' cp. "could
thou and I rob the theeves
. . it would be argument for
a weeke" lHen.4 II. 2. 99.
«IrI27 SHOULD illustrates
the EL. E. and M.E. usage of
the auxiliary in the sense of
'can,' 'may,' expressing pos-
sibility from a subjective point
of view; MN.E. uses 'may'
in this idiom, but constantly
confuses it with 'can,' despite
grammatical injunctions ; cp.
"What should he be?" i.e.
'Who may he be?' IV.3.49,
and " Where shold this musick
be?" i.e. 'Where can it be?'
'Where are we to look for
it?' Temp. 1.2. 387. FATE,
as in " If to my sword his fate
be not the glory" Tro.&Cr.
IV. 1.26, is here used in its
sense of '.death,' 'ruin.'
Staunton's emendation 'hide
we in an auger-hole' in order
to avoid the notion of ' Fate
lying perdu in an auger-hole'
is therefore quite unneces-
sary. SF 128 The EL. word
AUGURE HOLE, like MN.E.
'knot-hole,' denotedany small
orifice, cp. "To creep into
an auger-hole to hide their
heads" Dent, 1 60 1, cited in
N. E. D., and "the like illu-
sion is of their phantasie in
. . creeping thorow augur-
holes" Jonson's Masque of
Queenes, note in ed. 1640, p.
169; "augor's boare" is used
ACT II
SCENE III
125-138
MALCOLME
ASIDE TO DONALBAINE
Why doe we hold our tongues,
That most may clayme this argument for
ours?
DONALBAINE
ASIDE TO MALCOLME
What should be spoken here, where our fate,
Hidinan augure hole, may rush and seize us?
Let us away; our teares are not yet brew'd.
MALCOLME
ASIDE TO DONALBAINE
Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of
motion. 130, 131
BANQUO
Looke to the lady: 131
LADY MACBETH IS CARRIED OUT
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of worke,
To know it further. Feares and scruples
shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand, and thence
Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight
Of treasonous mallice.
MACDUFF
And so doe I.
ALL
So all.
in the same way in Cor. IV.
6. 87 (cited by Steevens). *fF 129 For LET US PO.I reads " Let 's." The verse division of
FO. I for vv. 127 to 1 30 is What . . here, Where . . hole, May . . away, Our . . brew'd,
Nor . . sorrow, Upon . . motion. Modern editors usually make two verses of Let's
away, Our . . brew'd. But by reading "Let us" as in the text the broken verses dis-
appear. For SORROW as a monosyllable, cp. "follow" in 1.6. II ; words ending in -ow
had monosyllabic forms in e.N.E., and many of them seem to be so used in EL. poetry.
The 'brewing' of rain and showers is not an uncommon figure in M.E. and e.N.E., and
such an extension of the notion as the 'brewing of tears' is not unnatural in EL. E. It
82
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
occurs also in Titus III. 2. 38 (cited by Delius). STRONG in EL. E. often connotes what
in MN.E. would be described as 'violent.' UPON THE FOOT OF is an EL. phrase mean-
ing 'ready to start upon/ see N.E.D.s.u. 'foot' 29; MOTION is used by Malcolm in its
EL. psychological meaning of 'expression/ cp. "in thy face strange motions have ap-
pear'd" lHen.4 II. 3-63. SFI32 NAKED FRAILTIES is probably a reference to the
effect of the morning chill upon the half-clad actors in the scene ; but Banquo's words
may have a deeper application, since "naked frailty" also means 'unprotected weakness';
see N.E. D. 'frailty' — 'exposure to the undivulged pretence of treasonous malice' as well
as to cold. For HID in the sense of 'shielded/ 'protected/ cp. "having nothing but a
cote of thatch to hide them from heaven" Bishop Hall, 1 6 14 (cited in N. E. D. I b). SF 134
QUESTION, 'inquire into/ as in 1. 3-43- SF 135 SCRUPLES in EL.E. means 'doubts'
or 'anxieties' of any sort, and is not restricted to those of conscience. *lr 136 IN THE
GREAT HAND OF GOD: Shakspere evidently had in mind I Pet. V. 6 f f . : "Humble
your selves therefore under
ACT II SCENE III
139-147
MACBETH
Let r s briefely put on manly readinesse,
And meet i' th' hall together.
ALL
Well contented.
EXEUNT ALL BUT MALCOLME AND DONALBAINE
the mighty hand of God, .
casting all your care upon
him, for hee careth for you.
Bee sober, be vigilant : because
your adversary, the devil, as
a roaring lion walketh about
seeking whom he may de-
voure." SFI37 PRETENCE,
'intention/ 'purpose/ cp.
"the pretence whereof [i.e.
the treason] being by circum-
stances partly layd open [i.e.
divulged]" Wint.T. III. 2. 18,
and " Fair knight, . . what
is your pretence?" Halle,
'Chronicle/ Hen. VIII, 4.
*ff 138 TREASONOUS is here
syncopated to 'treas'nous.'
MALCOLME
What will you doe? Let 's not consort with
them:
To shew an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man do's easie. Fie to Eng-
land.
DONALBAINE
To Ireland I; our seperated fortune
Shall keepe us both the safer: where we put on thy defences. Eros
r Briefely, sir" Ant.&Cl. IV. 4
are
There 's daggers in men's smiles: the neere
in blood,
The neerer bloody.
SF 139 BRIEFELY, 'without
delay/ a common EL. mean-
ing of the word, cp. N.E.D.
2, which cites: u Jlnt. Go
10. MANLY READINESSE:
'ready' in EL.E. was closely
associated with apparel, cp.
" Enter severall wayes Bas-
tard, Alanson, Reignier, halfe
ready and halfe unready"
stage direction to I Hen. 6 II. 1.39 (cited by Cl.Pr.). The gloss of Phr.Gen. "in readi-
ness, alte prcecinctus eit" is another instance in point. But even without this associa-
tion the phrase is clear, cp. "put we on Industrious souldiership" V.4. I5 f "She puts
on outward strangenesse" Ven.&Ad. 310, "put on feare" C32s.L3.6O, and "Put on
what weary negligence you please" Lear 1.3. 12. *ff 140 CONTENTED in EL.E. means
'agreed' as well as 'satisfied'; the king plays on the double meaning of the word in
Rich. 2 IV. 1.200: uc Bull. Are you contented to resigne the crowne? (Rich. I [i.e. aye],
no; no, I." *ff 142 OFFICE, 'performance of duty/ cp. "you have shewne your father
83
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
A child-like office" Lear II. 1. 107. *ff 143 FALSE in this sense of 'treacherous' as an
attribute of persons is now usually strengthened by '-hearted.' EASIE is the EL. adverb
form without -ly. As has already been pointed out, the omission of the verb in expres-
sions denoting motion is common in EL. syntax; cp. also 11.4-35 ff. SF 146 THERE'S
is EL. syntax by which a singular verb agrees with a plural subject. THE . . THE is a
correlative idiom, descended from the O. E. instrumental case, still in use in MN.E. com-
parisons with the sense of 'by how much . . by so much.' NEERE is an e. N. E. compara-
tive form which survived from M. E. and means 'nearer': cp. Heywood's proverb, "the
neare to the churche, the furder from God'' Sp. Soc.,p. 152. The whole expression
seems to have been prover-
" Netef^^ody £$& ACTI1 SCENEIII 147-153
[i.e. purposes] and not in
blood" Rich.3 II. 1.92. MALCOLME
This murtberous shaft that ? s shot
SFI49 AVOID THE AYME, tt .1 . 1. ,1 . 11 r .
'get away from the mark/ Hath not Y et lighted, and OUT safest way
n.e.d. 6;cp. "a garish flagge Is to avoid the ayme. Therefore to horse;
To betheayme of every dan- And j t t be daintie of leave-taking
cferous shot Rich.3 IV.4. 89 : <->
nearness of kin to Duncan But shift away : there 's warrant in that theft
and not to Macbeth is the Which steales it selfe when there's no mercie
ground of Malcolm's dread. 1 p
Despite Shakspere's marvel-
lous skill in the development EXEUNT
of his theme, modern editors
will have it that this remark of Malcolm's — indeed the whole scene — reveals a universal
suspicion of Macbeth, the fastening of which upon him is avoided only by the timely
fainting fit of Lady Macbeth. But we must remember that only Banquo is in a position
to suspect the real author of the crime, and he cannot bring himself definitely to avow,
even in soliloquy, aught more than vague suspicion ; he has been too much impressed by
the witches' prophecy as it concerns himself to resist the course of events, cp. III. 1. 1 ff.
And Macbeth in III. 1.48 ff. does not so much fear Banquo's suspicion as he does the
fulfilment of the witches' prophecy that makes Banquo the father of a line of kings. It
is the doubtful joy of his success as tainted by this thought that nerves him to the new
murder. SFI50 LEAVE-TAKING seems to have had the word stress upon its second
member in EL.E. SFI5I SHIFT is glossed evado in Coles, cp. "Oh Mistris, Mistris,
shift and save your selfe" Err. V. 1. 1 68 ; it was also a euphemism for practising knavery,
cp. MerryW. 1.3-37, hence the turn of Malcolm's words which follow. The same notion
occurs in All'sW. II. 1. 33 (cited by Delius) : '"Ber. By heaven! I 'le steale away. / Lord.
There's honour in the theft"; cp. also Sonn. XCII. I.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE IV
This closing scene* of Act II is not really a part of the play's dramatic action, but rather
serves the purpose of a chorus, bridging over the gap between Act II, which leaves Mac-
beth having successfully accomplished the murder, and Act III, which presents him in
the full enjoyment of the fruits of his crime. It has a double and typical chorus theme,
narrating how the bloody act affects the powers above and how it affects men below —
the divine and the human aspects of the tragedy. The first theme is unfolded in vv. 1-20,
the second in vv. 21-41. Intervening thus between the two chief divisions of the tragedy,
84
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the bloody deed and the retribution, it binds them together, furnishing an epilogue to
Act II and a prologue to Act III. In its epilogue character it reflects the apparent suc-
cess of Macbeth's plot ; in its prologue character it forecasts the retribution of the powers
of heaven through their agent Macduff. In its latter aspect it contrasts with the prologue
scene to the first part of the play, whose theme was the powers of darkness brooding over
the action of the tragedy.
SCENE IV: OUTSIDE MACBETH'S CASTLE
ENTER ROSSE WITH AN OLD MAN
I — 10
OLD MAN
HREESCORE and ten I can re-
member well :
Within the volume of which time
I have seene
Houres dreadfull and things
strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.
ROSSE
Ha, good father,
Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with
man's act,
Threatens his bloody stage: by th' clock 't is
And yet darke night strangles the travailing
lampe:
I s 't night's predominance, or the dayes shame,
That darknesse does the face of earth in-
tombe,
When living light should kisse it?
Pr.) ; the substantive is evi-
dently founded on 'know' in the sense of 'to experience' N.E.D. 5 c, as is EL. "hav-
ings" from 'have.' FATHER is still a term of respect, less familiar than 'uncle,' applied
to an old man; Menenius says, "He call'd me father," in Cor. V.I. 3> cp. N.E.D. 8.
*ff 5 SEEST in e.N. E. is a monosyllable regularly developed from M.E. "sest": 'se-est'
is a modern form. Rosse's thought, like Macbeth's in 1.3. 127 ff., is couched in the tech-
nical language of the theatre. The canopy of the stage in the EL. theatre was called
the HEAVENS, see N.E.D. s.v.8. The fact that the stage was hung with black for the
performance of tragedies — cp. " Blacke stage for tragedies and murthers fell" Lucr. 766 —
explains Rosse's allusion to the darkness. ACT in EL. E. often corresponds to MN. E.
'action,' 'activity,' a meaning still preserved in 'act of God,' cp. N.E.D. 4. IF 6 The
THREATENS of FO. I is altered by modern editors to 'threaten' in order to make Shak-
85
*ff I A similar ellipsis occurs
in 2Hen.4 III. 2. 51 ff . : "a
[i.e. he] would have clapt in
the clowt [i.e. hit the nail] at
twelve-score [i.e. yards], and
carryed you a fore-hand shaft
at foureteene [z.e. fourteen
score yards] and foureteene
and a halfe." While still fre-
quent in MN. E. in giving time,
age, or date, it would not now
be employed in such an idiom
as this. SF3 SORE, 'griev-
ous': this original sense of
the word is now obsolete
save in 'sore trouble.' SF4
TRIFLED, 'made a jest of,'
cp." Howdothe oure bysshop
trifle and mock us " Berners's
Froissart I.cc. (quoted by
Cent. Diet.). But in this
sense the word is rare and
a nonce-usage in Shakspere.
KNOWINGS, not'knowledge '
but 'experiences,' cp. "gen-
tlemen of your knowing"
Cym. I. 4. 29 (cited by CI.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
spere conform to MN. rules of grammar; but "heavens" seems sometimes to have been a
collective noun in EL.E., cp. IV. 3- 23 1. SF 7 LAMPE, i.e. the sun, cp. N.E. D. 2, especially
the quotation from Dunbar : " Phebus the radius [i.e. radiant] lamp diurn." The notion
occurs also in 3Hen.6 II. 1.3 1? "one lampe, one light, one sunne." The association of
the TRAVAILING sun is not an unusual one in Shakspere and contemporary poets, cp.
"Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this daies journey" Rom.&Jul. II. 5. 9; the
"weary sun" occurs several times in Shakspere. Dyce cites Drayton, 'Elegies/ p. 185,
ed. 1627: "nor regard him [i.e. the sun] travelling the signes," and adds that the notion
is traceable to Ps.XIX.5 — rather to Ps.XIX.6: "His going foorth is from the ende
of the heaven, and his circuite unto the endes of it." Travel, 'to go on a journey/
and travail, 'to toil/ were not distinguished by different spellings until after Shakspere's
time. SF8 PREDOMINANCE, 'astrological influence/ cp. " Fooles by heavenly compul-
sion, knaves, theeves, and treachers by sphericall predominance, drunkards, lyars, and
adulterers by an enfore'd obedience of planatary influence" Lear 1.2. 132 ff. Rosse's
thought is ' Does the baleful
ACT II SCENE IV
influence of night still domi-
nate the world, or is the day
ashamed of the deeds of
darkness?'
10-20
OLD MAN
'T is unnaturall,
Even like the deed that 's done. On Tuesday
last
A faulcon towring in her pride of place
Was by a mowsim* owle hawkt at and kilFd.
ROSSE
And Duncan's horses — a thing most strange
and certaine —
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their
race,
Turn'd wilde in nature, broke their stalls,
flons* out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would
Make warre with mankinde.
OLD MAN
'T is said they eate each other. 18
ROSSE
They did so.
To th r amazement of mine eyes that look'd
upon 't. 19. 20
<ff 10 UNNATURALL, 'un-
nat'ral/ cp. note to I. 2. 51;
the word means contrary to
the laws of nature, cp. for a
similar double meaning "Thy
deeds inhumane and unnat-
urall Provokes this deluge
most unnaturall" Rich. 3 I.
2.60. *ff 1 1 EVEN LIKE, i.e.
'e'en like/ 'just like'; the
word is really a compound
adjective, M.E.'evenlik.' SF 12
FAULCON : the diphthong is
due to the development in
EL.E. of u before / followed
by a consonant and gives
MN. E. 'folcon ' (the first sylla-
ble rhyming with 'ball') ; 'fael-
con' is due to an attempt to
pronounce f-a-1-c-o-n. TOWR-
ING is a technical term of
falconry denoting the rising
of the hawk just before strik-
ing her game, cp. 2Hen.6 II.
1. 1 ff., especially v. 10, " My
lord Protector's hawkes doe
towre so well " ; cp. also " she
towreth, insurgit" Holyoke
s.v. 'hawk' — all the verbs Holyoke notes as applicable to falconry are introduced by 'she.'
PLACE, likewise, denotes the hawk's highest pitch in soaring, cp. "She made the height
of the moone the place of her flight," "he [i.e. the "tassel gentle"] never ceased in his
circular motion untill he had recovered his place" Nash's Quaternio, 1633 (cited in
Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, p. 127), and "A tiercel gentle . . In such a place flies
86
fV
J
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
as he seems to say 'see me, or see me not!'" Massinger's Guardian, I. I (also cited by
Drake). SF 1 3 The low-flying MOWSING OWLE is contrasted with the soaring falcon.
HAWKT AT, 'attacked/ 'pounced upon,' N.E.D.3- SF 14 HORSES: the regular O.E.
and M.E. plural 'hors' survived in e. N.E., see N.E. D. lb; the monosyllable is still
used in MN.E. when we say 'a troop of fifty horse,' and it is possible that this mono-
syllabic form was here intended by Shakspere, though the extra syllable before the
caesural pause is not an uncommon characteristic of EL. and M.E. versification. CER-
TAIN E, 'infallible as an omen,' N.E.D. 2, cp. "that will not let you Beleeve things certaine"
Temp. V. 124. SF 15 MINIONS, 'darlings,' cp. 1.2. 19; the word refers to the esteem
in which the animals were held. SF 16 NATURE: the word is used as in III. 4. 30 to
denote the essential characteristics of an animal. ^ 18 EATE is the EL. form of the
past tense, still in use with shortened vowel, 'et,' side by side with another past-tense form
'ate.' As one of its common senses is to 'gnaw upon,' 'feed upon,' the absurdity of the
horses consuming one another is only apparent. The portents which Shakspere here refers
to are described in Holins-
ACT II
SCENE IV
20-27
ENTER MACDUFFE
Heere comes the good Macduffe.
How goes the world, sir, now?
MACDUFFE
Why, see you not?
ROSSE
Is 't known who did this more then bloody
deed?
MACDUFFE
Those that Macbeth hath slaine.
ROSSE
Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend?
MACDUFFE
They were subborned:
Malcolme and Donalbaine, the king's two
sonnes,
Are stolne away and fled, which puts upon
them
Suspition of the deed.
hed's account of the murder
of King Duff: "Forthe space
of six moneths togither after
this heinous murther thus
committed, there appeered no
sunne by day, nor moone by
night in anie part of the realme,
but still was the skie covered
with continuall clouds, and
sometimes such outragious
winds arose, with lightenings
and tempests, that the people
were in great feare of present
distruction. . . Monstrous
sights also that were seene
within the Scottish kingdome
thatyeere werethese : horsses
in Louthian, being of singular
beautie and swiftnesse, did
eate their owne flesh, and
would in no wise taste anie
other meate. . . There was
a sparhawke also strangled
by an owle." SF 18 ff. The
verses are divided as in F0. 1.
For "mankinde" see note to
II. 1.49-
<ff2I HOW GOES THE
WORLD is aa EL. conven-
tional expression meaning
'What 's the news?' as in
Tarn, of Shr. IV. 1.35 (cited by Delius) ; in Phr. Gen. it is translated by quid novi. SF 24
GOOD, 'advantage.' PRETEND is used in its common EL. sense of 'aim at,' cp. II. 3. 137.
SUBBORNED is now usually restricted to false swearing, 'subornation of perjury,' but in
EL. E. it was applied to the instigation of any form of crime, cp. " Dighton and Forrest,
whom I did suborne to do this peece of ruthfull butchery, . . Melted with tendernesse"
Rich.3 IV. 3. 4.
87
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
<ff27 Modern editors alter the
comma of FO. I after STILL
to a colon ; but 'GAINST NA-
TURE STILL, i.e. 'always
violating natural instincts,'
seems to be a part of the apos-
trophe carried out by "raven
up thine owne lives meanes."
<ff 28 THRIFTLESSEinEL.E.
means ' greedy ' as well as ' im-
provident/ Rosse says that
the sons could not wait for the
course of nature to make them
kings, and now their guilty
flight has deprived them of
ever attaining to the sover-
eignty. RAVEN UP, 'de-
vour': "[fast days] are of
a Flemish breed, I am sure
on 't, for they ravin up more
butter than all the dayes of the
week besides" Every Man
in his Humour III. 4. SF 29
MEANES is often singular in
EL.E., and is applied to per-
sons in a wide range of con-
notation, including 'medium,'
'agent,' 'instrument,' etc., cp.
"And make the Douglas
sonne your onely meane For
powres in Scotland" I Hen. 4
1. 3. 261. SF 3 1 SCONE was
the ancient seat of the Scottish
kings, and thither they rode
"for to be set in kingis stole,
and to be king." The seat of
the "kingis stole" was the
stone of Scone, which was
carried to England by Ed-'
ward I in 1 296. SF 33 COLME-
KILL is Iona: Shakspere in
his mention of Scone and
Colmekill as being respec-
tively the place of 'investiture'
and the burial-place of Dun-
can's 'predecessors' follows
Holinshed; but Holinshed
ACT II
SCENE IV
27-41
ROSSE
'Gainst nature still,
Thriftlesse ambition, that will raven up
Thine owne lives meanes! Then 't is most
like
The soveraignty will fall upon Macbeth.
MACDUFFE
He is already nam'd, and gone to Scone
To be invested.
ROSSE
Where is Duncan's body?
MACDUFFE
Carried to Colmekill,
The sacred store-house of his predecessors
And guardian of their bones.
ROSSE
Will you to Scone?
MACDUFFE
No, cosin, He to Fife.
ROSSE
Well, I will thither.
MACDUFFE
Well may you see things wel done there:
adieu!
Least our old robes fit easier then our new !
ROSSE
Farewell, father.
OLD MAN
God's benyson go with you, and with those
That would make good of bad and friends
of foes.
EXEUNT OMNES
does not mention the fact that
it was at Iona that the records of the ancient kings were kept. Shakspere seems to have
been familiar with the fact, however, and also with the 'sacred' estimation in which the
place was held from its connection with St. Columba. SF 36 FIFE was the seat of Mac-
duff. SF 37 There seems to be a play intended on the word WELL as in IV. 3« 177, where
Rosse informs Macduff that Macbeth has murdered his wife and children ; but modern
88
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
editors insert a comma after the first WELL. Rosse later joins Macduff's party, but for the
present remains with Macbeth; doubtless, therefore, the old man's words in v. 41 are in-
tended as an explanation of the part he is to take in the action immediately subsequent.
Macduff's ADIEU, etc., seems to be tantamount to ' Farewell ! I fear lest we begin to talk
treason, for I cannot shift my allegiance so easily as you do.' The FO. spelling LEAST
is that of the word before its long open e was shortened to its MN.E. form.
As Act I had for its theme the purpose or "thought" of Duncan's murder, so Act II has
for its subject the achievement of the purpose. In the first act it was the subjective
interests of this thought that we had before us : its incipiency as a fatal decree of the
powers of darkness, its effect upon Macbeth and upon Lady Macbeth, the boding shadow
it casts upon Banquo. In this act the objective aspects of the murder are presented —
the great fact and its immediate consequence — Scene I representing the action imme-
diately preparatory, Scene II the act itself, Scene III Malcolm and Donalbaine fixing the
guilt on themselves by their flight, Scene IV the consequent accession of Macbeth (repre-
sented in narrative). These first two acts, therefore, present the involution of the tragedy
whose evolution lies in the vengeance of heaven for a foul crime instigated by the powers
of evil and perpetrated by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth under the control of demoniacal
agents. As has already been pointed out, the division between the two parts of the play
is marked by a short scene which takes the place of a chorus.
Historically considered, Acts III, IV, and V cover a period of seventeen years, the
duration of Macbeth's reign, at least ten years of which were, according to Holinshed,
marked by a vigorous and righteous administration of the government, the king "govern-
ing the realme for the space of ten yeares in equall justis." After this period he begins
to dread the accession of Banquo's line and murders him. The interval, therefore, be-
tween the two acts is at least ten years. But Shakspere, with his great power of lending
dramatic unity to a long series of connected events only a few of which he seizes on to
represent his subject, gives this time interval a certain vagueness, so that Act III is really
continuous with Act II, sometimes reflecting the long historical interval, sometimes the
short psychological interval. In this way he keeps ever before us the central figure, Mac-
beth, and the central theme, his insanity.
89
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THE THIRD ACT
SCENE I: FORRES: THE PALACE
ENTER BANOUO
I — 13
BANQUO
HOU hast it now, king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weyard women promis'd; and I feare
Thou playd'st most fowly for 't: yet it was saide
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that my selfe should be the roote and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them.
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine,
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush, no more !
SENIT SOUNDED
ENTER MACBETH AS KING LADY MACBETH LENOX
ROSSE LORDS LADIES AND ATTENDANTS
MACBETH
Heere r s our chiefe guest.
LADY MACBETH
If he had beene forgotten,
It had bene as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecomming.
<ff2 Either THE before WEY-
ARD is intended to be read as
'th" or WEYARD is to be
scanned as a monosyllable ;
the former seems more likely,
as 'weird' can hardly have
less stress than WOMEN.
*ff4 IT, i.e. the sovereignty.
STAND, 'abide,' 'remain.'
POSTERITY, 'line,' 'issue'*,
the word is used in EL. E. of
one's immediatedescendants,
cp. "Hee'ld make an end of
thy posterity" Cor. IV. 2. 26.
SF 5 The reflexive pronouns like MY SELFE are often used as subjects in M. E. and e. N. E.
without the strengthening pronouns, cp. 1.3-96. ROOTE, 'progenitor,' a figurative use of
the word not uncommon in EL. E., cp. "In several tables they [i.e. the Scripture genealo-
gies] are here exhibited even from their first root" Genealogies appended to the 16 1 3 ver-
sion of the Bible, p. 2 ; cp., too, Rom. XV. 12, "the root of David," and Rev. XXII. 16. SF 7
The modern punctuation, through which AS . . SHINE is cut off by dashes instead of by
commas as in FO. I, is misleading. AS is used in its EL. sense of 'in proportion as.'
SPEECHES, ' statements,' here equivalent to ' predictions,' cp. " Have you consider'd of my
speeches?" III. 1.76; the word was used thus in EL. E. without the connotation of formal
and premeditated utterance which it now has. SHINE, 'reflect glory and honour,' cp.
1. 4. 41. SF8 VERITIES, cp. "which you shal finde By every sillable a faithful veritie"
Meas. IV. 3. 130. *1F 10 SENIT SOUNDED: cp. "Other soundings there are . . a senet
for state" 'The Souldier's Accidence' pp. 60-62, cited in N. Shak. Soc. Proceedings,
'80-'85, Appendix, p. 86. Another stage direction of the same sort is found at the end
90
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of Hen. 5. It seems to have been a peculiar set of notes on the cornet associated with
the movements of royal persons, cp. the interesting note on the word in Nares's Glossary.
For other forms of it see Cent. Diet. s.v. The LADIES after LORDS is a modern addi-
tion to the stage direction. SF 13 ALL-THING, 'quite/ 'altogether/ N. E. D. 'all' 2 b ; the
accusative of 'thing' and 'way' with a qualifying adjective did duty as adverbs in M.E.
and e. N. E., cp. "nothing afeard" 1.3-96, "something from" III. 1. 132; cp. also "each
way guilty" Sidney's Arcadia,
ACT III SCENE I
14-28
MACBETH
To night we hold a solemne supper, sir,
And Tie request your presence.
BANQUO
Let your highnesse
Command upon me, to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tye
For ever knit.
MACBETH
Ride you this afternoone?
BANQUO
I, my good lord. 20
MACBETH
We should have else desir'd your good
advice,
Which still hath been both grave and pros-
perous,
In this dayes councell; but wee 'le take to
morrow.
Is T t farre you ride?
BANQUO
As farre, my lord, as will fill up the time
'Twixt this and supper: goe not my horse
the better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a darke houre or twaine.
p. 304, " something too great "
ibid., p. 42 b, "any way im-
portune [i.e. importunate],"
ibid. j p. 4 b.
<ff 14 SOLEMNE has here its
common EL. sense of 'for-
mal/ ' ceremonial/ cp. " at thy
solemnefeast"TitusV.2. 1 15.
SFI6 UPON goes with ME
rather than with COMMAND,
and is used in its EL. E. sense
of 'concerning/ 'with refer-
ence to/ cp. " I have no power
upon you" Ant.&Cl. 1.3-23,
and "upon for concerning;
c/e" Phr. Gen. WHICH in
e. N.E. refers to persons as
well as to things, cp. "Our
Father which art in heaven"
in our EL. version of the
Bible; as in M.E., it often
takes the definite article, cp.
"some soldier . . the which
for feare had sneaked from
campe" Greene's Alphonso,
v. 256. Banquo's words echo
the notion in Macbeth's
speech to Duncan in 1.4.23-
*ffI9 RIDE YOU, etc., illus-
trates a not uncommon word
order for the EL. interrogative
sentence. The word RIDE in
M.E. and e.N.E. is a general
term for travelling, and itsem-
ployment here does not imply
that Banquo is taking a ride
for pleasure. <ff 22 STILL,
always.' GRAVE, 'carefully
'authoritative/
considered/
N. E. D. I . PROSPEROUS, ' turning out well/ as in " And may our oathes well kept and pros-
p'rous be" Hen.5 V.2.402; possibly, however, Macbeth wishes Banquo to understand
the word in its now obsolete sense of 'favourable/ cp. "To my unfolding lend your pros-
perous eare" Oth.I.3.245- SF 23 TAKE was widely used in EL. expressions of time, cp.
"Take thyfaire houre" Ham. 1.2.62 ; here Macbeth seems to mean that he will postpone
the meeting so that Banquo may be present at it. The words thus spoken in the presence
91
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of the court, like the order given to the servant in II. 1. 3 1, were perhaps intended to fore-
stall the suspicion that might fall upon Macbeth when Banquo's murder became known.
SF 26 THE BETTER: the correlative clause is to be supplied, 'the better for having so
much work to do'; cp. "they will be sure if he ride not the stronger to be fingering his
purse" Harrison's England, ed. Furnivall, p. 284: the phrase is thus tantamount to 'better
than usual.' SF28 TWAINE
ACT III
SCENE I
28-44
was originally the masculine
form of the numeral whose
neuter was 'two.' The gender
distinction was lost in M. E. r
and the two words were used
more or less interchangeably
in e. N. E., 'twain' being re-
stricted to substantive usage,
and, probably f rom its likeness
to 'twin,' being thought to
stand for bini rather than for
duo. By the time of Kersey,
1708, it was considered ar-
chaic, as it is in MN.E.
<TF 28 FAILE,'miss,"be absent
from,'N.E.D.9,I0. <ff 29 Ban-
quo's brief answer with stress
falling on WILL is peculiarly
ominous. SF 30 BLOODY,
'murderous,' 'blood-guilty,'
cp. N.E. D. 6, a sense of the
word now somewhat unusual.
BESTOW'D, 'lodged,' as in
III. 6.24. SF 32 PARRICIDE
applied to 'the murder of a
father' is not so common now
as is the word in the sense of
1 the murderer of one's father.'
*ff 33 INVENTION: the no-
tion is now more concrete
and would be plural in MN. E.
*ff 34 THEREWITHALL, 'be-
sides that,' "withall" being
equivalent to 'with.' Mac-
beth treats the matter as per-
sonal. CAUSE, 'business,'
cp. N. E. D. 10, especially the
citation "The cause craves
hast" Lucr. 1295, which also
illustrates CRAVING in the
sense of 'demanding' — here
' requiring our attention.'
Macbeth treats Banquo as
his trusted lieutenant. SF36 GOES FLEANCE WITH YOU? is artfully added as an
apparent afterthought. But Macbeth's plot aims at Fleance as well as at his father. ^37
MACBETH
Faile not our feast.
BANQUO
My lord, I will not.
MACBETH
We heare our bloody cozens are bestow'd
In England and in Ireland, not confessing
Their cruell parricide, filling their hearers
With strange invention: but of that to mor-
row,
When therewithall, we shall have cause of
state
Craving us joyntly. Hye you to horse : adieu,
Till you returne at night. Goes Fleance with
you?
BANQUO
I, my good lord: our time does call upon ? s.
MACBETH
I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,
And so I doe commend you to their backs.
Farwell.
EXIT BANQUO
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night; to make societie
The sweeter welcome, we will keepe our
selfe
Till supper time alone: while then, God be
with you!
EXEUNT LORDS
TIME, 'appointment.
DOES CALL UPON 's, 'claims us,' cp. "A verie serrious businesse
< 92
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
call's on him" All's W. II. 4. 41. «ff 39 COMMEND, 'commit,' as in 1.7. II, smilingly said
in imitation of the farewell formula. SF 40 Words like FARWELL, short phrases like
"no, no," and compellations like " My lords," a Sir knight," etc., are often not reckoned as
part of the verse in EL. dramatic poetry, see e.g. Peek's Sir Clyomonand Sir Clamydes (ed.
Bullen), passim. Sf 42 SOCIETIE is often used in EL.E. in the sense of social intercourse,
cp. "there is nothing to which nature hath more addressed us than to society" Florio's
Montaigne, 1.27. SF 43 WELCOME is used in its adjective sense. The Folio verse divi-
sion is The . . welcome, We . . alone, While . . you. ^44 WHILE has here its M.E. and
e. N.E. sense of 'until,' cp.
Tw.N. IV.3.29, and "While
signifying 'until' or 'so long
till ' is made by donee, dum and
tantis per dum : as I will not
leave while I have done it,
hauddesinam donee per fecero
hoc, etc." Phr.Gen. GOD
BE WITH YOU is merely the
fuller form of 'good-bye' and
is probably trisyllabic here,
' God b'wy ye.'
ACT III
Sirrha,
SCENE I
45-48
word wi
th
Pi
you
attend those men our
easure
SERVANT
They are, my lord, without the pallace gate.
MACBETH
Bring them before us.
EXIT SERVANT
*1F45 SIRRHA: the word is
not part of v. 45, though so
printed in theCambridge text :
see note to v. 40. EL. printers frequently make the extra measure phrases part of the verse
which follows, as the printer of FO. I has done in this case, throwing OU R PLEASU RE into
a separate line. The form SIRRHA is common in EL.E. Minsheu s.v. says that the
word is one of contempt : though usually in Shakspere implying the social inferiority of
the person so addressed, it is not always thus used, cp. IV. 2. 30. IF 47 WITHOUT, 'out-
side of,' a sense the word of-
ACT III SCENE I 48-57 ten bears in M.E. and e.N.E.
<ff48,49 TO BETHUS ISNO-
THING BUT TO BE SAFELY
THUS, 'To be what I am is
nothing at all if I cannot be
what I am in security and
without fear.' This usage of
BUT is paralleled in Merry
W. II. 2. 321 ff. : "what they
thinkein their heartsthey may
effect, they will breake their
hearts but they will effect."
The idiom is not uncommon
in EL. E., cp. the statement in
Phr.Gen. to the effect that
'but' was "anciently used in
this sense [i.e. of 'if not,' 'did
not/ 'were it not that'] for
'unless,' 'without that.'" The idiom occurs also in Cooper's Thesaurus s.v. fero: u non
feret quin vapulet, he shall not scape but be [i.e. without being] beaten." " I have much
to do But to go hang my head all at one side" in Oth. IV. 3. 3 1 illustrates the use of the
conjunction to connect two infinitives as here, but the passage has been variously miscon-
To be thus is nothing
But to be safely thus: our feares in Banquo
Sticke deepe; and in his royaltie of nature
Reignes that which would be fear'd: 'tis
much he dares,
And to that dauntlesse temper of his minde,
He hath a wisdome that doth guide his valour
To act in safetie. There is none but he
Whose being I doe feare: and under him
My genius is rebuk'd, as it is said
Mark Anthonies was by Caesar.
93
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
strued by modern editors. The same idiom is found in Temp. II. I. 240 ff. : " No hope that
way is Another way [i.e. looked at in another light] so high a hope [i.e. for the sovereignty]
that even Ambition cannot pierce a winke beyond But doubt [i.e. without doubting] discovery
[i.e. what is brought to light, N.E.D. 5] there," where again modern editors miss the sense
in attempting to construe the passage into modern idiom. It almost always happens, as
it does here, that whenever it has been assumed that a passage of Shakspere's text is
corrupt, a reference to other instances where the same idiom occurs will show that they too
will have been independently assumed to be corrupt. The Cambridge Text, overlooking
this usage of 'but,' adopts Theobald's punctuation, changing the comma after NOTHING
to a semicolon, and construing BUT TO BE SAFELY THUS as a kind of aposiopesis.
This alteration reduces Macbeth's words to sheer nonsense. The whole passage is con-
tinuous, and 'to be safely thus is everything,' or 'oh to be safely thus,' or ' I must be safely
thus,' or 'to reign in safety is the thing to be desired,' or ' I will be safely thus,' no matter
how the words are stressed, are ideas which could not in any period of English syntax be
inferred from "But to be safely thus." "Safe" and its corresponding adverb SAFELY
often in EL. E. connote the notion of 'secure,' 'securely,' cp. 1.4.27 and "But in our orbs
will live so round and safe" Per. 1.2. 122; this seems to be the meaning here. It is the
insecurity of his "fruitlesse crowne" and his "barren scepter," menaced by the prediction
of the witches regarding Banquo and Fleance, rather than his personal danger, that puts
"rancours in the vessel! " of Macbeth's peace. SF 49 Not FEARES in Banquo, but 'stick
deep in Banquo,' 'have taken root in Banquo,' cp. "Opinion that so stickes on Martius"
Cor.1. 1.275. SF50 ROYALTIE OF NATURE, i.e. his fitness for kingship, not his innate
nobility of character ; Shakspere does not use the word in this latter modern sense, but
attaches to it a more literal significance. It is 'the invisible instinct framing him to royalty
unlearned' which will draw the court to his support once he makes his claim that Macbeth
is afraid of; Shakspere's unerring instinct in choosing words expresses this 'dominance'
by the word REIGNES. SF5I WOULD BE, 'is to be,' 'must be,' a sense of the auxiliary
not altogether lost in MN.E. ^52 TO, 'in addition to.' DAUNTLESSE MINDE refers
to Banquo's courage, not to his intellect ; " mind" in EL. E. was not so restricted to intellec-
tion as in MN.E. ; cp. "but let thy dauntlesse minde still ride in triumph" 3Hen.6 III. 3- 17.
SF 54 ACT IN SAFETIE, 'mature his plans in security.' Macbeth is not afraid of Mal-
colm, Donalbaine, and Macduff, but of the quiet, far-seeing Banquo. The audience
knows, however, that it is the vagueness of Banquo's suspicions and his unwillingness
to lend himself to the powers of evil, not his deep-laid plans, that have prevented him
from pushing his claim. SAFETIE in EL. E. is often a trisyllable saf-e-ty : Shakspere so
uses the word in Ham. 1. 3. 21 ; to read it so here and contract THERE IS to 'there 's' gives
more prominent stress to NONE. *TF 55 UNDER HIM reveals most clearly his sense of
inferiority to Banquo. SF56 The GENIUS or "daimon" was a Platonic conception of
EL. psychology which conceived of a personal spirit attending the career of the individual ;
Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' I.ii. 1.2, says of them: 'as Anthony Rusca contends, every man
hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular all his life long, which Iam-
blichus calls dcemonem . . That base fellows are often advanced, undeserving Gnathoes
and vicious parasites, whereas virtuous and worthy men are neglected and unrewarded,
they refer to these domineering spirits or subordinate Genii ; . . for as Libanius supposeth
in our ordinary conflicts and contentions Genius genio cedit et obtemperat, one genius
yields and is overcome by another.' Burton calls these notions i ineptice et fabulosce
nugce, 1 but Shakspere reflects the belief here and in Ant.&Cl. II. 3- 18 : " Therefore, oh An-
thony, stay not by his side: Thy Daemon, that thy spirit which keepes thee, is Noble,
couragious, high unmatchable, Where Caesar's is not. But neere him thy angell Becomes
a feare as being o're-powr'd." As CI. Pr. points out, Shakspere, in writing the latter
passage, follows North's Plutarch, ed. 1579, p. 983: "'For thy demon,' said he [i.e. the
soothsayer who warned Antony of Caesar's predominance], 'that is to say the good angell
and spirit that keepeth thee, is afraid of his : and being coragious and high when he is alone
94
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
becometh fearefull and temerous when he cometh neere unto the other.' " The date of
Ant.&Cl. ( 1 606-7 ?) is near that of Macbeth. REBU K'D, ' checked/ ' restrained,' cp. u wee
could have rebuk'd him at Harflewe" Hen.5 III. 6. 128. *ff 57 CAESAR: not 'by Caesar's
genius/ but by Caesar him-
ACT III SCENE I
57-72
He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of kins* upon
me,
And bad them speake to him ; then, prophet-
like,
They hayl'd him father to a line of kinsjs:
Upon my head they plac'd a fruitlesse crowne
And put a barren scepter in my sjripe,
Thence to be wrencht with an unlineall hand,
No sonne of mine succeeding. If 't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my minde,
For them the gracious Duncan have I mur-
ther'd;
Put rancours in the vessell of my peace
Onely for them, and mine eternall jewell
Given to the common enemie of man,
To make them kings, the seedes of Banquo
kings !
Rather then so, come fate into the lyst
And champion me to th r utterance! Who 's
there? /^/ . ^ '/^r
self, i.e. in his presence. The
verse has an extra impulse
before the caesura.
<ff58 PUT . . UPON ME, 'ad-
dressed me with/ cp. "he . .
put strange speech upon me"
Tw.N.V. 1.70. SF63 WITH,
'by/ cp. note to I.3-93- UN-
LINEALL, not in the line of
Macbeth and Duncan. The
word is a nonce-usage in
Shakspere. Slatyer in a note
to Canto XIV of his Jacobus
(p. 287) says that " The house
of Loquhabar to which Ban-
quo belonged was an ancient
house and allyed to the kings."
It suits Shakspere's dramatic
purpose to conceive of the
sceptre being WRENCHT
from the usurper Macbeth's
hands, and to such a concep-
tion NO SONNE OF MINE
SUCCEEDING is a dramatic
necessity. One tradition at
least gives Macbeth an heir ;
Holinshed is silent on the
subject. But Macbeth's strong
hope for a son is sufficient
ground for his bitterness
against Banquo and Fleance.
And such a hope he must
have had, for that Lady Macbeth had borne children we get from 1.7.54: her hus-
band's admiration of her power in I. 7. 72 takes the form, " Bring forth men-children
onely," and the despair that overtakes him when in V. 5. 17 he hears that the queen is dead
may have a deeper root than in the mere loss of a companion in his ambition, and his
"She should have dy'de heereafter" be more than the mere platitude it is usually under-
stood to be. SF65 For BANQUO'S ISSUE see note to IV. 1. 121. FIL'D MY MINDE,
'defiled my soul'; FILE in M.E. and e. N.E. means 'to defile/ N.E.D. 3 ; it is an O.E. weak
verb form based upon the adjective which has become 'foul' in MN.E. : and MINDE in
EL.E. is frequently used where MN.E. employs 'soul' to denote the moral nature of man,
cp. "the guiltinesse of my minde" Merry W. V. 5. 130. In the interval between Act II and
Act III Macbeth has come to realize the price he has paid for success in allowing foul and
unclean spirits to reside in his "minde." ^ 67 RANCOURS still retained enough of its
original connotation in EL. E. to make Shakspere's figure of a tainted wine-vessel an
apposite one, cp. Phillips's New World of Words, " rancidity or rancor, mouldiness, rotten-
ness, mustiness," and Coles, 171 3, "rancor, rottenness." VESSELL is similarly used in
"If I would broach the vessels of my love" Timon II. 2. 186, and has nothing to do with
: Lady i
4"
95
ys
<^Ut
— 1J
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Rom. IX. 22, 23, as CI. Pr. supposes. *ff 68 MINE ETERNALL JEWELL, cp. "the Jewell
of life By some damn'd hand was rob'd and tane away" John V. 1.40. ETERNALL in EL. E.
means ' immortal,' cp. " They beleeve their soules to be eternall " Florio's Montaigne, I. xxx.
SF 69 THE COMMON ENEMIE OF MAN, i.e. Satan, cp. " What, man! defie the divell? con-
sider, he 's an enemy to mankinde" Tw.N. III. 4. 107. This and v. 65 go deeper than a mere
1 expression of remorse of conscience,' as they are generally understood. They rather show
Macbeth's guilty consciousness that his belief in the instruments of darkness is practically
a tacit bargain with the powers of evil. SF 70 SEEDES, 'descendants,' cp. " Saw his heroi-
call seed and smil'd to see him" Hen. 5 II.4.59 f 'My flesh divided in your precious shapes
Shall still retain my spirit though I die And live in all your [quarto of 1 606, 'our'] seeds
immortally' Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 2d part, V. 3 (cited by Dyce), and 'Thunders on
your head And after you crush your surviving seeds' Chapman and Shirley's Chabot, 1 1. 3
(cited by Walker). In spite of these passages, many modern editors assume that 'seed'
cannot have a plural, and change Shakspere's "seedes" of FOS. I, 2, 3, and 4 to 'seed.'
Dyce says that the Marlowe passage is 'corrupt' in both editions, and Walker says that
Shirley's whole play is 'corrupt.' But such arbitrary assumptions of grammatical usage
in EL. E. and such wholesale invokings of the deus ex machina of corruptness to explain
EL. usages which do not conform to modern notions are unreasonable and unscholarly.
The citation from Hen. 5 clearly shows that "seed" in EL. E. was used as a singular and
concrete noun as well as a collective term for descendants : we are not warranted there-
fore in altering Shakspere's text as do the Cambridge editors on mere arbitrary grounds,
despite the fact that"sonnes" is apparently printed for "son" in III. 6. 24. SF7I RATHER
THEN SO, i.e. rather than have Banquo's descendants become kings ; cp. note to II. 1.47.
COME FATE is usually construed as a vocative idiom and "fate" cut off by commas ; but
there is no good ground for departing from the FO. punctuation, that of the text, which
makes the idiom subjunctive, i.e. let fate come, etc. LYST as a term for the enclosure in
which formal combats were held is usually plural, 'lists,' in EL. E. as in MN. E. Minsheu,
however, gives "a list to fight in," and there is as little ground for making the word into
'lists' as there is for making "seedes" into 'seed.' SF 72 CHAMPION METOTH'UT-
TERANCE: the phraseology of this passage and the use of "me" after "champion" make
it scarcely possible that the modern construction 'fight against me to the uttermost' was
the one which an EL. audience would put upon Shakspere's words. CHAMPION used
as a verb is not elsewhere found in EL. E., see N.E. D. ; but there can be little doubt that
Macbeth means that FATE is to be his champion to maintain his royal title against all
comers, and not Banquo's champion. Cowel in his law dictionary gives an interesting
definition of the tenure of the royal championship by the house of Dimnock, cited in N. E. D.
The Dimnock title and tenure to the royal championship are not yet extinct, though the ser-
vice had degenerated to the mere bearing of the royal standard of England at the coro-
nation of King Edward VII. Halle's description of the championship of Henry VIII,
'Chronicle,' 1550, Hen. 8, folio 4, contains the phrase Shakspere used : "Then he [i.e. Sir
William Dimnocke] commaunded his awne [i.e. owne] herauld . . to saie : if there be any
persone, of what estate or degree soever he be, that will saie or prove [i.e. maintain] that
Kyng Henry the Eight is not the rightful inheritor and kyng of this realme I sir William
Dimnocke, here his champion, offre my glove to fight in his querell [i.e. cause] with any
persone to th' utterance." TO TH' UTTERANCE and 'to the outrance' are English ver-
sions of the O.FR. l combattre jusq'a outrance de mort/ which denoted a combat to the
death, a fight without quarter, that must continue until one or the other of the combatants
was killed. The English phrase 'to the uttermost' is probably responsible for the form
'utterance' instead of 'outrance.' To "keepe at utterance," i.e. to hold to the last ex-
tremity, occurs in Cym. III. 1.73. FATE in EL.E. is used of death, destruction, ruin, cp.
note to II. 3- 127 : Fleance "must embrace the fate of that darke houre " in v. 137, Macbeth
will "take a bond of [i.e. from] fate" by killing Macduff in IV. 1.84. Here death and
ruin are to be Macbeth's champions and maintain his claim to the crown 'e'en till distruction
96
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
sicken.' The words are not a challenge to destiny : Macbeth is not ready for that until
the end of the play, cp. V.8. 30 f f . ; when he can challenge destiny he redeems himself,
and his long tragedy is over. This soliloquy of Macbeth, like the other soliloquy in
1. 3. 1 30 f f ., from " To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus " to these, its closing words,
becomes hopelessly confused when we try to wrest its phraseology into MN.E., and
clearly illustrates the folly of
ACT III
SCENE I
73-84
ignoring the fact that Shak-
spere's English is quite dif-
ferent from modern idiom.
The ENTER SERVANT
would, of course, be ' re-enter'
in MN. stage directions, cp.
notetoll.3.95. SF74 SPOKE
is again used in its EL. sense
of 'conferred.' SF 75 WELL
THEN seems to be an answer
to the first murderer's state-
ment. The FO. begins a
new verse with "now": but
the N in "Now" may be a
misprint for H, its neighbour-
ing letter in the printers' case.
"Well then, how" would
avoid the awkward collo-
cation of notions presented
by "then now." FO.3 and
FO. 4 read "You have" in-
stead of "Have you." From
here to v. 82 the FO. verse
division is Know . . past,
Which . . fortune, Which . .
selfe, This . . conference,
Past . . you, How . . crost,
The instruments . . them, And
. . might. «ff 76 CONSID-
ER'D OF, 'thought carefully
over/N.E.D. II. SPEECHES,
'statements,' or possibly 'of-
fers' ; cp. note on III. 1.7 and
III. 6. 1. Shakspere by thus
picturing the continuation of negotiations already begun avoids the introduction of a new
theme of interest. TF 77 The rhythm of IN THE TIMES PAST is " ' " ' with reversal
occurring after the caesura. The idiom is now 'in the past' with 'times,' i.e. occasions,
omitted. SF 78 UNDER FORTUNE, 'exposed to danger,' with FORTUNE in its somewhat
rare sense of 'misfortunes,' 'perils,' cp. "the battailes, sieges, fortune That I have past"
Oth.1.3. 130, also III. 1. 1 12 of this play and N.E.D. 2 b. That this is the meaning here
seems clear from " He is now under the hazards of fortune, fortunce jam ictibus est ex-
positus" Phr. Gen. s.v. 'fortune.' *ff 79 INNOCENT, 'inn'cent,' see note to 1. 5-66; so
'conf'rence' in the next verse. SF 80 PAST IN PROBATION, 'spent with you in proving
how, etc.': PAST is the adjectively used past participle and goes with CONFERENCE;
FO. I has a comma after " conference," but, as has already been pointed out, this is normal
EL. punctuation, see note to 1.2.56. Many modern editors alter the sense by printing a
97
ENTER SERVANT AND TWO MURTHERERS
Now goe to the doore, and stay there till we
call.
EXIT SERVANT
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
MURTHERERS
It was, so please your highnesse.
MACBETH
Well then, now
Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
That it was he in the times past which held
you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent selfe: this I made good to you
In our last conference, past in probation
with you
How you were borne in hand, how crost, the
instruments,
Who wrought with them, and all things else
that might
To halfe a soule and to a notion craz'd
Say 'Thus did Banquo.'
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
semicolon after "conference," making "past" the past tense. But no such idiom as 'to
pass in probation' in the sense of 'going over the evidence' has yet been found in EL. E.
PROBATION, 'proving,' cp. "probation . . proving" Cotgrave. *ff 8 I BORNE IN HAND
is a common M. E. and e.N.E. phrase meaning 'charged' and also 'deceived.' In the
N.E.D. s.v. 'bear' 3 c the former sense is said to be obsolete circa 1540; but a kindred
meaning to 'charge,' viz. 'falsely maintain,' was still in use in 1 681 ; cp. "Do not bear me
in hand, that ; Noli quceso prce re ferre vos — " (the rest of its unfinished citation is
u plane expertes esse doctrina? 11 ) Phr. Gen. s.v. 'hand.' 'Bear in hand,' therefore, in
the sense of 'charge' may well have been in use in Shakspere's time even though not
noticed by the readers for the Oxford Dictionary. The notion of preferring false charges
seems to be in Macbeth's mind. CROST, ' thwarted,' 'opposed,' N. E.D. 14. INSTRU-
MENTS, 'means,' N.E.D. I. The verse seems to be one of six waves; but "instrument"
appears to be stressed on its second syllable in Rich. 2 V. 5- 107 and possibly also in
Cym. III. 4.75 : so the reading 'th' instrument' may have been here intended. Abbott
supposes that the word was syncopated to 'instr'ment,' but such a syncopation bringing
-strm- together would be phonetically difficult. SF 83 SOULE in EL. E. was somewhat
more extensively used to denote an individual than in MN.E., cp. "that unlettered, small
knowing soule" L.L.L. 1. 1.253. NOTION, 'understanding' ; Kersey glosses the word by
"knowledge," Coles, 1 7 1 3» by "knowledge or understanding, also a conceit or point de-
livered." Cent. Diet, cites Lear 1.4. 248, "his notion weakens," and Milton, ' Paradise
Lost' VII. 179, "The acts of
ACT III SCENE I
God so told as earthly notion
can receive." The verse has
the extra syllable before the
caesura.
*ff85 The FO. verse division
is I . . so, And . . now, Our
. . meeting, Doe . . predomi-
nant, In . . goe, Are . . man,
And . . hand, Hath . . beg-
ger'd, Yours . . ever. SF 86
POINT OF, not 'point where
we meet a second time,' but
'my reason for this second
conference'; cp. "As the
maine point of this our after-
meeting" Cor. II. 2. 43, "The
ground and principal point
of the cause" Alvearie s.v.
'point,' and "a pretty point
of security" Suckling's Let-
ters, 1648, cited in Cent.
Diet. ; cp. also Coles, 1679,
" point, causa, status, caput. 11
SF88 LET . . GOE, 'let this
go on unchecked,' N. E. D.
' let,' v 1 ., 22 e, or perhaps ' dis-
miss thisfrom your thoughts,'
N.E.D. 22 c. ARE YOU SO
GOSPELL'D TO, 'have you
been so converted as to,'
see N. E. D. s.v. ' gospelled ' a.
84-94
FIRST MURTHERER
You made it knowne to us.
MACBETH
I did so; and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Doe you finde
Your patience so predominant in your nature,
That you can let this goe? Are you so gos-
pell'd,
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavie hand hath bow'd you to the
grave
And begger'd yours for ever?
FIRST MURTHERER
We are men, my liege.
MACBETH
I, in the catalogue ye goe for men;
As hounds and greyhounds, mungrels, span-
iels, curres
Showghes, water-rugs and demy-wolves, are
dipt
98
r *- l^\JV
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT III
SCENE I
95-108
All by the name of dogges: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The house-keeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him clos'd, whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike: and so of men.
Now if you have a station in the file
Not i' th' worst ranke of manhood, say 't,
And I will put that businesse in your bosomes
Whose execution takes your enemie off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who weare our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
Macbeth alludes to "Ye have
heard that it hath beene said
Thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy . . But
I say unto you, Love your
enemies . . and pray for them
which dispitefully use you
and persecute you" Matt. V.
43, 44. For SO . . TO in
EL.E.correspondingto MN.E.
* so., as to' see note to 1 1. 3-56.
«ff 89 FOR HIS ISSUE : with
his wonderful insight into
character, Shakspere makes
Macbeth reflect his own pur-
pose and motives into the
minds of the soldiers. < 1F9I
YOURS, 'your families,' see
note on 1.6.26. *ff 92 Mac-
beth taunts the soldiers as
Lady Macbeth taunted him
in 1.7.47, affecting to misun-
derstand their use of the word
MEN. IN THE CATALOGUE has not here the vague general sense which is given it in
MN.E. In Comenius's Janua "list (catalogue)" stands in the index with a reference to
650, "In the same place is kept the register of the citizens names"; cp. also Coles,
"catalogus, roll, bill, catalogue." Macbeth says 'on the muster-roll you pass for men.'
YE is the unemphatic form of the plural second personal pronoun. ^93 Of the dogs
Macbeth mentions MUNGRELS were used for sheep-herding, cp. "heards . . whom mas-
tiffs (bandogs) or mungrels protect from the woolf" Janua, 410; SPANIELS were bird-
dogs, cp. Cotgrave, chien cToiseaux : they were distinguished as 'water spaniels ' and 'land
spaniels'; CURRES were watch-dogs and sheep-dogs, N.E.D. I,cp. "cur dogg, canis
gregarius" Withall's ' Littell Dictionary for Children' ; SHOWGHES is probably a variant
spelling of 'shocks'; Coles's gloss, "shock (dog), cam's Islandicus" would point to a
Norse origin for the word, and the variation between 'shough' and 'shock' would indi-
cate an early introduction of it into English ; the term is usually taken to mean a rough,
shaggy dog ; WATER-RUGS : Coles gives " Rug (a dog's name), Lachne" ; the Cent. Diet.,
and perhaps rightly, connects the word with 'rug,' a shaggy garment; DEMY-WOLVES:
cp. u licisque 1 a dog engendred between a wolfe and a dog" Cotgrave, and "frczsco, a dog
engendred between a wolfe and a bitch, a mungrell curre" Florio ; the prefix 'demi' was
widely used in EL. E. to denote things or persons belonging half to one class and half to
another, cp. quotations in N.E.D. s.v. 'demi' II. *ff 94 CLIPT, another form of 'clept,'
'called,' was not yet obsolete in EL. E. though archaic : Shakspere uses it again in Ham. I.
4.19. *ff 95 THE VALUED FILE, 'the priced list,' cp. " This is the breefe of money,
plate, and jewels I am possest of; 'tis exactly valewed" Ant. &C1. V. 2. 138, and "Our
present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men" 2Hen.4 1-3- 10.
SF96 DISTINGUISHES, 'singles out,' N.E.D. 3 b. SF97 HOUSE-KEEPER, 'watch-dog,'
N.E.D. 3 b. SF99 CLOS'D, 'enclosed,' N.E.D. 3; the verb was also used in EL.E. in
the sense of setting a jewel. SF 100 ADDITION, ' mark of distinction,' see note to 1. 3- 106.
BILL, 'general catalogue,' cp. "a bil of properties" Mids. 1.2. 108, and the citation in note to
"catalogue," v. 92 above. The word is still in use in ' bill of particulars,' ' bill of lading,' etc.
SF 101 WRITES, 'enrolls,' cp. "who writes himselfe Armigero in any bill" Merry W.I. 1.9;
Baret seems to intend this meaning in his gloss " to write . . enrol men of armes, conscnto"
99
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Alvearie's.u. SF 102 STATION IN THE FILE, i.e. a place on the list ; the Folio's comma
after "file" has been removed, as NOT I' TH', etc., evidently goes with STATION. SF 103
The FO. text makes this a four-wave verse, and perhaps it was intended to be such: Not
i' th' worst ranke of manhood, say 't ; various expedients have been resorted to in order to
fill out the verse, perhaps the best of which is Not in the wo-erst ranke, etc., cp. note to
1. 5. 40. For the verbiage of the passage, cp. " of the best ranck and station " Ham. 1.3. 73-
SF 104 PUT IN YOUR BOSOMES is normal EL.E. for 'confide to you,' cp. "thy bosome
shall partake The secrets of my heart" Cees. II. 1.305. SF 105 ENEMIE is almost as fre-
quently a dissyllable in EL. E., 'en'my ' (usually so printed), as it is a trisyllable. TAKES . .
OFF, cp. 1.7.20. SF 107 WEARE is used in EL.E., at least by Shakspere, to denote exhaus-
tion of energy, and may be followed by a predicate adjective denoting the effect of this
exhaustion, cp. "this exceeding posting . . Must wear your spirits low" All's W. V. I.I. IN
HIS LIFE and IN HIS DEATH both illustrate a M.E. and e.N. E. idiom by which IN is used
to express the occasion of an
ACT III SCENE I
action, cp. " Dighton and For-
rest . . Wept like to children
in their death's sad story,"
i.e. at the sad story of their
death, Rich.3 IV. 3- 4.
SF 108 MY LIEGE is proba-
bly extraneous to the verse,
cp. note to III. 1.40; but the
passage can be scanned by
contracting I AM to 'I'm,'
making a verse with an extra
impulse before the cassura.
SF 109 VILE has in EL.E. the
sense of 'wicked,"malicious' ;
Coles distinguishes between
"vile (filthy)," which he
glosses sordidusj and "vile
(wicked)," which he glosses
flagitiosus ; cp. also "'Tis a
vile thing to dye, my gracious
lord, When men are unpre-
par'd, and looke not for
it" Rich.3 III. 2. 64. *1F 1 1 1
I08-I 15
SECOND MURTHERER
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blowes and buffets of the world
Hath so incens'd that I am recklesse what
I doe to spight the world.
FIRST MURTHERER
And I another,
So wearie with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it or be rid on ? t.
MACBETH
Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemie.
MURTHERERS
True, my lord.
SPIGHT is one of a group of
e.N.E. forms into which an English gh intruded from the analogy of 'right,' * light,' etc.;
'sprightly' is still in use. SFII2 WEARIE, almost equivalent to 'disgusted,' 'sick,' an EL.
meaning of the word recrudescent some years ago in American slang ; cp. " wherein we are
not destitute for want, But wearie for the stalenesse" Per. V. 1.57. DISASTERS, not
'calamities,' but 'bad luck'; the word originally denotes an unfavorable position of the
heavenly bodies, cp. Ham. 1. 1. 1 18. TUGG'D WITH FORTUNE, not 'dragged by fortune,'
as usually understood, but 'buffeted by misfortune'; cp. Cotgrave's gloss, " sabouler [the
word means 'to toss about'], tug, mumble, or scuffle with"; " saboulement, a tugging or
scuffling with." In Wint.T. IV. 4.507 we have "let my selfe and fortune Tug for the time
to come," where the 'scuffling' notion is prominent. EL. WITH corresponding to MN.E.
'by' has already been sufficiently illustrated. SF 1 13 SET, 'stake,' cp. "Were it good to
set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast?" lHen.4 IV. 1.45. SFH4 RID
ON'T: as to the usage of ON for 'of,' cp. note to II. 3.43. SF 115 WAS, 'has been,' a M.E.
use of the imperfect sometimes met with in e.N.E. ENEMIE, 'en'my' again, as above.
100
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 1 16 IN BLOODY DISTANCE, 'with bloodthirsty enmity' (see note on "bloody cozens,"
v. 30 above) ; " distance " here means ' discord/ ' enmity/ N. E. D. I , and to the EL. mind con-
tained no suggestion of 'the distance mortal enemies would stand from each other/ as it is
usually explained. Enmity, strife, debate, is the original meaning of the word, and is found
in English as early as 1297 ;
ACT III SCENE I
the modern notion of 'dis-
tance' is later, the first quota-
tion in N.E. D. being dated
1440. SF 117, 118 THRUSTS
AGAINST can mean 'makes
thrusts against'; but Cot-
grave glosses renitance by "a
hard thrusting or endeavoring
against," and renitent by "re-
sisting, indeavoring, laboring
or thrusting against" ; Coles
gives repulsus for "thrust
against" and glosses obdo by
"to thrust against." Perhaps,
therefore, the notion is one of
hampering or besetting rather
than 'aiming at.' SF 1 18 MY
NEER'ST OF LIFE, like "their
first of manhood" V. 2. 1 1 and
"thy best of rest" Meas. III.
1. 17, is the EL. partitive form
of the superlative, correspond-
ing to MN.E. 'the dearest in-
terest of my life ' ; cp. " which
many my neere occasions [i.e.
private interests of my own]
did urge mee to put off" Ti-
mon III. 6. II. The form
NEER'ST is the usual synco-
pated superlative of M.E. and
e.N.E. Sri 19 BARE-FAC'D
means 'open/ 'avowed/ in
EL. E., cp. N.E.D. 2; the re-
striction of the word to its bad sense, 'impudent/ is later than Shakspere. *1F 120 WILL,
'pleasure/ a common EL. meaning of the word: see Sonnet CXXXV. AVOUCH, 'war-
rant/ 'stand sponsor for/ cp. "if the duke avouch the justice of your dealing" Meas. IV.
2.200. SFI2I FOR, 'on account of," because of.' SF 122 WHOSE is the connective rela-
tive, 'and their.' LOVES is another instance of the EL. plural of abstract nouns where
two or more persons or things are concerned, cp. v. 70. I MAY NOT had in e.N.E. the
sense of 'it is not possible for me to' : see the numerous instances in Schmidt s.v. 'may' ;
this phrase was tantamount to 'I am obliged to/ with a verb expressing the contrary no-
tion ; Macbeth's words are therefore equivalent to 'whose good will I am obliged to main-
tain.' EL. E. permitted certain zeugmatic constructions which are no longer tolerated; by
one of these a word was expressed in one sense and supplied mentally in another, cp. note
to 1.5-20-22; such a zeugma we have here: the MAY is first used as part of a negative
notion, 'it is not possible for me/ etc., then it is supplied in its positive form, 'but I shall
be obliged to wail/ etc. We have the same kind of zeugma in Sonnet XXXVI, " I may not
ever more acknowledge thee [i.e. I am obliged to disown thee from this time forth], Nor
101
I 16-127
MACBETH
So is he mine; and in such bloody distance
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my neer'st of life: and though I could
With bare-fac'd power sweepe him from my
sight
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not
For certaine friends that are both his and
mine ;
Whose loves I may not drop, but wayle his
fall
Who I my selfe struck downe: and thence
it is
That I to your assistance doe make love,
Masking the businesse from the common eye
For sundry weightie reasons.
SECOND MURTHERER
We shall, my lord,
Performe what you command us.
FIRST MURTHERER
Though our lives —
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
thou with public kindness honor me, Unless, etc.," i.e. and it is not possible for thee to
honour me, etc. SF 1 23 WHO, of course, in MN. E. would be accusative, but such case con-
fusions are common in EL. E. ; thousands of instances might be cited from the best EL.
writers. These idioms are offensive to our modern notions of grammar: modern editors
sometimes alter them into corresponding MN.E. forms, sometimes leave them alone. SF 125
COMMON, 'public'; this sense is now confined to phrases like 'common prayer,' 'com-
mon carrier,' etc. SF 126 The person distinction between SHALL and 'will' is a MN.E.
literary idiom, as has already
ACT III SCENE I
been pointed out. SFI27 This
anacoluthon is punctuated in
FO. I with two short dashes.
128-139
MACBETH
Your spirits shine through you. Within this
houre at most
I will advise you where to plant your selves r
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o T th' time
The moment on 't; for 't must be done to
night,
And something from the pallace; alwayes
thought
That I require a clearenesse : and with him,
To leave no rubs nor botches in the worke,
Fleans his sonne,that keepes him companie,
Whose absence is no lesse materiall to me
Then is his father's, must embrace the fate
Of that darke houre. Resolve your selves
apart:
I ? le come to you anon.
tion to it is the unusual usage
of "spy" as a noun meaning 'estimate.' Another interpretation was suggested by John-
son, who took the statement as a reference to the mysterious "third murderer" in Scene
III, and changed THE to A: Johnson's change is no longer necessary to his interpretation,
for we now know that THE had frequently in EL. E. a demonstrative force represented
in MN.E. by a light possessive adjective. Steevens inclined to Johnson's view, but unne-
cessarily altered the comma after YOUR SELVES to a semicolon so as to make ACQUAINT
an imperative. If we adopt it ACQUAINT . . WITH will mean 'cause you to know,' cp.
Temp. II. 2. 41 ; THE will correspond to MN.E. 'my'; PERFECT will have its sense of
'well informed,' cp. 1.5.2; TIME will refer to 'the opportunity to murder Banquo'; THE
MOMENT ON 'T will mean 'on the spot' (the comma after "time" in FO. I does not inter-
fere with this construction because EL. printers often cut off such phrases with commas re-
gardless of their close relation to the sentence); and the following clause, FOR, etc., will
give the reason why the third murderer has not been introduced to them — there is no time
for such formalities. The advantage of this latter interpretation is that it affords some
explanation of the third murderer's presence in Scene III; the reason the second mur-
derer there gives for trusting him is "he tells us just what to do." The 'third murderer'
is clearly one of those hired spies Macbeth speaks of in III. 4. 1 3 1 > and to Elizabethan ears
102
<$ 128 Macbeth wants no
protestations of willingness,
and artfully says that he can
see that they are determined
men. SPIRITS is here a mon-
osyllable, as often in EL. E.
For the notion cp. 1.2.46 and
1.5.27. ^ 130 PERFECT SPY
O'TH'TIME has long been a
subject of controversy : the
words are usually explained
as meaning 'the exact instant
at which it must be done';
this reading reflects the MN.
E. meanings of Shakspere's
words ; it is also supported
by " I 'le spie some fitter time
soone, or tomorrow" Jon-
son's Every Man in his Hu-
mour, III. 3- If we adopt this
reading the FOR, etc., will
express the reason for Mac-
beth's haste : the chief objec-
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
'the perfect spy' for 'my perfect spy' would not be an unfamiliar idiom. Various emen-
dations have been proposed, but, as is usually the case, they create new difficulties without
solving the old ones. SF 132 SOMETHING, 'somewhat,' an EL. adverb, cp. note to v. 13.
FROM has here its adverbial sense, 'at a distance from,' still preserved in the phrase 'from
home,' N.E. D.5. ALWAYES THOUGHT, an EL. absolute construction meaning 'always
bearing in mind'; a similar idiom occurs in "Alwayes conditioned the master bethinke
himselfe where to his charge tendeth" Florio's Montaigne, I.xxv. SF 133 I REQUIRE, 'it
is necessary for me to have': a strong emphasis falls upon I. CLEARENESSE, i.e. free-
dom from blame, cp. "clearness (from fault), innocentia" Coles; also 1.7. 18. For the
indefinite article, see note to 1.7.68, and cp. "ready, or in a readiness, promptus" Baret's
Alvearie. As Steevens pointed out, the parenthesis "alwayes . . clearenesse" was doubt-
less suggested by Holinshed's "appointing them to meet with the same Banquho and his
sonne without the palace as they returned to the palace, and there to slea them, so that he
would not have his house slandered, but that in time to come he might cleare himselfe if anie
thing were laid to his charge upon anie suspicion that might arise" Boswell-Stone's Holins-
hed, p. 33- *§ 134 RUBS were the rough places on a bowling-green which deflected the
course of the bowl ; the no-
ACT III SCENE I 139-142 T*SAvS£j*.$L
BOTCHES is a common EL.
MURTHERERS wor d for ' patches,' see N. E. D.
We are resolv'd, my lord. ^ 136 absence, another of
Macbeth's euphemisms. SF 137
MACBETH FATE, 'ruin,' 'destruction,'
T ,, n . ., , . , . , . cp. note to v.7I. RESOLVE
I le call upon you straight: abide within. your selves,' cometo your
It is concluded. Banquo, thy SOules flight decision,' cp. "Resolve thee,
r p .. £ . j 1 J n. j ., , . ?,,, Richard" 3Hen.6 1. 1.49.
It it tinde heaven must tinde it out to night.
EXEUNT <ffl39 The two half verses
make one of six rhythm waves.
<1F 140 I'LE CALL UPON YOU, 'I will demand your services,' N.E.D.23c; cp. "speake
not to him till we call upon you" Meas. V. 1.287. STRAIGHT, 'immediately,' a common
e. N. E. sense of the word. The EXEUNT is probably only a rough stage direction, the mur-
derers leaving Macbeth after his " Abide within." Though Macbeth utters only the couplet
in vv. 141, 142, he probably walks back and forth upon the stage for a short interval, giv-
ing the audience the impression of a mental struggle which is brought to an end by his
" It is concluded." Davenant after this action introduces a dialogue between Macduff and
Lady Macduff.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE II
While the dramatic purpose of Scene II is to supply an interval between the plot against
Banquo and Fleance and the accomplishment of the murder, its psychological purpose, if
we may so term it, is to join Lady Macbeth and her husband in a common sympathy and
a common responsibility on the threshold of this new murder. This time the fixed pur-
pose to remove the menace to their peace is Macbeth's and the details of the work are of
his planning: it is Lady Macbeth who acquiesces — "But in them nature's coppie 's not
eterne" — with a single pregnant utterance whose oracularly grim association of ideas is
later reflected in Macbeth's "great bond which keepes me pale." We get from it also a
clear vision of the torture of Macbeth's mind which forms the prelude to this second "deed
of dreadfull note." With a masterly treatment of detail Shakspere exposes to view the
103
THE T RAGE DIE OF MACBETH
harried soul, fear, doubt, anxiety, remorse, all mingling together in a Witches' Sabbath of
mad passion. The unrest is intensified by the contrasted notion of Duncan's peace — a peace
which Macbeth cries for when there is no peace. We are thus prepared for the mad fits
which follow, and are made to see that there is no escape from them this side the grave.
The snake Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have 'scorched' is 'the worm that dieth not,' and
their poor malice will always be in danger of its former tooth — unsafe to-morrows stretch-
ing out to the crack of doom. That their minds should break under such a strain is
scarcely to be wondered at after a picture like this : the only wonder is that Macbeth
should be able to resist his doom so long. It seems strange that in this second deed of
blood he should not take Lady Macbeth with him. It cannot be because he will conceal
it from her — his references to Banquo are too clumsy for that. It must be that for some
reason or other he will keep her out of the action. May it not be because she is in no
physical condition to endure it and that Macbeth will spare her the strain? He hints at a
new fondness for her in his "dearest chuck," a fondness that he has not been in the habit
of displaying. If we take this with Macbeth's strange words in " she should have dy'de
heereafter" and their connection, "to morrow and to morrow and to morrow" in V. 5. 17,
may we not see in this tenderness and in this apparent reluctance to make his wife a sharer
in the details of the second murder the dim reflection of a more definite hope for the heir
finally to defeat the claims of Banquo's line? It is like Shakspere to give the imagination
hints of a situation which he does not explicitly define.
SCENE II: THE PALACE
ENTER MACBETH'S LADY AND A SERVANT
1-7
LADY MACBETH
S Banquo gone from court?
SERVANT
I,madame,but returnes againe to
night.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the king I would attend his leysure
For a few words.
SERVANT
Madame, I will.
EXIT
LADY MACBETH
Nought ? s had, all f s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
'T is safer to be that which we destroy
Then by destruction dwell in doubtfull joy.
*1F I The usual EL. auxiliary
with verbs of motion is IS,
corresponding to MN. E. ' has.'
COURT, 'the immediate sur-
roundings of the king,' N. E. D.
6. The word now usually re-
fers to a formal assembly held
by the sovereign. Lady Mac-
beth's words strike the key-
note of the scene. SF 2 I is
the EL. form of 'Aye,' cp.
note to II. 2. 17. SF 3 SAY
TO THE KING, 'tell the king,'
cp. 1.2.6. ATTEND, 'await,'
N.E.D. 13- SF4 Lady Mac-
beth's words are the conclu-
sion, couched in the form of
proverbs, of a train of thought
which her evident intention to
speak to her husband on the
subject of his despondency
has led her into. Macbeth
enters with the same thought in mind. SF 6 DESTROY in M. E. and e. N. E. is used of putting
persons as well as things out of existence. It 7 DOUBTFULL, apprehensive, N.E.D. 5.
104
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT III
SCENE II
-12
*ff 8 KEEPE ALONE: Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.' I. 3- i- 2 r says that solitariness is one of the
symptoms of ' melancholy madness' : 'they abhor all companions, at last even their near-
est acquaintances and most familiar friends,' In this solitariness ' there is nothing so vain,
absurd, ridiculous, extrava-
gant, impossible, incredible
. . which they will not really
fear, feign, suspect and ima-
gine unto themselves,' cp. u of
sorryest fancies your com-
panions making." SF9 SOR-
RYEST, as in II. 2. 21, here
means 'most gloomy,' 'most
dismal,'cp.Cent.Dict.3- SF 10
USING, 'making yourself fa-
miliar with,' 'entertaining,' a
common EL. meaning of the
word, cp. " I will make all
use of it [i.e. discontent], for
I use it onely" Ado 1. 3. 41.
THOUGHTS in M.E. and
e. N.E. often means 'anxieties,' and has such a shade of meaning here; we still have this
sense of the word in 'take no thought for the morrow.' *1F 1 1 THINKE ON, 'bring to
mind,'cp. "not a thought but thinkes on dignitie" 2Hen.6 III. 1.338. In M.E. ande.N.E.
ALL is frequently used in the sense of 'any,' e.g. "at all adventure," i.e. on any chance,
Golding's Translation of Calvin's Galatians, p. 187 b. It is very frequent after WITHOUT,
cp. "without all helpe" Newton's Thebais, Sp. Soc, p. 108; "without all question" James's
Corruption of Scripture, 1612, p. 23; "without all vayne glory" Arcadia, p. 19 b.
SFI3 SCORCH'D, 'hacked,' 'lacerated' ; the Cambridge Text and most modern editors
print Theobald's ' scotch'd' for Shakspere's " scorch'd." Modern editors of Beaumont and
Fletcher likewise change the text of the 'Knight of the Burning Pestle' 1 1 1. 4, where
"scorcht and scored in this
ENTER MACBETH
How now, my lord! why doe you keepe alone,
Of sorryest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed
have dy'd
With them they thinke on ? Things without
all remedie
Should be without regard: what's done is
done.
ACT III
SCENE II
13-15
MACBETH
We have scorch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
Shee'le close and be her selfe, whilest our
poore mallice
Remaines in danger of her former tooth.
inhuman wise "-occurs, alter-
ing the EL. "scorcht" to
'scotcht.' The word" scorch"
is a derivative verb from
" score " and means ' to hack.'
InRhodes's Bookof Nurture,
1577, a boy is told "With
knyfe scortche not the boorde
[i.e. table] " Babees Book,
E.E.T.S., p. 80. Shakspere
uses the word also in Err. V.
1. 183 in the sense of lacerare, 'to tear' : "and vowes . . To scorch your face and to dis-
figure you," where some modern editors strangely understand 'to singe,' and Warburton
and Dyce emend the text to 'scotch.' This, like so many other alleged misprints in
Shakspere, is therefore a creature of the editorial imagination. SF 14 SHEE 'LE : the word
'snake' is feminine as well as neuter in EL. E. CLOSE, 'come together,' 'join,' cp. "As
many lynes close in the dial's center" Hen. 5 1. 2. 2 10. For the whole notion, cp. "The sillie
serpent found by country swaine And cut in peeces [i.e. scorched] by his furious blowes
Yet if his [genitive of ' it '] head do scape away untoucht, As many write, it very strangelye
goes To fetch an herbe, with which in little time Her battred corpes again she doth con-
joyne" Greene's Alphonsue, 1577, 308-313- POORE MALLICE, 'ineffective influence
105
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
for evil/ one of those marvellously tense expressions of Shakspere's so hard to render
into MN.E. terms. The word "mallice" in EL.E. connotes 'influence for evil' as well as
'desire to do evil,' cp. v. 25. SF 15 FORMER, 'formerly possessed,' cp. "I 'le worke My
selfe a former fortune" Cor.
V.3.20I.
ACT III
SCENE II
But let the frame of things dis-joynt,
Both the worlds suffer, 16
Ere we will eate our meale in feare, and sleepe
In the affliction of these terrible dreames
That shake us nightly: better be with the
dead,
Whom we, to gayne our peace, have sent to
peace,
Then on the torture of the minde to lye
In restlesse extasie. Duncane is in his grave ;
After life's fitfull fever he sleepes well;
Treason has done his worst: nor Steele nor
poyson,
Mallice domestique, forraine levie, nothing.
Can touch him further.
16-26
SFI6 FRAME OF THINGS,
'the established order of
things,' N. E. D. 4 ; but pos-
sibly Macbeth means 'the
earth' : Hamlet speaksof "this
goodly frame the earth" II.
2.309. In Shakspere's time
the word was common in this
sense, see N. E. D. 8. DIS-
JOYNT, 'fall to pieces,' N. E. D.
4, cp. "Our state to be dis-
joynt and out of frame " Ham.
1.2.20. BOTHTHEWORLDS,
'both hemispheres,' 'the whole
world,' cp. II. 1.49; Delius
explains as 'the terrestrial
and the celestial worlds,' and
illustrates by "both the worlds
I give to negligence" Ham.
IV. 5- 134. SUFFER: CI. Pr.
glosses 'perish,' and perhaps
rightly, citing " I have suf-
fered with those I saw suf-
fer" Temp. 1.2.6. This meaning of the word, however, is an unusual extension of the
sense 'suffer loss or injury.' The passage is here printed as in FO. I : the Cambridge
Text makes a single verse of "But . . suffer"; we frequently have incomplete verses
in Macbeth, and these two, one of four waves and one of two and a half, admirably suit
the "extasie" of Macbeth's utterance. But if we read "th' worlds" and "th"fliction"
(for which there is ample warrant in EL. prosody), ending the verses at "worlds" and
"fear," the whole passage can be made metrical. SF 17 MEALE in EL.E. is often sin-
gular as here, cp. "Whose houres, whose bed, whose meale and exercise" Cor. IV. 4. 14.
SFI8 TERR'BLE, as frequently in EL.E. SF 19 SHAKE, an anticipation of the "fitfull
fever" below. SF 20 Many modern editors, quite missing the deep meaning in GAYNE
OUR PEACE, would alter "peace" to 'state' or 'seat' or 'pangs'; others follow the
'place' of FOS. 2, 3> and 4. Macbeth's effort to "gayne peace" when there is no peace
is the motive of his murder of Banquo ; and now, as he looks back over the ten years
of his reign, he thinks of Duncan's murder, too, as having been contrived to gain peace, —
as it really was, a peace from his restless ambition, — the lurid light of his agony mould-
ing the act into the form of this subsequent bitter experience. To alter the word to
'place' is almost as fatal as would be a change of "poore mallice," above, to 'sore mal-
ice.' HAVE SENT TO PEACE is a beautiful euphemism whose sense is fortunately
not lost from MN. E. SF 2 1 TORTU RE, i.e. the rack ; Shakspere uses the word as mean-
ing an instrument of torture in "He calles for the tortures, what will you say without
'em?" All's W. IV. 3. 137. SF22 RESTLESSE, 'that gives no rest,' cp. "restlesse cares"
Rich.3 I.4.8I. EXTASIE, 'madness,' 'the state of being out of one's mind,' cp. IV.
3.170. Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' I.I.i.4, does not define it clearly, though he leaves it
to be inferred that ecstasy is a form of temporary mental alienation. The notion Mac-
106
*
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
beth here expresses is found also in Meas.V. 1. 401 : " But peace be with him ! That life
is better life, past fearing death, Then that which lives to feare"; Ben Jonson has the
same idea in Every Man in his Humour, III. 3- "No greater hell than to be slave to
feare." Montaigne, too, Florio's translation, I.xxiii, tells the story of how a fugitive gave
himself up to his pursuers, "calling to minde . . how much better it were for him to die
once than live in such continuall feare and agonie," adding that this "were better . .
than remaine still in the continuall fit of such a fever that hath no remedie" (see the next
note). SF23 FITFULL FEVER has gone into the language from this passage with the
stereotyped connotation of 'the feverish anxieties of life': but "fever" in EL.E. usually
suggests the intermittent fever of an ague, hence the epithet "fitfull." In Shakspere's
time "fitfull" had not the general meaning of 'changing or spasmodic': according to
N.E. D., Scott, 1810, is the first to use it in this sense. Both words had in EL.E. a
special reference to insanity, which was formerly viewed as a periodic disease of the
nature of a fever; see N.E.D. 'fit' 3 b. In Titus IV. 1. 17 we have: "Unlesse some fit
or frenzie do possesse her," and in Temp. 1. 2. 208 : "Not a soule But felt a feaver of the
maddeand plaid Some tricks of desperation" ; and see Lady Macbeth's words in III. 4. 55-
The picture of Duncan's reign which Macbeth gives in 1.7. 1 6 ff. does not justify his
description of Duncan's life as a "fitfull fever" ; but Macbeth now reflects his own unrest
upon all life. HE SLEEPES WELL: "he" and "well" have primary stress, and "sleepes"
a heavy secondary stress, the rhythm reflecting the notion in the words. Shakspere, in
depicting these 'fine frenzies' of Macbeth, touches his language with a poetic magic re-
flecting the rich associations with which his overwrought thought is charged. SF 24 HIS
is the EL. genitive of 'it.' The double NOR construction is still in use in poetry: 'neither
. . nor'is the corresponding MN.E. prose idiom. SF 25 MALLICE: see note tov.I4. DOMES-
TIQUE, i.e. 'at home': for the spelling see note to 1.3-78. FORRAINE, ' abroad,' con-
trasted with "domestique" : the word is now obsolete in this sense, see N. E. D. I b. This
spelling is common in Shakspere's time and represents the M. E. form, cp. O. FR. forein :
the gn of the modern form — it dates from the 1 6th century — is probably due to such
words as 'sovereign,' 'reign.' LEVIE in MN. E. means 'a body of troops levied' ; in EL.E.
it can mean 'the act of levy-
ACT III SCENE II 26-28 JayS^JJ.*. 22S3
frequent in Shakspere ; cp.
LADY MACBETH IV. 3. 14 and "Seeing his
Come on reputation touch'd to death"
G,. 1 j 1 1 » ^^ J Timon III. 5. 19.
entie my lord, sleeke o re your rugged
lookes; SF26 come on in el. e.
Be bridht and joviall amond your duests to- ff n correspond to 'come!'
o J o J o 'have done with this, cp.
ni^ht. "Come on, sir knave, have
done your foolishnes" Err. I.
2.72; despite the colon after the word in FO. I, it seems to have this sense here, cp.
Lady Macbeth's "You must leave this" in v. 35. Lady Macbeth recognizes in her hus-
band's overwrought language and distorted features the imminence of one of his hallucina-
tion periods, and tries to guide his thoughts into safer channels. SF 27 GENTLE MY LORD
is common EL. word order for 'my noble lord,' cp. "gracious my lord" V. 5- 30. SLEEKE,
'smooth out,' cp. "To sleek (make sleek), Icevigo" Coles, and "A locksmith . . smotheth
[glossed "maketh sleek" in margin and referred to as "to sleek" in index] the roughnesse
with a plane" Comenius, 'Janua' 532; Drayton in ' Barrons Warres' III. 47 also has
"sleek every little dimple of the lake" (cited by Cent. Diet.). RUGGED, 'wrinkled':
Comenius, 'Janua' 77, speaks of the earth as being "cragged or rugged," translating con-
fragosa ; and Spenser in the Prologue to Book IV of the Faerie Queene writes "The rugged
107
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH |
forhead that with grave foresight Wields kingdomes, causes, and affaires of state" (cited
by the Cent. Diet.) ; Cotgrave defines rugueux by "rugged, wrinkled" ; the Glossographia
gives " rugosity ; ruggedness, a being full of wrinkles." So we are not justified in assuming
that LOOKES is a misprintfor
ACT III SCENE II
Mocks' even though Shak
spere has elsewhere used
"rugged" to mean 'ruffled.'
SF 28 is a six-wave verse un-
less we read "'mong" for
AMONG.
SF30 REMEMBRANCE (four
syllables, cp. note to 1.5-40),
'consideration,' as in "One
thus descended . . we did
commend To your remem-
brances" Cor.II.3.253. AP-
PLY, 'attend assiduously,'
N.E.D. 15. SF3I PRESENT,
'show,' cp. "Yet oftentimes
it [i.e. your fault] doth present
harshrage"lHen.4III.I.I83.
EMINENCE, 'deference,' cp.
" Equity is a due to people
as eminency is to princes"
Ward, 1647, cited in N.E.D.
s.v. 1 eminency '6. SF 32 UN-
SAFE THE WHILE, etc., has
caused great difficulty to
Shakspere editors, and va-
rious far-fetched attempts
have been made to botch the
text into MN.E. sense. But such syntax as we have here, through which both subject
and predicate are left to be supplied mentally from the context, is not uncommon in EL. E.
Another such idiom appears in 111.4.31? " [he hath] no teeth for th' present"; also in
Tro.&Cr. IV. 4.57, " [there is] no remedy"; and in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour,
III. 3 (cited above), "[there is] no greater hell than to be slave to fear" ; likewise in Bur-
ton's Anatomy, 1.2. ii. 7, ' Nothing better than moderate sleep, nothing worse than it if it be
in extremes.' And such instances could be indefinitely multiplied. The thought, then,
resumes that of v. 29, 'I shall be jovial and so, I pray, be you; but we are insecure so
long as we,' etc. The use of SAFE in the sense of 'secure' has already been noted. It
is Macbeth's insecurity that is gall and wormwood to him. THE WHILE is adverbially
used in M.E. and e. N.E., and here means 'so long as,' THAT being the strengthening
particle. In FO. I there is a comma after "that," which has led modern editors to read
"that" as tantamount to 'in that.' But in EL. punctuation a subordinate clause, no
matter what its relation to the context, is cut off by commas. Macbeth is thinking of
Banquo's "being" as the menace to his peace. Vv. 3I» 32 are here printed as in FO. I :
the Cambridge Text prints Unsafe . . we, an imperfect verse, followed by Must . .
streams, a complete one. IF 34 VIZARDS, 'masks,' cp. L.L.L. V.2.242. SF35 YOU
MUST LEAVE THIS, 'you must cease to think of this,' N.E.D. 'leave' 1 1 ; cp. " But leav-
ing this, what is your grace's pleasure?" Rich. 3 III. 7. 108. SF 37 Again the singular verb
with the plural subject. SF38 NATURE'S COPPIE S NOT ETERNE, 'life's tenure in them
is terminable': Lady Macbeth uses legal phraseology; "copy" in EL.E. was a 'holding
108
29-38
MACBETH
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
Present him eminence, both with eye and
tongue:
Unsafe the while that wee must lave
Our honors in these flattering streames,
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH
You must leave this.
MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is" my minde, deare wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleans
lives.
LADY MACBETH
But in them nature's coppie 's not eterne.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
by copy/ which, as defined by Cowel, is "a tenure for which the tenant hath nothing to
show but the copy of the Rolls made by the Steward of the Lord's Court [i.e. the mano-
rial court-roll]." Cowel says that these copyholds vary with the customs of the manor,
which are infinite; some of them are "fineable at will"; some "certain," i.e. the next of
blood inherits on payment of a customary fine. NATURE, here used in its common EL.
sense of 'life,' is thought of as residing in Banquo and Fleance as if holding a manorial
tenancy from the Sovereign of Life. Lady Macbeth remarks that this tenure is terminable,
darkly hinting at a "deed of dreadfull note." And by this hint not only does she show that
she has read the thought which lies behind her husband's "Thou know'st that Banquo and
his Fleans lives," but she also includes herself in this second plot, and invites her share
of the doom which follows. In her delirium (cp. V. I ) she is haunted by the murder of Ban-
quo as well as by the blood of Duncan. ETERNE, an earlier form of 'eternal,' O.FR. eterne,
which was evidently becom-
ACT III SCENE II 39-44 ^ttZ^t^
and in Ham. II. 2.512 ; but it
MACBETH is not uncommon in EL. prose
There's comfort yet; they are assaileable; and poetry, see n.e.d. 1.
Then be thou jocund: ere the bathath flowne ^ jocuND,'well P leased,'
His cloyster'd flight, ere to black Heccat's 'joyful,' see n.e.d. b. SF 41
Summons CLOYSTER'D, 'confined to
rr , 1 111 11 111 1 cloisters,' 'cloister haunting,'
1 he shard-borne beetle with his drowsie hums acurioususeoftheword. to
Hath rung night's yawning peale, there shall 'in accord with," in obedience
1 1 to,' cp. "a souldier Even to
De a0ne Cato's[FO.I"calves"]wish"
A deed of dreadfull note. Cor. 1.4. 56. black, cp.
LADY MACBETH " Blacke is the badge of hell,
.„. f 1 1 1 t e ue °* dungeons, and the
What S to be done.'' schoole [an EL. variant spell-
ing of u skull," ' headarmour ']
of night" L.L.L. IV. 3. 254. HECCAT, again the dissyllabic form with stress on the first
syllable; cp. note to II. 1.52. SF 42 Many of the earlier commentators of Shakspere
took the SHARD-BORNE BEETLE for a scarab or sort of tumble-bug born in 'shards'
or rubbish. But the reference to the insect's "drowsie hums" in the evening shows that
it is the tree-beetle that Shakspere means. He distinguishes this insect from other
beetles by describing it as borne up by " shards," or scaly wing-cases. Beetles and
locusts were not sharply distinguished in Shakspere's time, and it is the locust or hanne-
ton which Muffet thus describes in his ' Insectorum Theatrum' : "The tree beetle is very
common and everywhere to be met with, especially in the moneths of July and August
after sunset : for then it flyeth giddily in men's faces with a great humming and loud
noise." Cotgrave, s.v. hanneton, speaks of their scaly wing-cases as a characteristic.
Ben Jonson refers to their wing-cases as "habergeons" in "The scaly beetles, with their
habergeons, That make a humming murmur as they fly," and makes them the instruments
of witches in The Sad Shepherd II. 2. SHARD is not an uncommon name of the ely-
trum of the beetle: Shakspere uses it in Ant.&Cl. III.2.20, "They are his shards and
he their beetle," and in Cym. III. 3-20, "The sharded-beetle." Chapman, 1614 (cited by
Steevens), reflects a popular superstition that associates this insect with death bodings :
" The beetle . . with his knoll-like [i.e. knell-like] humming gave the dor of death to men [gave
them the mock of death, i.e. sleep]," hence " hath rung night's yawning peale." SF 43 YAWN-
ING, ' drowsy,' cp. Coles, " yawning, oscitabundus" and " The lazie yawning drone " Hen. 5
1.2.204. *TF 44 NOTE, 'importance,' cp. "he is one of the noblest note" Cym. 1.6.22.
109
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF45 INNOCENT, a dissyllable. DEAREST CHUCK is a term of endearment used also
in L.L.L. V.2.667 and Hen. 5 III. 2. 25. SF 46 With an exquisite transition, Shakspere
makes Macbeth demand of nature the same secrecy which he has been asking of Lady
Macbeth. SEELING is an EL. term of falconry denoting the sewing up of the hawk's
eyelids. It had a general application to hoodwinking, however, as is shown by Cotgrave's
u siller les yeux,to seele or sew up the eye-lids and thence also to hoodwinke, blind, keepe
in darknesse, deprive of
ACT III SCENE II
sight," cp. "to seele her
father's eyes up close as
oake" Oth.III.3.2IO. SF 47
SKARFE UP, 'blindfold,' cp.
"imbendare, to inscarfe, to
blind fould" Florio. PITTI-
FULL: in EL.E. the word
was subjectively as well as
objectively used, and could
mean 'feeling pity' as well as
'exciting pity,' cp. "good
ground, be pittifull and hurt
me not" John IV.3-2. The
word was often syncopated
to "pit'ful" in M. E. and
e.N.E. ^48 INVISIBLEalso
is probably meant to be syn-
copated, cp. "Which now in
visible hatred are burst out"
Jonson,'Sejanus'lV.3. SF 49
"Death cancells all bonds"
was a commonplace in Shak-
spere's time, cp. "The com-
mon saying is that death
acquits us of all our bonds"
Florio's Montaigne, I. vii. The
phrase occurs in another
form in lHen.4 III.2.I57,"the
end of life cancells all bands."
Shakspere employs the can-
celling of the bond of life as
45-56
MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling
night,
Skarfe up the tender eye of pittifull day,
And with thy bloodie and invisible hand
Cancell and teare to pieces that great bond
Which keepes me pale ! Light thickens, and
the crow
Makes wing toth' rookie wood:
Good things of day begin to droope and
drowse,
Whiles night's black agents to their preys
doe rowse.
Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee
still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves
by ill:
So, prythee, goe with me.
EXEUNT
a euphemism for death in
"Cancell his bond of life, deere God, I pray" Rich.3 IV. 4. 77, and in "great powres . .
take this life and cancell these cold bonds" Cym.V.4. 26. Macbeth invokes night, whom
he now thinks of as death, to cancel the bond of Banquo's life and thus tear in pieces
the deed (cp. N.E.D. 'bond' 9) by which the 'great powers' have bound themselves to
confer the sovereignty on Banquo's issue. In this latter sense of 'instrument of obliga-
tion' the word "bond" had a wider application in EL.E. than in MN.E., e.g. in The Mer-
chant of Venice a promissory note is a bond, and we have "take a bond of fate" in
IV. 1.84. The blending of two meanings of a word or phrase in a harmonious union so
close as to present but a single idea is a characteristic of Shakspere's English. It is
the implied obligation in the witches' prophecy that keeps Macbeth pale, and his words
here are but the nearer echo of his invocation of the powers of darkness and ruin to
champion him to the uttermost. In the literal sense Banquo's bond of life includes
Fleance's also ; and when they embrace the fate of their dark hour death will cancel the
great bond by making it impossible of fulfilment, and thus will Macbeth cheat the powers
110
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of destiny. The verse division of FO. I for vv. 50 and 51 is "Which . . thickens, And
. . wood"; the modern verse division, 'Which . . crow, Makes . . wood,' is Rowe's.
Some editors, convinced that "Makes . . wood" is a verse accidentally incomplete, at-
tempt to restore it : Keightley clapped to it the patch 'on earth below/ binding woolsey on
a coat of silk. The broken line would come more naturally after "pale," but that would
make v. 51 a verse of six waves, so perhaps Rowe's division is the better. SF 50 THICK-
ENS, 'becomes obscure,' cp. "thy luster thickens When he shines by" Ant.&Cl. II. 3. 27.
*1F 5 I ROOKIE : a large class of adjectives in EL. E. were formed by adding -y to a noun
or to another adjective stem with the sense of 'abounding in, T 'full of/ 'characterized by' ;
e.g. "helly" for hell-like, Heywood's Hercules Furens, Sp. Soc, p. 14, "shelfye," abound-
ing in shoals, ibid., p. I5> "dampy," full of damp, Drayton's Heroicall Epistles, p. 53 J so
" roundy " Sidney's Arcadia, " hugy " Peele's Clyomon and Clamydes, and a host of others.
Most of these have disappeared in MN.E. The MN.E. distinction between a crow, 'a
large black bird that feeds on carrion/ and a rook, corvus frugilegus, does not seem to
have been always observed in EL.E. Rooks are still called crows in northern England
and Scotland, and crow is still the generic name for both rooks and crows in the United
States. Shakspere calls the boy who frightens away the rooks a "crow-keeper" in
Rom.&Jul. 1.4.6, and Kersey, 1708, defines a rook as a "bird that preys upon carrion."
There is, therefore, no inconsistency in Shakspere's making CROWS fly to the ROOKIE
WOOD as Steevens supposed, and such emendations as 'rook i' th'/ 'reeky/ 'murky/ etc.,
for "rookie" are fortunately unnecessary here. Other editors with some reason have
thought that ROOKIE was the EL. form of the M.E. word found in the Promptorium
Parvulorum : "roky or mysty, nebulosus," "roke, myste, nebula. 11 This word, at least in
its noun form, was current in literary EL.E., as is shown by Levin's Manipulus Vocabu-
lorum, 1570, which glosses pruina by "ye hore roke," i.e. the mist which settles over
hoar-frost. Kersey has it in 1708: "roke, as 'To make one's self all in a roke/ i.e. to
put one's self into a great sweat." The word is still common in dialects and is used by
Tennyson: see Cent. Diet. It is quite possible, therefore, that "rookie" of FO. I is a
printer's error for ' roakie ' or ' rokie/ as may be the " schoole " for ' schole ' in 1. 7. 6. And
here, as in I. 7. 6, it happens that both words make good Shaksperian sense, 'the cawing
rooks' or 'the evening mists.' But as the text is for "rookie," pronounced almost as in
MN.E., instead of 'rokie' (rhyming with 'smoky'), perhaps it is better to adhere to the
former interpretation. Any one who has noticed the rooks settling down for the night
into the tops of tall elm trees, as they do, for instance, in the trees about Magdalen Col-
lege, will not have difficulty in understanding Shakspere's "rookie wood." SF 52 GOOD
THINGS OF DAY seems to be a reminiscence of a passage from Euripides current in
EL. E. ; Steevens cites it from Ascham's Toxophilus : " II thynges the nyght, good thynges
the day doth haunt and use." SF 53 BLACK AGENTS, 'dark influences.' PREYS (mis-
printed "prey's" in FO. I): the usual EL. distributive plural, cp. note to III. 1. 122. SF 54
MARVELL'ST: the second personal verb ending was often thus syncopated in M.E. and
e. N. E. ; such forms are now usually confined to short words like ' dost/ ' hast/ etc. HOLD
THEE STILL, 'have patience/ probably in anticipation of such a protest from Lady Mac-
beth as in III. 2. 35. SF 55 BAD, the EL. adverb. SF 56 PRYTHEE, cp. note to L7.45.
This is the second time that, as the dark and evil powers of his character rouse them-
selves to their task, Macbeth reflects his mood of darkness upon the face of nature. In
II.I.49ff-» as he goes to murder Duncan, dead nature, deceiving dreams, witchcraft, pale
Hecate, stalking murder, the howling wolf, the dull and sleepy earth add their present horror
to the time. So here, with a few touches of association, — and it is marvellous how few they
are : the deepening light, the cawing rooks, plants and animals drooping and drowsing to
healthy rest while the mysterious forces of darkness stir themselves to their nightly ac-
tivity, — Shakspere tunes Macbeth's soul into unison with the mysterious powers of evil
that fly by night. It is this mystery of evil, this bloody and invisible hand of the night
groping for human souls out of that realm of dark imagination to which the human mind has
III
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
given a local habitation and a name in its eerie folk-lore, that is the deep undercurrent of
interest, lending, even at this late day, a sort of fascination to the tragedy of Macbeth. We
catch an early glimpse of this eerie world as we learn in childhood the story of Saul and
the witch of Endor, and there are indeed few of us who ever quite forget its essential
tragedy.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE III
The scene begins in medias res : the murderers have already met and planned their attack ;
the third murderer has instructed the other two as to just what they are to do, vv. 2 and 3«
He himself does not seem to take an actual part in the encounter, but merely superintends
it: this points strongly to his being Macbeth's "perfect spy." It is he who has planned
out the details ; it is he who knows the courtiers' habit of walking through the palace yard.
When Macbeth speaks to the two in III. 1. 129 ff. he gives them no plan of action : he only
asks them to make up their minds. This third murderer must therefore be "the perfect
spy o'th'time" referred to in III. 1. 30, or 'a perfect spy of the time' in Macbeth's employ
introduced here in order to give the scene more lifelikeness. The far-fetched theory that
the third murderer is Macbeth himself disguised ( !) has nothing to recommend it save its
ingenuity. Any such mystery would have needed a commentator to explain it, since there
are evidently no asides in the action, and any distinction of dress would have betrayed
Macbeth to his fellow-murderers at the moment when it disclosed him to the audience.
SCENE III: A PARK NEAR THE PALACE
ENTER THREE MURTHERERS
1-4
FIRST MURTHERER
UT who did bid thee joyne with
us
7
THIRD MURTHERER
Macbeth.
SECOND MURTHERER
He needes not our mistrust, since he delivers
Our offices and what we have to doe
*ff I BUT marks the sharp
turn of suspicion that crosses
the mind of the first murderer
as the new accession to their
party finishes his directions.
SF2 -HE NEEDES NOT OUR
MISTRUST, 'there is no rea-
son why we should mistrust
him'; such e. N. E. syntax
grew out of the development
of M.E. impersonal idioms
into e. N. E. personal forms of
thinking. Such an expression
as "it needeth not that we mistruste him," i.e. there is no reason that, etc., became "he
needes not our mistrust"; the opus est meaning of 'needs' is now quite obsolete, and
such a phrase as we have here in MN.E. seems like a clumsy figure of speech, and such
expressions as "What need the bridge much broder then the flood?" i.e. Why should the
bridge be broader than the stream? Ado 1. 1. 3 1 8, and" What need these tricks?" Tro.&Cr.
V.I. 14, appear to us sheer nonsense. DELIVERS, 'describes,' N.E.D. II,cp. "I . . heard
the old shepheard deliver the manner how he found it" Wint.T. V. 2.4. IF 3 OFFICES,
'parts,' cp. "this is thy office, Beare thee well in it" Ado III. 1. 12. SF 4 TO, 'according
112
To the direction just.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT III
SCENE III
4-16
to/a common M.E.ande.N. E.
meaning of the preposition.
THE, probably equivalent to
'his* or 'our.' JUST, 'ex-
actly/'precisely/ see N.E.D.2,
whose citation from Stern-
hold and Hopkins's Psalmes,
1 549-1 562, "The Lord . .
knowethour shape, Our mould
and fashion just," shows that
the position of the adverb is
not anomalous in EL. E.
^4 The first murderer's
STAND WITH US seems to
be proposed as a test of the
new arrival's sincerity. *1F 6
LATED is not an aphetic form
of 'belated,' used here for
rhythm's sake, but a not un-
common participial adjective
in -ed, 'made late.' It occurs
also in Ant.&Cl. III. II. 3.
«ff7 TIMELY, 'opportune,'
' welcome,' cp. Coles," timely,
opportunus." <IF8 SUBJECT
is frequently used in EL. E.
where MN. E. prefers 'ob-
ject/ cp. "To be shame's
scorne and subject of mis-
chance" I Hen.6 IV. 6. 49- SF9
HOA is Banquo's call to his
attendants, who are taking the
horses around by the road ;
the word is extra-metrical :
PO. I makes THE REST part
of the following verse. *ff 10
WITHIN THE NOTE, 'com-
prised in the list/ cp. "mace,
dates, none ; that's out of my
note" Wint.T. IV.3-49. OP
EXPECTATION, 'of the ex-
pected guests/ cp. "The ut-
most man of expectation,"
i.e. the full complement of the
soldiers we expected, 2Hen.4
I.3.65. This meaning of the
<lr II I'TH' COURT, 'at the palace/ N.E.D.5.
ABOUT, 'by a circuitous way/ cp. "I was forc'd to wheele Three or foure miles about"
Cor. 1.6. 19. SFI4 THEIR would be 'his' in MN.E. The syntax is similar to that ex-
plained in the note to 1.3. 144. A LIGHT, the torch that Fleance is carrying. SF 16 IT
WILL BE RAYNE, 'there will be rain'; the impersonal idiom in M.E. could have "it" for
its subject, and this form of it survived into e. N.E. ; cp. the German locution 'es giebt.'
113
FIRST MURTHERER
Then stand with us.
The west yet glimmers with some streakes
of day:
Now spurres the lated traveller apace
To gayne the timely inne, and neere approches
The subject of our watch.
THIRD MURTHERER
Hearke! I heare horses.
BANQUO within
Give us a light there, hoa!
SECOND MURTHERER
Then 'tis hee: the rest
That are within the note of expectation
Alreadie are f th' court.
FIRST MURTHERER
His horses goe about.
THIRD MURTHERER
Almost a mile: but he does usually,
So all men doe, from hence to th' pallace gate
Make it their walke.
ENTER BANQUO AND FLEANS WITH A TORCH
SECOND MURTHERER
A light, a
THIRD MURTHERER
light!
Tis
hee.
FIRST MURTHERER
Stand too 't.
BANQUO
It will be rayne to night.
word has been overlooked by the N.E.D.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 16 LET ITCOME DOWNE
is probably said with ironical
double meaning — 'lettheblow
fall.' SF 1 7 TRECHERIE,
'treach'ry.' SF 1 8 The Mac-
beth tradition made Fleance
flee to Wales, cp. " About this
timealso Fleance, from whom
the later kings of Scotlandare
descended, fled from his tyr-
anny into Wales: where by
Nest, daughter to Griffith ap
Lewlyn, then Prince of all
Wales, he had Walter, first
Lord Steward of Scotland"
Slatyer's Palazalbion, 1 6 1 9 r
p. 282. Holinshedalsomak.es
Fleance escape, not at the
time of the murder, but later.
SF20 WE HAVE LOST was
probably intended for a con-
traction, 'we've lost.' SF2I
BEST HALFE: the parti-
tive superlative frequently
appears in EL.E. without the
definite article, as here, cp.
" I am grieved to see how we
employ most part of our time "
Florio's Montaigne, I. xxv.
ACT III
SCENE III
16-22
FIRST MURTHERER
Let it come downe.
THEY SET UPON BANQUO
BANQUO
O, trecherie ! Flye,good Fleans,flye, flye,flye,
Thou may'st revenge. O slave !
DIES. FLEANS ESCAPES
THIRD MURTHERER
Who did strike out the light?
FIRST MURTHERER
Was ? t not the way?
THIRD MURTHERER
There f s but one downe; the sonne is fled.
SECOND MURTHERER
We have lost
Best halfe of our affaire.
FIRST MURTHERER
Well, let 's away and say how much is done.
EXEUNT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE IV
The scene that follows is really the critical point of the play. Macbeth's insanity now be-
comes a menace to his personal security, and the other 'tortures of his mind' pale before
a greater torture when he becomes aware that the " fits " which he suffers from have become
matters of public comment, and that now he cannot help betraying himself and unfolding
all the dark horrors of his life to the public gaze. His terrible dreams have now invaded
the daylight. His will, whose impotence to restrain his own evil ambitions he becomes
aware of in the first act of the play, is now the active agent of powers which, fight against
it as he may, are assuring his own destruction. How frequent the fits must be Shakspere
contrives to show us in presenting but one : what anxieties they cause the guilty pair and
how impossible of control they are appears later from the sleep-walking scene where Lady
Macbeth exclaims "you marre all with this starting." Shakspere here, as in Hamlet, pre-
sents the tragic Nemesis as an instrument of torture wrought out of the material of the
victim's own character. But not only Macbeth, Lady Macbeth likewise becomes the vic-
tim of "even-handed justice." She has instigated the murder of Duncan, embarking her
husband on his career of bloodshed; she 'goes with him' in his murder of Banquo ; she
accedes to his designs against Macduff as implied in his notion of wading on through the
stream of blood — perhaps a helpless accession, but none the less conscious, as she shows in
the sleep-walking scene. She has enjoyed the first fruits of their common crime, as we
see from the well-borne queenly dignity with which Shakspere endues her ; and in her
114
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
anxiety to shield her husband from the consequences of his self-betrayal, she drinks of the
cup that Nemesis commends to the lips of Macbeth. And with the close of the scene,
like the primeval pair who left Eden "hand in hand with wandring steps and slow," they
together enter into their heritage of bitterness 'but young in deed/ novitiates in suffering.
SCENE IV: THE HALL IN THE PALACE
BANQUET PREPAR'D: ENTER MACBETH LADY MACBETH
ROSSE LENOX LORDS AND ATTENDANTS
MACBETH
OU know your owne degrees; sit
downe: at first
And last the hearty welcome.
LORDS
Thankes to your majesty.
MACBETH
Our selfe will mingle with society
And play the humble host.
Ourhostesse keepes her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
1-6
<lFl DEGREES, 'rank/ 'or-
der of precedence/ N.E. D.4,
cp. " O that estates, degrees
and offices Were not deriv'd
corruptly" Merch. II. 9. 41 ;
the plural form is used as it
is in "preys" III. 2. 53- SIT
DOWNE not only seems in-
apposite as coming from the
king, but makes the rhythm
difficult, forcing either two
incomplete verses as in FO. I,
You . . downe, At . . wel-
come, or a bad verse division
in the middle of a phrase, "At
first And last," as in the Cambridge Text, or an alexandrine, You . . last, Delius. It may
be an extra-metrical phrase, cp. note to III. 1.40, or is possibly an actor's direction in-
truded from the margin. AT FIRST AND LAST: the phrase occurs also in "I, greefe, I
feare me, both at first and last," i.e. Aye, I fear this matter will be first and last a trouble
to the state, lHen.6 V.5- 102. One would naturally expect Macbeth to give his pledge
'to first and last' after having referred to the various degrees of his nobility. But AT in
its M.E. sense of 'apud/ 'in the presence of/ is not cited in N.E.D. later than 1580, though
there is obviously an EL. survival of this sense in the idiom "to do at one," cp. "What will
she do at me, quid faciet mihi" " What wouldst thou do at him, quid Mo facias " Phr. Gen. ;
the phrase is also given in Coles. Moreover, even if current in the sense of 'apud/ the
"at" would normally be understood as part of an adverbial phrase if coming before "first."
Johnson was for taking "at first" with "sit downe," and altering "last" to 'next'; but
this construction makes lame sense, besides departing from the FO. texts and punctuation.
Other editors alter "at" to 'to' or to 'and.' But probably Shakspere was merely pre-
paring for Macbeth to take his place among his guests as "humble host" instead of sitting
in state on the dais above them, so as to provide for his asides to the murderer and his
attempt to take Banquo's empty seat: as royal host he pledges the court 'once for all.'
*ff2 THE . . WELCOME: the definite article seems to have been used to mark a certain
formality, 'the pledge of welcome' ; one editor changes it to 'a' in this passage, and most
editors remove it from the text in Tro.&Cr. III. 3- 1 68 : "the welcome ever smiles and fare-
well [FO. I "farewels"] goes out sighing." <ff 3 OUR SELFE, the majesty plural of the
reflexive used as personal pronoun. MINGLE WITH, 'associate with/ cp. "Mingled his
royaltie with carping fooles" I Hen. 4 III. 2. 63. SOCIETY, 'company/ cp. "My riots past,
my wilde societies" Merry W. III. 4.8. SF4 HUMBLE: Macbeth will lay aside his royalty.
115
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
<IF5 STATE frequently in EL.E. means 'chair of state/ 'throne/ cp. "This chayre shall
bee my state" lHen.4 II. 4. 415, and Marston's Antonio and Mellida, II. i, stage direc-
tion: " Forobosco ushers the duke to his state." IN BEST TIME seems to be a super-
lative form of 'in good time/ i.e. when the feast is at its height (another instance of
the EL. superlative without the definite article). SF 6 REQUIRE, 'ask for/ a usual
sense of the word in EL.E.
wdc L o C m ° ME ' U P ' edge °' ACT III SCENE IV 7- 15
SF8 THEY ARE, probably
contracted to ' they 're.' *IF 9
ENCOUNTER seems to be
used here in the sense of
'address/ N. E. D. 7, cp. "I
could . . have charg'd him At
the sixt houre of morne, at
noone, at midnight, T' en-
counter me with orisons, for
then I am in heaven for
him" Cym. 1.3.25 ff. But
there may be in the word a
suggestion of 'countering' in
the sense of 'retorting to/
N.E.D. 'counter* 4, or of
singing an accompaniment to
a melody, N.E.D. 'counter/
v., 2, as the forms of 'counter 7
and 'encounter' were con-
fused in EL.E. The latter
meaning beautifully fits the
Cymbeline passage. Mac-
beth speaks as the lords stand
to pledge the queen. THEIR
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,
For my heart speakes they are welcome.
ENTER FIRST MURTHERER
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their harts f
thanks.
Both sides are even : heere I f le sit i f th f mid'st :
Be large in mirth ; anon wee ? 1 drinke a mea-
sure
The table round. to murtherer
There 's blood upon thy face.
MURTHERER
'T is Banquo's then.
MACBETH
'T is better thee without then he within.
Is he dispatch'd?
has full stress, contrasting with MY in the previous verse. *1F 10 BOTH SIDES ARE
EVEN goes with the preceding line in FO. I, which has no mark of punctuation after
THANKS; v. 9 in the FO. is closely spaced and its last letter comes to the edge of the
column measure, so a period may have been lost in the exigencies of printing, and Mac-
beth's words be, as they are always understood to be, a dramatic explanation of his reason
for taking Banquo's empty chair at the head of the table. But they could well be a
playful reference to the result of the 'countering' between Lady Macbeth and the court,
and his "sit i' th'mid'st" be a punning allusion to his taking neutral ground in the con-
test of compliment. SF II LARGE, 'unrestrained/ N.E.D. II, cp. "Your praises are too
large" Wint.T. IV. 4. 147. ANON, 'in a moment': as he rises to give the pledge which
Lady Macbeth in v. 33 chides him for delaying, he catches sight of the murderer at the
door and walks toward him. The blood upon the murderer's face is probably one of
Macbeth's delusions. SF 14 'T IS BETTER THEE WITHOUT THEN HE WITHIN has
been interpreted in various ways: "T is better for you to be outside the banquet-hall,
dangerous to me as your presence may be, than for Banquo to be one of my guests/
"T is better that blood should be on thy face than that Banquo should be in the hall/ and
"Tis better the blood should be outside thee than within him.' The last of these is the
most apposite: but the nominative "he" governed by the preposition "within" is anoma-
lous English. Confusions between the objective and the nominative cases of the per-
sonal pronoun after "than" were not uncommon in literary EL.E. (they are still to be
116
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
found in colloquial MN.E., educated persons being often in doubt whether to say 'better
than I' or 'better than me'), and the nominative for the accusative after a preposition
also occurs in such a careful writer as Ben Jonson: " It hath been otherwise between
you and I" Sejanus V. 10. But Shakspere's locution goes further, for it is not here a
case of subject or object of an implied clause, or object of a quasi-preposition, if "within"
be a preposition and not an adverb. Perhaps, therefore, it is better to understand Mac-
beth's remark as an aside when he recognizes in the blood-stained murderer's presence
at the door a less danger than
ACT III
SCENE IV
I6-25
My
would be the menace of
Banquo's presence at the
feast, than to convict Shak-
spere of anomalous English.
^17 There is a grimness in
Macbeth's jest about CUT-
THROATS and his use of the
word NON-PAREILL below,
'the star of your profession' ;
cp. "he himselfe Cals her
a non-pareill" Temp. III. 2.
107, and "non-pareil, that
has no equal" Glossographia.
*IF 20 SCAP'D is not, as usu-
ally printed, a poetic short-
ening for 'escaped,' but is a
normal EL. form representing
M. E. " scapen " and preserved
in MN. E. ' scapegrace.' ^ 2 1
The AGAINE has a pathetic
significance, 'another parox-
ysm of madness,' another at-
tack of his insanity. In con-
struing this passage the EL.
notion of insanity must be
borne in mind, see note to
III. 2.23 and "Unlesse some
fit or frenzie do possesse her"
Titus IV. 1. 17. <lr2I ff. We
have here one of those rap-
idly moving metaphors, so
common in Shakspere, by
which various aspects of a notion are linked together through common associations : PER-
FECT, 'in sound mental health,' 'sane,' cp. " I feare I am not in my perfect mind" Lear
IV. 7.63 J health suggests the 'wholeness,' f lawlessness, soundness of marble, and this the
stability of the rock not to be disturbed by tempests ; the tempests suggest the encasing air,
and this notion passes into that of a prison, where Macbeth is confined in a filthy hovel with
impudent and base-born knaves, " sawcy doubts and feares," as his fellow-prisoners. *ff 23
BROAD, 'free,' 'unrestrained by restless fears,' cp. III. 6. 21. GENERALL, 'unrestricted,'
'unlimited,' cp. "a generall, honest thought" Caes. V. 5-71, and "Whose private [i.e. per-
sonal interests] with me of the dolphines love Is much more generall then these lines
import" John IV. 3- 17. *ff 24 CABIN in EL. E. is a common name for a prison cell. In
the authorized version of Jeremiah XXVII. 16 it is still retained in this sense: "When
Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon and into the cabins." CRIB denotes a hovel,
117
MURTHERER
lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o' th' cut-throats: yet
hee 's good
That did the like for Fleans : if thou did'st it,
Thou art the non-pareill.
MURTHERER
Most royall sir,
Fleans is scap'd.
MACBETH .
ASIDE
Then comes my fit againe: I had else beene
perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rocke,
As broad and generall as the casing ayre:
But now I am cabin'd, crib'd, confin'd,
bound in
To sawcy doubts and feares.
TO MURTHERER
But Banquo 's safe?
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
cp. "Why rather, sleepe, lyest thou in smoakie cribs?" 2Hen.4 III. I. ^. BOUND IN TO,
'confined with/ cp. " To night she is mewed up to her heavinesse " Rom.&Jul. III. 4. II.
SF 25 SAWCY, 'insolent/ a somewhat stronger word than it is now, cp. III. 5. 3. The tor-
ture which Macbeth endures is that of a criminal close confined in narrow quarters with in-
sulting cell-mates, who mock him day and night with their insolent jibes. The association
of restriction and restraint
suggests the thought that at ArT ttt oppxjp tu 06 20
least Banquo is 'restricted' A ^ 1 1U OUD1N Er IV 26-32
andean no longerdo him harm,
cp. "<Bullingbrooke, drawing. MURTHERER
Villaine, Tie make thee safe ! \ y m y good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
hand'; thou hist noTufe to With twenty trenched gashes on his head,
feare" Rich.2 v.3.4i ff. The least a death to nature.
SF27 TRENCHED/deepcut,' MACBETH
not mere 'scorchings,' cp. Thankes for that.
"the wide wound that the rr , 1 , . .
boare had trencht In his soft 1 here the growne serpent lyes; the worme
flanke"Ven.&Ad. 1052. SF 28 that's fled
Itl^XX-^oU.fl. Hath natUI * e that in time Wil1 Ven0m breed >
SF 29 worme, a usual el. No teeth for th' present. Get thee gone: to
word for serpent, cp. " I wish morrow
you all joy of the worme" , v . ,, , .
Ant.&Cl.v.2.26i. SF30 na- Wee 1 heare our selves againe.
TURE: cp. note to II. 4.16. EXIT MURTHERER
«7F 3 1 NO TEETH FOR TH'
PRESENT : for the omitted subject and predicate cp. note to III. 2. 32. SF 32 WEE'L HEARE
OUR SELVES AGAINE : in the present state of our knowledge of EL. idiom it is difficult tofix
the meaning of this phrase. HEARE may possibly mean 'listen to,' 'hearken to,' N. E. D. 4 b,
with OUR SELVES used reciprocally; cp. "as we walke To our owne selves bend we our
needefull talke" Tro.&Cr. IV. 4. 141 ; or OUR SELVES may be majesty plural for 'my-
self: the form "our selves" for 'ourself occurs also in Rich.2 I. I. 16, "our selves will
heare Th' accuser and the accused," and in Rich.2 III. 3. 127 the Quartos read "our selves" in
"We doe abase our selfe," etc. The statements of grammarians that "our selves" is not
a proper form of the majesty plural of the reflexive pronoun, and of CI. Pr. that we
require 'our self if Macbeth's words are to be taken as meaning 'I myself,' are therefore
incorrect. There is another possibility, viz. that "We will heare our selves" is a majesty
plural of 'I will hear me,' the EL. ethical dative idiom referred to in the note to II. 1.5 —
see the idiom in the citation given there from the 'Arcadia' — the MN.E. of which would
be ' I will give you audience again to-morrow.' Some editors put in a comma after
"heare" and make the words an absolute idiom, "our selves againe," i.e. when I am
myself again. To this it is objected that Shakspere would hardly make Macbeth take
the murderer into his confidence in the way that this interpretation implies; but "our
selves againe" may well be the completion of the thought in Macbeth's own mind, mut-
tered as the murderer goes away from the door and heard by the audience as an aside —
one of those pathetic 'to-morrow' thoughts that light fools the way to dusty death, as he
bitterly says later: 'To morrow, when I shall be well and the fit be past.' That he is
in one of his abstracted fits when coming back to the table is clear from Lady Macbeth's
next words, and it is quite possible that it begins as the murderers leave him. There are
thus four possible interpretations of these words, and all of them grammatically justifiable.
The last is the most apposite, for it gives the maximum of interest to Macbeth's remark.
118
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT III
SCENE IV
32-45
LADY MACBETH
My royall lord,
You do not give the cheere: the feast is
sold
That is not often vouch'd while r t is a
making,
'T is given with welcome. To feede were
best at home;
From thence, the sawce to meate is cere-
mony;
Meeting were bare without it.
ENTER THE GHOST OF BANQUO
AND SITS IN MACBETH'S PLACE
MACBETH
Sweet remembrancer!
Now good digestion waite on appetite,
And health on both !
LENOX
May r t please your highnesse sit.
MACBETH
Here had we now our countries honor roofd,
Were the grac'd person of our Banquo
present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindnesse
Then pitty for mischance.
ROSSE
His absence, sir,
Layes blame upon his promise. Pleas 't your
highnesse
To grace us with your royall company?
SF33 CHEERE, 'the toast of
welcome/ N.E. D. 5, cp. "So
guiltlesse shee securely gives
good cheare And reverend
welcome to her princely
guest "Lucr. 89. Lady Mac-
beth refers to the interrupted
toast and recalls her husband
to a sense of his surround-
ings. He has forgotten all
about the pledge he proposed
when the sight of the mur-
derer's face interrupted him,
and there is a certain impa-
tience at his absent-minded-
ness in Lady Macbeth's
words. SF35 ? T IS, 'that it
is ' : the ' that ' is often omitted
in M.E. and e. N.E. where it
is required in MN. E. GIVEN
is one of those -en words
which often in EL.E. have but
one impulse, 'giv'n,' see note
to 1.5.39. FEEDE, merely to
'eat/ but not so coarse a
word as it now is in MN. E.,
cp. "Sit downe and feed,
and welcome to our table"
A.Y.L.II.7.I05. SF 36 FROM
THENCE, i.e. away from
home, cp. "And feedes from
home"Err.II.I.IOI. MEATE
in EL. E. had a sound like that
of MN. E. ' mate/ and so there
is no pun intended. CERE-
MONY, 'cer'mony/ the syn-
copated form of the word.
*ff37 REMEMBRANCER,
'prompter/ 'monitor/ cp.
" remembrancer, nomenclator
memorialis, magister memo-
rice, monitor 11 Skinner, and
"remembrancer, een indacht-
ig-maaker 11 Sewell,I708. *TF 39
There is a deep pathos in
Macbeth's toast — Health !
though of course it is a mere formality. The entrance of Banquo's ghost is displaced in
MN. editions and put after v. 39 J but it belongs where the FO. has it. Macbeth, recalled
from his absent-mindedness, proposes the toast standing behind the vacant seat — Ban-
quo's — which he had taken when coming down from the throne. Somewhat dazed, he
notices at first only that the table is full, probably supposing that some newly arrived
guest has taken his place while he was talking to the murderer at the door. The full
table leads to his gracious remark about having all the nobility of Scotland at his banquet.
119
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*ff 40 HONOR, 'nobility/ cp. note to II. 1.26. «ff4I GRAC'D, 'accomplished/ cp. "After
a well grac'd actor leaves the stage " Rich. 2 V. 2. 24. IF 42 WHO : the confusion of relative
cases is common in EL. syntax. MAY I RATHER, ' I must rather/ cp. note on III. 1. 122.
CHALLENGE, 'find fault with/ a common EL. meaning of the word, see N.E.D.2. SF 43
MISCHANCE, i.e. 'his mis-
ACT III
SCENE IV
46-58
MACBETH
The table r s full.
fortune in not being here';
but Macbeth's overwrought
mind falls foul of an unlucky
word. ^44 Rosse refers to
the colloquy between Mac-
beth and Banquo in the
opening of Scene I of this act.
PLEAS 'T, ' may it please/ an
EL. phrase preserving the
M.E. subjunctive idiom.
*ff 46 Macbeth, seeing the
table full, is turning again to
his throne, or perhaps leaving
the banquet-hall. Banquo's
chair is still empty, of course,
to the vision of all save
Macbeth, and to him the
ghostly occupant of it has his
back turned. Rosse asks
Macbeth not to leave their
company and he naturally
replies "the table's full."
Lenox points out the place
that has been kept for him :
this place is to Macbeth's eyes
occupied, and he naturally
asks "Where?" At Lenox's
" Heere, my good lord " Mac-
beth comes nearer and the
ghost slowly turns his head,
forbidding Macbeth to sit
down. The first explanation
that occurs to Macbeth is
that he is the victim of trick-
ery, that some one is per-
sonating Banquo. 'Angers'
is a common EL. sense of
MOVES. "Which of you have
done this ?" can hardly mean
'has murdered Banquo' be-
cause it is no corpse that
Macbeth is looking on. Then the ghost shakes its head to indicate a denial, hence Mac-
beth's "never shake thy goary lockes at me." SF 50 The stress is upon I, the reversal oc-
curring after the cassural pause made by SAY. ^52 RISE, 'break up the meeting/ still
used in this sense in the phrase 'the house rises.' IF 53 Lady Macbeth rushes down from
her throne to explain that her husband is subject to these sudden seizures. LORD in M. E.
and e.N.E. means 'husband' ; cp. Desdemona's " My lord is not my lord" in Oth. III. 4. 124.
120
LENOX
Heere is a place reserv'd, sir.
MACBETH
Where?
LENOX
Heere, my good lord. What is 't that moves
your highnesse?
MACBETH
Which of you have done this?
LORDS
What, my good lord?
MACBETH
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy goary lockes at me.
ROSSE
Gentlemen, rise; his highnesse is not well.
LADY MACBETH
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
And hath beene from his youth. Pray you,
keepe seat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will againe be well. If much you note
him
You shall offend him and extend his passion ;
Feed, and regard him not.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*1F55 UPON A THOUGHT, 'in a moment': 'upon' was frequently used in M.E. and
e. N. E. temporal phrases ; cp. u upon the moment " Compl. 248. SF 56 NOTE, ' pay atten-
tion to,' cp. "I'le re you, Tie fa you, do you note me?" Rom.&Jul. IV. 5. 121. *ff 57 OF-
FEND probably has its EL. connotation of ' injure ' as well as of ' give offence to.' EXTEND, i.e.
aggravate. PASSION, 'dis-
ACT III SCENE IV 58-68
ease,' referring to insanity,
cp. " But till this afternoone
his passion [i.e. madness]
Ne'er brake into extremity of
rage" Err. V. 47. SF 58 FEED,
cp. v. 35.
Lady Macbeth is, of course,
now standing by her husband,
so that her aside is natural ;
she appeals to him to recover
his self-possession as she
did before in I. 7. 35, and he
answers as before. SF 60
APPALL carried with it in
EL. E. the sense of 'make
pale ' as well as its modern
meaning. PROPER,' fine,' cp.
"A proper title of a peace"
Hen.8I.I.98.STUFFE,'rant,'
cp. "At this fusty stuffe . .
Achilles. . laughes"Tro.&Cr.
1.3. 161, and "such stuffe as
madmen Tongue" Cym.V. 4.
Why do you make such faces? When all T s 146. SF62 ayre-drawne,
i.e. pictured in the air : this
is one of those implications
woven into a situation that
are so common in Shakspere ;
nowhere in the previous action has Macbeth spoken to his wife about this dagger, but his
words here suggest to the imagination a scene in which he has discussed the phenomenon
with Lady Macbeth, and they exaggerate too the horror of the supernatural control under
which Macbeth's deeds of evil are committed. *1F 63 FLAWES, 'outbursts or accesses of
passion,' cp. "this mad-bred flawe" 2 Hen. 6 III. 1.354. York has just said, "You put sharpe
weapons in a madman's hands." See also N. E. D. s.v. y and its citation from Spenser, " She
at the first encounter on him ran . . But he . . from that first flaw himself right well de-
fended." STARTS: cp. "For she did speake in starts distractedly" Tw.N. II. 2. 22, and
"Suchunconstant starts are we like to have from him "Lear 1. 1.304. In"flawes and starts"
there seems thus to be a reference to Macbeth's insanity. SF64 IMPOSTORS: the idea
of 'cheating' is more prominent in the EL. word than in MN. E. — see N. E. D. — and to the
EL. mind the term suggested a mountebank. TO, ' compared to,' a common EL. meaning of
the preposition. ^65 Lady Macbeth refers to the 'eerie stories nurses tell'; that
these "straunge and marvellous tales which they have heard of their grandmothers and
mothers" were a popular recreation for a winter's eve in Shakspere's time is shown by
contemporary references cited in Drake, pp. I54ff. The taunt in Lady Macbeth's words
lies in their accusation that her husband is a child afraid of ghosts. SF 66 AUTHORIZ'D,
'vouched for as true,' N.E. D.4; the word is stressed upon its second syllable in EL. E.,
cp. Minsheu, 1617, "to authorize" (Minsheu marks primary stresses in many English
121
ASIDE TO MACBETH
Are you a man?
MACBETH
I, and a bold one, that dare looke on that
Which might appall the divell.
LADY MACBETH
O proper stuffe!
This is the very painting of your feare:
This is the ayre-drawne-dagger which you
said
Led you to Duncan. O, these flawes and
starts,
Impostors to true feare, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame it selfe !
do you make such faces? When all 's
done,
You looke but on a stoole.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
words); cp. also Sonnet XXXV. 6 and Lover's Compl. 104. The th in the word repre-
sented f in EL. E. SHAME IT SELFE, from the pointing of FO. I, which has a comma
after "it selfe," seems to be a strong exclamation of disgust provoked by a fresh ac-
cess of Macbeth's madness.
ACT III
SCENE IV
69-74
MACBETH
Prythee,see there! behold! looke! Loe, how-
say you?
Why, what care I ? If thou canst nod, speake
too!
If charnell houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury backe, our monuments
Shall be the mawes of kytes.
EXIT GHOST
LADY MACBETH
What, quite unmann'd in folly?
MACBETH
If I stand heere, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH
Fie, for shame !
SF 68 STOOLEinEL.E. means
'chair' as well as what we
now call a stool.
It is quite possible that here
the ghost of Duncan appears,
or at least that Macbeth sees
Duncan as he saw the air-
drawn dagger. The mention
of Duncan in v. 63 would be
the psychological moment for
such an apparition. In FO. I
two entrances are marked
for the ghost, the words of
the first entrance pointing to
the ghost coming in on the
stage while Macbeth is at the
door, and not coming up
through thefloor as Davenant
arranged it. Forman thus de-
scribes the play as he saw it
in 1 6 10: "The next night
being at supper with his noble
men whom he had bid to a
feast, to the which also Banco [Forman spells the word in what was probably its English
form, 'Banquho' being the Scottish orthography] should have com, he began to speake
of noble Banco, and to wish he wer ther. And as he thus did, standing up to drinke a
carouse to him, the ghoste of Banco came and sat down in his chaire behind him. And
he turning about to sit down again, sawe the goste of Banco which fronted him so that he
fell into a great passion of fear and fury, utteringe many wordes about his murder, by
which when they hard that Banco was murdred, they suspected Macbet." In reading
this description it is to be noted that Forman is writing from memory, and that he is
only setting down 'moral conclusions' from the play — in this case the fact that murder
will discover itself. Too much importance, therefore, must not be attached to his descrip-
tion : it is obviously imperfect in describing only the ghost in vv. 88 ff., saying nothing
about its previous appearance. The utmost that we can infer from his failure to note the
appearance of Duncan's ghost is that it was not actually visible to the audience. There
seems to be a note of awe in Macbeth's reference here which is lacking in the other two
cases, and the expression "those that we bury" is rather out of place applied to Banquo,
who is " safe in a ditch " and not ' buried ' or ' entombed.' The plural in v. 80 points to the
same interpretation. Perhaps, therefore, we are justified in assuming that vv. 69-73 refer
to a vision of Duncan in Macbeth's mind even if Duncan's ghost does not actually make its
appearance to the audience. If this be the case and vv. 68 ff. refer to Duncan, the 'Exit
Ghost ' which in modern editions is placed after v. 73 belongs after v. 52. If not, the various
exclamations are uttered as Macbeth tries to make Lady Macbeth see the apparition of
Banquo as it moves away from the table. ^70 WHAT CARE I? i.e. for your nods and
gestures. SF 71 CHARNELL HOUSES, i.e. the places where dead men's bones are kept.
TF 72 MONUMENTS in EL.E. means 'tombs,' 'burying- vaults,' as well as the monuments
erected over them; cp. "like a taper in some monument" Titus II. 3- 228. *ff 73 SHALL
122
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
is a similar omission of the
EXIT GHOST in Cajs. IV.
3.287 (FO. I, p. 127).
BE, 'will be,' i.e. will come to be. MAWES, 'stomachs': when Romeo opens the tomb
he calls it "Thou detestable mawe, . . Gorg'd with the dearest morsell of the earth, Thus
I enforce thy rotten jawes to open, And in despight I'le cram thee with more food"
Rom.&Jul. V.3.45. Harrison in his 'Description of England' II, p. 45, says that the Cas-
pians nourish mastiffs "to the end they should devoure their carcases after their deaths,
thinking the dogs bellies to be the most honourable sepulchres." Steevens cites ' Faerie
Queene' II. 8. 16, "What herce or steede (said he) should he have dight But be entombed
in the raven or the kight?" Delius points out the same figure in Kyd's Cornelia: "the
vulture and the crowes, Lyons and beares are their best Sepulchres." EXIT GHOST
is not found in FO. I ; there
ACT III SCENE IV 75-83
MACBETH
Blood hath bene shed ere now, i r th' olden
time,
Ere humane statute purg'd the gentle weale;
I, and since too, murthers have bene per-
form'd
Too terrible for the eare. The times has bene
That when the braines were out, the man
would dye,
And there an end; but now they rise againe
With twenty mortall murthers on their
crownes,
And push us from our stooles. This is more
strange
Then such a murther is.
SF76 HUMANE, 'human,' see
notetol.5. 18. Florioglosses
ragione humana by "humane
law" as distinguished from
ragione divina, "divine law."
PURGE was a general EL.E.
term for 'remedy,' as disease
was thought to be caused by
the presence of bad humours
that had to be purged from
thebody. GENTLE WEALE:
" weale " is the e. N. E. form of
a M.E. noun meaning 'well-
being,' 'happiness,' the op-
posite of 'woe/ and still
survives in ' for weal or woe' ;
"public weal," "common
weal " are e. N. E. terms corre-
sponding to MN.E. 'state,'
and in some of their senses
to MN.E. 'commonwealth,'
and "weale" alone frequently takes on in e. N.E. the meaning 'public weal.' It appears
again in this sense in V. 2. 27 with the same attendant notion of purging as here. G ENTLE
is here usually understood to be proleptically used, the notion being that of the "weale"
made gentle by purging. But the instances of prolepsis which grammarians find so
frequent in Shakspere are nearly all of them due to ignoring EL. word associations which
make the assumption of this figure unnecessary, cp. note to 1.6.3- Shakspere frequently
uses the term "gentle" as the opposite of "wild" and in the sense of 'tame,' 'cultivated' ;
"gentle weale" could therefore refer to the softening influences of civilization (cp. N.E. D.
3 c and 8) and the whole thought be 'before civilization devised human law as a means
of purging itself of murderers.' Many editors of Shakspere propose 'ungentle' or
'general' or 'golden' (sic) for "gentle." Macbeth's remark is interesting as being a note
of heroic personality belonging to an age which had not yet curbed the strong passions of
strong men : he frets under the checks and restraints that human law puts upon his violent
impulses. SF 78 TERRIBLE, probably syncopated to "terr'ble." TIMES HAS is probably
as Shakspere wrote it, though the editors of FOS. 2, 3 r and 4 make the verb plural to
accord with later notions of English syntax. Modern editors change it to 'time has,' our
modern idiom. TIMES in the plural, however, means 'manners,' 'customs 'in EL.E. as well
as in MN.E., which conveys quite a different notion from 'time' in the singular. SF8I
123
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
TWENTY is often an indefinite numeral in EL. E. like MN.E. 'dozen/ cp. 'for one injury
done they provoke another cum foenore, and twenty enemies for one' Burton, ' Anat. of
Mel.' II. 3- 7. But clear reference seems here to be made to Banquo's head with its
'twenty gashes each a death
ACT III SCENE IV
to nature/ and to Banquo's
pushing Macbeth from his
chair.
83-92
LADY MACBETH
My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lacke you.
MACBETH
I do forget:
Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends ;
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me. Come, love and
health to all;
Then Tie sit downe. Give me some wine, fill
full.
ENTER GHOST
I drinke to th ? generall joy of the whole table,
And to our deere friend Banquo, whom we
misse;
Would he were heere! to all, and him we
thirst,
And all to all !
LORDS
Our duties, and the pledge!
*lr83 The fit is now past and
Lady Macbeth recalls him to
his duties. SF 84 LACKE
YOU, 'notice your absence/
cp. " I shall be lov'd when I
am lack'd" Cor. IV. I. 15.
There is an extra syllable at
the end of the first half verse.
*ff 85 MUSE, 'wonder/ cp.
" I muse your majesty doth
seeme so cold" John III.
1. 3 1 7. The sentence stress
seems to fall upon AT, cp.
the rhythm of 1.4.52. SF 89
6f the whole tAble
seems to be the rhythm,
though FO. I prints "o'th"'
for OF THE. *ff 90 OUR and
WE are instances of the
majesty plural. SF9I THIRST
seems to mean 'long for':
the 'for/ which is essential
to the verb in MN. E., did not
always accompany it in EL.E.,
cp. citations in Cent. Diet,
from Tyndale, "to thirst his
true doctrine," and from Pri-
or, "and thirsts hir blood";
cp. also "that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see" Wint.T. IV. 4. 523.
t Ir92 AND ALL TO ALL: the first "all" is used in the sense of 'everything/ i.e. every
good thing, cp. note to 1.7.5 ; the words were evidently a customary form of pledge, cp.
Timon's toast to the company, "All to you" Timon 1.2.234.
The skill with which Shakspere here represents the workings of Macbeth's mind is
worthy of more than passing attention. In vv. 40 ff. a normal association, the full table,
turns his thinking to the absent noble. Perfectly calm and quite master of himself, he
seizes the occasion to point a reference to Banquo's unkindness in not having made a
greater effort to be present, thus preparing, as he usually does, for the "consequence" —
the suspicion that may fall on him when the news of Banquo's murder reaches the court.
But he is reckoning with forces beyond his control, for his pointed reference leads
naturally to the request from Rosse and Angus that he take Banquo's empty place and
this dwelling upon the thought of Banquo brings on his fit again. The "flawe" sweeps
away his outward calm and in a moment all is mad confusion. The wild storm of passion
spends its first fury, but Lady Macbeth's unfortunate reference to Duncan brings on
another immediately in its wake, to Macbeth worse than the first in its ruthless havoc,
124
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
as is shown by his reckless "Why, what care I?" — a scream of defiance as he screws
his manly courage to the fight against his imagined enemy. And he succeeds in gaining
at least sufficient self-control to reason about the phenomenon in vv.4I ff. Slowly his
harried mind rights itself, and when Lady Macbeth, taught by experience to avoid refer-
ences like her former one, makes him realize his danger, he guides his thought again into
calm waters. But unfortunately, as he resumes his normal thinking, his mind takes up
again the train of ideas that was broken off by his access of 'passion'; and, like one
passing out of delirium, he goes back to the last moment of sane thought to restore the
continuity of his self-consciousness ; his first wholly conscious act is to propose the
health of the absent Banquo. This time it is not the accidental insistence of Rosse and
Lenox that he should remain in their company, nor a tactless reference of Lady Macbeth's
to the murdered Duncan, that precipitates the attack, but the normal and natural opera-
tions of his own mind as it strives to recover itself. The demons of his worser self — that
self which he has given over to the powers of evil and which has now become strong
enough to enslave him — have him again in their clutches. Thus "our deere friend Banquo,
whom we misse" brings on the last and worst fit, from which he does not escape. Even
when the banquet has broken up in confusion and alarm and he is alone with Lady Mac-
beth it still continues, down to the middle of v. 126. And then, at last, he awakes from
his awful dream, one of those "terrible dreams" that have now invaded his strongest
conscious moments to stalk through his noonday hours as well as to shake him nightly.
And as he wakes he turns to Lady Macbeth with the world-old inquiry that follows a
night of agony, "What time is it?"
The "Enter Ghost" of the FO. is by modern editors placed after v. 92; but the FO.
probably represents what Shakspere wrote, for it corresponds to the psychology of the
play as well as to its action. For, as at v. 37, it is the thought of Banquo in Macbeth's
mind that causes the ghost
APT ITT QfFNF TV Q3 Qfi to appear, and as the thought
AU l H1 S^CINE, IV Jl-JV is present in his mind before
he utters the words of v. 40,
MACBETH so here the intention to drink
Avant! and quit my sight ! let the earth hide Banquo's health is in Mac-
i i beth's mind when he says
tiiee ! "fill full," though he couples
Thy bones are marrowlesse, thy blood is cold ; it with a general pledge ; and
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes h is th _ is thought of Banquo,
.„., lilt i not the words that express
Which thou dost glare with. itj that causes his image to
1 AfW MAPRPTH appear. It fits in with the
LADY MACBETH action> also? for Macbeth has
Thinke of this, good peeres, not yet sat down; he will sit
But as a thind of custome: 'tis no other; d ° wn ah * r £ the toast, and
-^ . ill p i then, as before, the intention
Onely it spoyles the pleasure ot the time. to take Banquo's place, which
his ghost forbids, will, as it
were, make the subjective notion objective and arouse anger. Shakspere thus shows
clearly that the ghost is a creation of Macbeth's own mind, unseen by the others. Yet
modern editors destroy all this, and then argue as to whether the ghost was real or ima-
ginary. SF 94 The MARROW in EL. psychology was thought of as the seat of nerve force.
Vicary, in his 'Anatomie,' ed. 1577, calls the spinal cord the "spinal marrow," and the
term is still in popular usage. Shakspere frequently associates the word with nervous
energy, cp. "my marrow burning" Ven.&Ad. 142, and "Spending his manlie marrow in
her arms" All's W. II. 3. 298. Here the ghost is said to be without feeling — 'dead life.'
125
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THY BLOOD IS COLD: 'cold-blooded' is still a phrase for 'passionless/ cp. "In whose
cold blood no sparke of honor bides" 3Hen.6 1. 1. 184. But in EL. E. it is scientific and
not figurative language. *ff95 SPECULATION, 'power of vision/ illustrating an earlier
and literal meaning of the word, viz., 'spying out' ; Othello speaks of Cupid 'seeling his
speculative instruments' in Oth. 1.3-270; cp. "nor doth the eye it selfe . . behold it selfe
Not going from it selfe . . For speculation turnes not to it selfe Till it hath travel'd and is
married there Where it may see it selfe" Tro.&Cr. III. 3. 106 (cited by Delius), and "Dead
life, blind sight, poore mortall living ghost" Rich.3 IV. 4.26. SF 97 OF CUSTOME, ' habit-
ual/ cp. "Our dance of customc . . letusnotforget"MerryW.V.5.79. NO OTHER is com-
mon M.E. and e. N.E. idiom
correspondingtoMN.E.'noth- ATT' TJT SCFNF IV 99-108
ing else.' SF9SONELYIT A ^ X U1 O^HIM H IV J J I US
SPOYLES,'it merely spoils' j
for the position and meaning MAUon 1 n
of "onely,"cp. note to 1.4.20. What man dare, I dare:
IF 99 As in v. 59 Macbeth Approach thou like the rugged Russian beare,
protests his human courage. The arm'd rhinoceros, or th r Hircan tiger;
dare is an old subjunctive, T a ke any shape but that, and my firme nerves
i.e. 'what any man may dare r»i « i i r>. i i- r ■
to do.' <ffioo rugged in Shall never tremble. Or be alive againe,
el.e. may mean 'shaggy/ And dare me to the desart with thy sword;
cp. "His well proportion'd j f tremblin ^ J inhabk th protest mee
beard made ruffe and rugged 5 ' f
2Hen.6 in. 2. 175; but the I hebaby ot agirle. Hence, horrible shadow!
word also means 'fierce,' Unreall mock'ry, hence!
' savage, cp. " I he rugged J
Pyrrhus like th' Hyrcanian EXIT GHOST
beast"Ham.n.2.472. From Why, so : being gone,
™- HIRCAN TIGER of the j . . p j Still.
following verse it would seem o J J »
that the latter meaning was
intended here. RUSSIAN BEARE: Bear-baiting was a familiar sport to Shakspere's
audience ; cp. " Foolish curres [i.e. mastiffs used in bear-baiting] that runne winking into
the mouth of a Russian beare, and have their heads crusht like rotten apples" Hen. 5
III. 7. 153. *ff 101 ARM'D : Shakspere's epithet is explained by a passage from Purchas's
Pilgrimage, vol. V, p. 472: "The skinne upon the upper part of this beast [i.e. the "Rhi-
nocerote"] is all wrinkled as if he were armed with shields." HYRCAN occurs side by
side with Hyrcanian in EL. E. Shakspere has the latter form in Ham. II. 2. 472, and "The
Hircanion deserts," i.e. the country south of the Caspian Sea, are referred to in Merch.
II. 7.41. The form " Hyrcan" occurs in Daniel's Sonnets, 1594: "To Hyrcan tigers
and to ruthless beares"; also in Holland's Pliny. The fierceness of the Hyrcanian
tiger, proverbial in EL. literature, is probably traceable to Vergil's ^neis, IV. 367 ff.,
where Dido speaks of her lover's cruelty: Marlowe translates the line, 'And tigers of
Hyrcania gave thee suck' The Tragedy of Dido, Act V. <ff 102 NERVES, ' sinews/ a com-
mon EL. meaning of the word; cp. "Thy nerves are in their infancy againe" Temp. 1.2.484.
SF 104 DARE ME TO THE DESART: Shakspere elsewhere twice makes use of this ro-
mantic form of defiance, in Rich.2 LI. 62 and ibid. IV. 1.74. SF 105 INHABIT THEN:
the words have given much difficulty; *' inhabit" is often used absolutely in EL.E. in the
sense of 'dwell/ e.g. "the Ammonites inhabited northward" Purchas's Pilgrimage, vol. V,
p. 97, but the word is usually accompanied by some definition of place as in "so eating
love Inhabits in the finest wits of all" Two Gent. 1. 1.43- It may be, therefore, that
THEN is a misprint for 'there/ as Delius thought. The phrase with this correction would
126
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
mean ' If I tremble while I wait for you there/ and would make excellent sense. But
Milton in Paradise Lost VII. 162 ff. has the same idiom as appears in the FO. : "Mean
while inhabit laxe, ye Powers of Heav'n, And thou, my Word, begotten son, by thee This
I perform, speak thou and be it don" (cited by Henley). In this passage "inhabit" is
clearly used in the sense of 'remain,' 'keep,' 'stay' : so that Macbeth's words, if Milton's
usage is here norma loquendi, may mean ' If I keep trembling then, etc' Iachimo's phrase,
"I lodge in feare" Cym. II. 2. 49» gives color to this interpretation, for his 'in feare' is
obviously not a locative but a modal qualification of the 'dwelling' notion. It has been
suggested that "inhabit" may be a by-form of 'enhabit,' but as far as the quotations of
the N. E. D. show, ' enhabit ' has no meaning in EL. E. that fits the context. Many absurd
emendations have been proposed to botch the passage into modern idiom ; but, as is usu-
ally the case, their presence in the text of Shakspere would be more difficult to explain
than the phrase which they would supplant, for they not only betray a palpable inferiority
of diction, but most of them would be sheer nonsense in the English of any period. The
use of TREMBLING where MN.E. usage prefers 'in trembling' is paralleled in "with
the very noise I trembling waked" Rich. 3 1.4.60. PROTEST, 'make public declaration
of,' 'proclaim,' an early meaning of the word, cp. "I will protest your cowardise" Ado
V.I. 149- *lrI06 BABY, 'doll,' N.E.D. 2, cp. "toying with babies" Marston's Scourge
of Villainy, VIII. 207, "A baby or puppet that children play with, pupus 11 Phr. Gen., and
muneco de ninos, a babie, a puppet for children" Percival's Spanish Diet. "Puppet"
was a common epithet of opprobrium in EL. E., still retained in 'cowardly puppy,' and the
two forms, 'puppet' and 'puppy,' seem to have been equivalent in e.N.E., cp. uc Pupus
autenij a babe or baby or a puppet . . anglice puppy, dicitur quasi parvus puer 11 Phr. Gen.
Some have taken the phrase to mean 'the child of a very young mother,' but without a
specific qualification like 'green' or 'young' "girl" would not necessarily mean a very
youngmotherinEL. E. SF 107
ACT III SCENE IV .09-116 K^*E3*°££
things by what their mock'-
LADY MACBETH rics be" Hen.5 IV.Prol.53.
You have displac'd the mirth, broke the dood
. . r ° SFI09 DISPLAC'D, 'banish-
meeting cd? T a f requent meaning of the
With most admir'd disorder. wordinEL.E. : seeN.E.D. ib.
THE would be 'our' in
MACBETH MN.E. BROKE, 'broken up' :
Can such things be, in N - E - D - 2 , f the ****** ci-
x , ... tii tation tor the word in this
And overcome us like a summer s clowd, sense is dated 1685, and its
Without our speciall wonder? You make me phraseological limitation is
. j 'to break (i.e. dissolve) par-
Strange liament,' and 'to break (i.e.
Even to the disposition that I Owe, disband) a regiment'; but the
When now I thinke you can behold such sense of 'breaking up a com-
, J pany is clearly in the word as
SlgntS, it i s used here and in Hen. 8
And keepe the naturall rubie of your cheekes, i.4.6i, where Wolsey puns
W71- Li U'J -iU £ after the Chamberlain and
When mine IS blanch d With feare. his attendants leave the table:
"You have now a broken
banket, but wee'l mend it. A good digestion to you all." For the form of the word see
note to 1.4.3- SF 1 10 ADMIR'D, 'astonishing/'amazing,' from "admire," 'to be amazed' ;
as in "undaunted" 1.7.73, the -ed suffix has its EL. causative force. *ff III That is, 'and
127
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
yet only pass over us like a summer's cloud.' OVERCOME in EL. E. still retained enough
of its literal signification of 'come over,' 'pass over,' 'cover,' to make Macbeth's simile
of the oppression of a summer thunder-cloud clear to Shakspere's audience ; cp. " his eyes
were overcome with fervor" Chapman, Iliad XV (cited in Cent. Diet.). The same figure
occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, III. 7.4 : U A little valley subject to the same [i.e. lying
on the hillside] All covered with thicke woodes that quite it overcame" (cited in part
by Farmer): so in Titus II. 3- 94 : "The trees . . Orecome with mosse and balefull mis-
sleto." Macbeth seizes on the 'wonder' notion in Lady Macbeth's "admir'd disorder"
and philosophizes upon it. In SF 112 he turns and speaks directly to her. STRANGE
TO, 'unacquainted with,' 'unfamiliar with,' cp. "To put a strange face on his owne per-
fection" Ado II. 3.49. SF 113 DISPOSITION often occurs in EL. E. where MN.E. employs
'character.' It was also used to denote 'health of mind,' see N.E. D. 10 b. OWE, ' pos-
sess,' as in 1.4. 10. Much the same notion occurs in Rom.&Jul. III. 3- 109 ff., where Friar
Laurence addresses the furi-
°z?z:::*n,%zt: act m scene iv m-m
cries out thou art : Thy teares
are womanish, thy wild acts KC)bbo
denote The unreasonable fu- What sights, rny lord?
rie of a beast. Unseemely LADY MACBETH
woman in a seeming man,
And ill beseeming beast in I pray you, speake not; he growes worse and
seeming both, Thou hast wr^t-co ♦
»j d 1- 1 worse ,
amaz d me. By my holy -^ . . . « . ,
order, I thought thy disposi- Question enrages him: at once, good night,
tion better temper'd." SF 1 1 6 Stand not upon the order of your going,
MINE, i.e. my cheeks; it is R ,
common EL. syntax thus to Cut 8° at ° nce -
make a pronoun stand for a LENOX
word that is to be supplied q 00 ^ n [^U t and better health
from the context, out in at- A 1 1 • mi . 1
tempting to construe the Attend his Majesty !
passage as MN.E. many edi- LADY MACBETH
tors change IS to 'are,' and \ I,:—J„ a^^A ^;^fU+ +« ^11 I
Cl.Pr. makes "mine" stand A kinde £°° d m £ ht t0 a11 !
for RUBIE. EXEUNT LORDS
*1F 116 Rosse has caught the word SIGHTS, 'visions,' from Macbeth's somewhat excited
protest to his wife. SFII8 QUESTION, 'discussion,' cp. 1.3.43; AT ONCE, 'without
more ado.' SFII9 STAND NOT, 'attach no importance to,' cp. "we stand upon our
manners" Wint.T. IV. 4. 164. The phrase has become stereotyped in MN. E., and is often
absurdly used where only one person is concerned.
In the passage that follows Macbeth, still in the "fit" and absorbed in his thoughts about
the ghost, pays no attention to the breaking up of the company, but continues to ponder
on the meaning of the "strange sight." SF 122 He quotes a current popular superstition,
cp. "Blood will have blood, so ever mought it be" Peele, 'Tale of Troy' 321. The
Cambridge Text alters the punctuation of the FO., placing a colon after BLOOD and a
comma after SAY. But the proverb first occurs to Macbeth vaguely, 'they say it [i.e.
a ghost] will haunt one until it is revenged, and will have blood expiation.' Then the
exact words of the proverb chant their ominous refrain through his mind. " Blood will
have blood," i.e. a deed of murder (N.E. D. 3 c) will not be satisfied short of an expiation
by blood-shedding (N. E. D. 3 b). To alter the punctuation not only flattens out the
128
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
sense, but weakens the rhythm, " \ ' ""' being much more effective than
" x x ' || " ' || ' " " '. SF 123 ff. Shakspere was perhaps thinking of the tree which re-
vealed the murder of Polydorus in Vergil's JBmis, III. 22. 59 r as Steevens suggests; he
may also have had in mind the story told in Montaigne's Essays, II. 5 of Bessus the
Pcenian, which was "so
ACT III SCENE IV .22-127 J™ * "eZTJSt!? °
how Bessus, "being found
MACBETH fault withall, that in mirth he
It will have blood, they say: ' Blood will have had beaten downe a nest of
Hi » young sparrowes and then
ooa : killed them, answered he had
Stones have beene knowne to move and trees great reason to doe it ; for so
tO Speaker much as those young birds
« r i 1 1, i ceased not raisely to accuse
Aupjures and understood relations have him to have murdered his
By maddot pyes and choughes and rookes father, which parricide was
i Z<U + ( t L neversuspectedtohavebeene
brought lortfi committed by him, and untill
The secret'st man of blood. What is the that day had layen secret."
n jght? * I24 AUGU R Es r ? '-e-divina-
o * tion, especially from the flight
LADY MACBETH or chirping of birds, see
Almost at oddeswith mornind, which is which. JJl?- ?• s - v - an f ! ts cit a tion s :
° 1 o lerne and know by au-
gures and divinacions of
briddis" Book of Noblesse, 1475; "a good augur or foreboding of a martiall minde"
Florio's Montaigne, 1 603. The word is an EL. by-form of 'augury' (cp. O.FR. augure).
RELATIONS, 'utterances,' here of birds, as in the story of Bessus; a somewhat forced
interpretation of 'secret relations between things' (Schmidt, following Johnson) has been
put upon the phrase. SF 125 MAGGOT PYES, the EL. form of 'magpie.' CHOUGHES
was a popular name applied somewhat widely to all the smaller chattering species of
birds, but especially to the common jackdaw, see N.E. D. 4. Shakspere again refers to
the bird in Mids. III. 2. 21. N.E. D. has a citation from Wilkinson, 1620, which groups
together "Crowes, rookes, choghes, pyes, jeyes, ringdoves." BROUGHT FORTH, 'dis-
covered,' 'brought to light,' a common meaning of the word in Shakspere; see N.E. D.
16 d. SF 126 SECRET'ST: for the form of the word see note to 1.5. 3 ; for the meaning
cp. "in this city will I stay And live alone as secret as I may" 2Hen.6 IV. 4. 47. WHAT
IS THE NIGHT? seems to be formed on the analogy of 'What is the time?' i.e. How goes
the time? In M.E. and e.N.E. WHAT is frequently used in idiom that requires 'how' in
MN.E. The sudden awakening of Macbeth to a sense of his surroundings as he emerges
from his delirium with the question 'What time is it?' is a wonderfully dramatic touch of
human interest. IF 127 ALMOST AT ODDES, i.e. on the point of quarrelling, cp. "I do
not know that Englishman alive With whom my soule is any jot at oddes" Rich. 3 II. 1.69-
Again, as normal consciousness returns to him, Macbeth's mind takes up its interrupted
activities, the interval of unconscious action being a blank to him. He says to himself,
Not only was Banquo absent from the table, but Macduff also. What does Macduff's
absence mean? Then, turning to Lady Macbeth, he puts the question in v. 128, 'What
do you think of this absence of Macduff's?' The new train of "consequence" that will
precipitate Macbeth's doom is thus artfully joined without a break on to the old. The
menace of Banquo's being and the rebuke of Banquo's genius are no sooner disposed of
than Macduff begins to threaten Macbeth's peace and provide fresh work for Ruin,
129
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Macbeth's royal 'champion to the utterance.' Thus is the aesthetic continuity of this
rapid tragedy maintained, event involving event in continuous series, but all so wrought
together as to present a single picture. To secure this end Shakspere, as usual, departs
from Holinshed's account. There it is the building of Macbeth's castle of Dunsinane that
provokes Macduff's surly 'denial of his person' to Macbeth: "Macbeth being once de-
termined to have the worke go forward, caused the thanes of each shire within the realme
to come and helpe towards that building, each man his course about." When Macduff's
turn comes he sends his quota of material and his contingent of workmen, but refuses to
come himself, and his refusal
Mac h bet C h ause ° f ° ffenCe t0 ACT IH SCENE IV 128-140
SF 128 HOW SAY'ST THOU
THAT MACDUFF DENIES?
'What do you say to Mac-
duff's refusal?' cp. " Launce,
how saiest thou that my
master is become a notable
lover?" Two Gent. II. 5. 42.
Though there is no comma
after THOU in FO. I, modern
editors, including the Cam-
bridge Text, insert one, mak-
ing nonsense of the passage.
The expression in EL. E. is
not exclamatory but inter-
rogative: "How [in e.N.E.]
is sometimes used interrog-
ativelyfor what, "as Phr.Gen.
says, illustrating by "how
(i.e. what) think you ? Quid tibi
viditur." " H o w mean you ? "
is another common e.N.E.
idiom of this sort. DENIES
HIS PERSON, 'refuses his
presence': the common MN.
E. phrase ' in person ' contains
the word in this early sense ;
cp. "I'le . . tender your
persons to his presence"
Wint.T. IV. 4. 826. SF 129
MACBETH
How say'st thou that Macduff denies his
person
At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH
I heare it by the way, but I will send:
There 's not a one of them but in his house
I keepe a servant fee'd. I will to morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weyard sisters.
More shall they speake, for now I am bent
to know
By the worst meanes the worst. For mine
owne good
All causes shall give way. I am in blood
Stept in so farre that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go ore :
Strange things I have in head that will to
hand,
Which must be acted ere they may be scan'd.
GREAT is still used in MN. E.
in some phrases, like 'great house,' 'great family,' with the meaning 'noble,' 'pertaining
to persons of high rank or office,' but "great bidding" would not now mean 'royal com-
mand,' as it evidently did in Shakspere's time; cp. "great command [i.e. royal authority]
o're-swaies the order" Ham. V.I. 251. BIDDING, 'command,' not 'invitation' — a king
commands his guests; the latter sense of the word is not older than the nineteenth cen-
tury ; cp. "the thunder would not peace at my bidding" Lear IV. 6. 103. Lady Macbeth's
counter-question, 'Did you send a special messenger to invite him?' illustrates the EL.
absolute usage of SEND in the sense of 'send a messenger.' It occurs again in " Seyton,
send out" V.3-49. TO HIM is probably intended to be contracted, — see note to 1.3-
119, — with SIR (the usual EL. form of address to a sovereign, corresponding to the
French 'Sire') a stressed impulse. There is nothing remarkable in Lady Macbeth's
130
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
thus addressing her husband: quite misunderstanding the EL. use of "send," and exag-
gerating the significance of Lady Macbeth's "Sir," critics comment upon a supposed
change in Lady Macbeth's character: 'She now addresses him in the humbled tone of an
inferior; we now see fright and astonishment seated on her face.' Macbeth would hardly
have asked his wife what she thought of Macduff's sulkiness if this had been her relation
to him. «ff 130 The EL. phrase BY THE WAY is slightly different from MN.E. 'by the
way,' and is tantamount to 'incidentally' ; cp. Cotgrave's "en passant, accidentally, by the
way." *1F 131 Holinshed notices this system of back-stairs espionage which Macbeth
practised on his nobles. A ONE: many modern editors, unfamiliar with the EL. usage of
ONE in the sense of 'person,' have subjected the phrase to such emendations as 'not a
man,' 'not a thane,' in order to prevent Shakspere from being 'guilty' of faulty locution ;
but cp. the quotation from Golding in the note to 1.7.47. SF 1 32 I WILL, i.e. I will go, the
usual EL. omission of the verb of motion. SF 133 The verse seems to lack an unstressed
syllable. If TO THE is not contracted into "to th'," WEYARD is to be read as a monosylla-
ble ; the former scansion is preferable, but perhaps the verse is not authentic. SF 134 TO
KNOW: MN.E. uses the phrase 'on knowing.' < TF 135 GOOD has here its EL. sense of 'ad-
vantage' ; the stress mine owne good is different from that of the MN.E. phrase. *1F 136
CAUSES, ' matters of dispute ' and so ' interests,' cp. " The extreme parts of time extreme-
lie formes All causes to the purpose of his speed" L.L.L. V. 2.750. In EL. E. the u in
BLOOD had not yet developed to a, so that the word was a perfect rhyme to "good." SF 137
STEPT IN : a similar notion occurs in " a friend of mine, who in hot blood Hath stept into
the law, which is past depth To those that without heede do plundge intoo 't" Timon III.
5. 1 1 ; cp. also " But I am in So farre in blood that sinne will pluck on sinne" Rich. 3 IV.
2.64. The repetition of the preposition in such phrases is common EL. syntax. MORE,
'farther,' a frequent e. N.E. sense of the word, cp. "And yet we ascended mor and came
to the place wher ower Savyor Crist . . wepte" Tarkington, cited in Cent. Diet. SF 138
GO: the infinitive without "to "was frequently employed in EL. E. where MN.E. requires
the prepositional form ; it here corresponds to the MN. E. present participle in -ing. SF 1 39
IN HEAD, 'in mind,' cp. '"T is in my head to doe my master good" Tarn, of Shr. II. 1.408 ;
"head" in EL. E. frequently means 'mind' as here; this usage is preserved in MN. phrases
like 'out of one's head,' and in the MN. colloquial usage of 'head' in the sense of 'mental
power.' WILL TO HAND, i.e. will come to hand. ^140 ACTED, 'carried into execu-
tion,' a common EL. meaning of the verb, cp. "thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her
earthy and abhord commands" Temp. 1.2.272. SCAN'D is a somewhat stronger word in
EL.E. than in MN.E., and here means 'carefully considered,' 'judged,' cp. "that would
be scann'd" Ham. III. 3. 75.
ACT III SCENE IV 141 -144 £££&££££*
through his bloody course,
LADY MACBETH the sooner to reach the end of
You lacke the season of all natures, sleepe. it and attain his 'peace'; then
he 'will tell pale-hearted fear
MACBETH it j ies> anc j s j eep in spite Q £
Come, wee '1 to sleepe. My strange and self- thunder.'
Lady Macbeth reads his
Is the initiate feare that wants hard use: thought, and with marvellous
We are vet but yond in deed. skiU turns [t to her practical
J J a purpose of getting him to bed.
EXEUNT <$ l4l SEASON, 'seasoning,'
'that which preserves from
decay,' cp. " And good men like the sea should still maintain Their noble taste in midst of all
fresh humours . . Bearing no season, much lesse salt of goodnesse" Ben Jonson, 'Cynthia's
131
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Revells' V. I (cited in Cent. Diet.). NATURES, 'forms of life/ cp. note to 1.7.68. Shak-
spere expresses the same notion in Lear IV. 4. 12 : "our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lackes" ; Boorde, likewise, in his Dietary, E. E. T. S., p. 244, says, " It [i.e.
sleep] doth restore nature," i.e. makes life fresh again when it has lost its savour. *1F 142
STRANGE AND SELF-ABUSE, i.e. my strange delusion: Delius long ago called attention
to the fact that " self-abuse" is an EL. syntactical compound of 'self and 'abuse' in its
common EL. sense of 'deception' referred to in the note on II. 1.50, and not our MN.E.
compound word 'self-abuse' ; "self- " is treated like an adjective, hence the AND. SF 143
INITIATE FEARE, i.e. the fear of the novice: perfect participles of polysyllabic verbs
in -d in M. E. and e. N. E. often took no suffix. Shakspere uses this form as an adjective,
Macbeth's notion being that of a raw recruit or 'fresh-water soldier' whose fear wants
hard usage, cp. "when we in our viciousnesse grow hard (Oh misery on 'tl), the wise
Gods seele our eyes" Ant.&Cl. III. 13- 1 1 1. He adds 'We are but young in action,' see
N.E. D. 'deed' 5 b. FO. I prints "indeed," but this seems to be a printer's error.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE V
There is good reason to conclude that this scene is a later addition to Macbeth, designed
to furnish more of that spectacular interest which, as we know from contemporary ac-
counts, was a popular accompaniment of early representations of the play. Its witches
are quite unlike those of the earlier scenes. Hitherto the instruments of darkness have
been akin to those mysterious creatures of the elder world with which the Germanic
imagination peopled the moors and fens of northern Europe. They have little in common
with classical demonology. Fates and Furies at once, like Grendel, 'they will work
mischief until the end cometh,' and no one to hinder. It is their fatal power that makes
them terrible and invests them with the mysterious awfulness of a predestinated doom —
a seductive terror which has always appealed strongly to the Northern imagination. En-
gendered of the mist and fog, they are awful from their very vagueness and formlessness.
They are nameless horrors haunting the by-paths of moral conduct, lying in wait for him
who will entertain evil purposes. One must ever be on his guard that he be not unwit-
tingly trapped into their clutches. One must shut his ears and flee from them : Macbeth
listens and stands irresolute, and his irresolution costs him the loss of his soul. In the
persons of witches they work the petty tragedies of village life, drowning sailors, blighting
corn, blasting cattle ; but their chief business is the seduction of human souls.
As Shakspere has presented them in the previous scenes, they are a mysterious trinity
of mischief-makers who come and are gone, swirling through the action of the play like
formless wraiths. But in this scene they are fixed and sharply drawn according to the
classic notions of mediaeval demonology. Hecate is their queen, and with all the offended
dignity of a peevish schoolmistress she chides their recreancy for 'trading and trafficking
with Macbeth in riddles and affairs of death'; and, having learned their lesson in good
manners, they are to meet their dame at the pit of Acheron. They are like the artificial
creations of Jonson's Masque of Queenes or of Middleton's Witch, not like Shakspere's
embodiment of a mystery-loving Germanic folk-lore.
And their relation to Macbeth is different from what it was before. Hitherto it has
been the fatal meeting of Macbeth's evil ambition and their evil purposes that brings them
into his life. He does not seek them J they cross his path. His bargain with them is a
tacit one, and he hopes to escape from his share in the fulfilment of it by ignoring its ex-
istence. He thinks himself strong enough to use these supernatural powers, and when
he has gained his end to cast them aside. His " I will to the weyard sisters" in III. 4. 132 ff.
sounds like Middleton rather than Shakspere, cp. 'The Witch' I.I where Almachildes
says, " I am a little headstrong and so Are most of the company. I will to the witches ;
132
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
They say they have charms and tricks, etc." The whole setting of Scene I of Act IV,
too, implies a chance meeting like that of 1.3. If Macbeth has sought them out in their
cave, why is Lenox in Scene I of Act IV? It is not unlikely, therefore, that these two
verses are part of the machinery that introduces Scene V, and that as originally conceived
the passage ran :
"There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servent feed : I am bent to know
By the worst means, the worst, etc." ;
that Macbeth does not tell Lady Macbeth that he "will to the weyard sisters"; and
that he has only a vague purpose in his mind whose presence is sufficient to bring about
another meeting with the sisters, apparently accidental, but really fatally ordained. When
he meets them in IV. 1.48 his words are an expression of surprise, "What is 't you do?"
They 'harp his fear aright,' and without his asking them they cry "Beware Macduff!"
The witches' words in IV. 1. 61 likewise suggest an accidental meeting rather than a meet-
ing by appointment with the king.
Again, how is it possible for any one who has followed the action intelligently up to
this point to conceive of the witch dame's calling Macbeth 'a wayward son, spiteful and
wrathful'? (See the note on the passage.)
And not only does the treatment of the subject-matter violate the organic unity of the
play, the style and verse structure also are quite unlike Shakspere's. The words lack the
richness of association which characterizes Shakspere's English: Hecate is "mistris of
their charmes," "close contriver of all harmes," what they "have done hath bene but for
a wayward sonne, Spightfull and wrathfull, who . . Loves for his owne ends, not for you."
"Thither he Will come to know his destinie" — these and other such forms of expression
in the scene lack those dramatic and intimate associations drawn from actual life that
distinguish Shakspere's writing from that of his contemporaries. The artificial divisions
of the thought to make the rhymes fit into their proper places, and the consequent padding
out of the idea to fill the measure, like "Your vessels and your spels provide, Your
charmes, and every thing beside," or " who, as others do, Loves for his owne ends, not for
you," are not at all in Shakspere's style. The verse form, four-wave rising rhythm
rhymed in couplets, is one that Shakspere, with his instinctive appreciation of the fitness
of a falling rhythm for such subjects, does not use in treating supernatural interests. For
such subjects he employs an inimitably capricious falling rhythm, full of starts and turns,
made up usually of two phrases, as in "On the ground Sleepe sound, I 'le apply To your
eie, Gentle lover remedy" (Mids. III. 2.448), or "Double, double, toile and trouble: Fire
burne and cauldron bubble," or " Sleepe shall neyther night nor day Hang upon his pent-
house lid," all of which are essential variations of the same rhythm theme. But " I am
for th' ayre : this night I 'le spend Unto a dismall and a fatall end" is built upon an entirely
different theme, and is a form of rhythm that Shakspere does not use in continuous verse.
This rhythm lacks, too, that lyric quality which the certainty of stress incidence gives.
Such verses as "Have I not reason, beldams as you are," or "And, which is worse, all
you have done," or "And you all know security Is mortals' cheefest enemie" are in narra-
tive and not in lyric rhythm. The abrupt ending of the verse on monosyllabic words, which by
its staccato effect gives Shakspere's witch rhythm its eerie music, is lacking in " Will come to
know his destinie," "As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion,"
and "And you all know security Is mortals' cheefest enemie," where the final stresses fall
on secondary syllables, — to say nothing of the inappropriateness of such a platitude as this
last in lyric poetry, for men do not sing philosophy, nor would Shakspere have been likely
to finish a lyric strain with a commonplace of classic literature, neminem celerius opprimi
quam qui nihil timeret, even did he know it in Ben Jonson's version : " Be not secure : non
swiftlyer are opprest Than they whom confidence betrays to rest" Sejanus II. 2.
133
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
In view, then, of the awkwardness of this scene, its palpable violation of the theme
interest of the tragedy, its artificial structure, and its unShaksperian style, one need have
little fear that in repudiating it he is in danger of lessening Shakspere's credit or of doing
violence to the principles of sound literary criticism.
The question arises: Who interpolated these and the other obvious patchwork pieces
into Macbeth? Many considerations point to Middleton as being responsible for them.
In his Witch he makes use of the same conceptions of Hecate and her crew that are found
in this scene, and in this play is found the notion of witches having lovers, see note to III.
5.10; in his Trick to Catch an Old One, Scene II of Act V, as well as in parts of his
Witch, he makes continuous use of the verse form we have in this scene ; throughout the
Witch are scattered palpable imitations of Macbeth J and in it occur in full the two songs
that the stage directions (vv. 33 and 35) call for. The Witch was written some time
before Middleton's death, for he speaks in his preface of 'having recovered into his hands,
after much difficulty, this ignorantly ill fated labour' of his, which can only mean that the
play had been unsuccessfully put upon the stage some years before he wrote it out for
Thomas Holmes, Esq. A passage from this play occurs in Davenant's version and ex-
pansion of Macbeth, and it is not unlikely that Middleton and not Davenant is respon-
sible for much of the padding out which appears in Davenant's version. But the whole
question has not yet been sufficiently investigated for us to pronounce with any degree of
certainty whether or not Middleton is responsible for the few obvious additions in Shak-
spere'-s Macbeth as printed in the Folio of 1623, and still less with any degree of proba-
bility that Davenant made use of a version of Macbeth by Middleton, which was cut down
to the presumably Shaksperian matter by the editors of the Folio. The play is complete
as it stands, and, when clearly understood, possesses the peculiar organic unity so char-
acteristic of Shakspere. We may therefore conclude that even if there was a fuller form
of it current on the stage, it was there only to make Macbeth longer and more entertaining,
and that the editors of the Folio did wisely in excising it to its present dimensions. .
SCENE V: A HEATH: THUNDER
ENTER THE THREE WITCHES MEETING HECAT
FIRST WITCH
1-5
^HY, how now, Hecat, you looke
ansjerly ?
SF I For the form HECAT "j"
and the place of Hecate in
EL. demonology, cp. note to
II. 1.52. ANGERLY is an EL.
by-form of the adverb that
appears side by side with
'angrily': see N. E. D. and cp.
"angerly (in look), torve"
Holyoke, 1677. The word
occurs in John IV. 1. 82, " Nor
looke upon the iron angerly."
SF 2 For the notion of the
witch dame's holding her sub-
ordinates to account, cp. note to 1.3. 1. BELDAMS AS YOU ARE, i.e. you hags ; the word
"beldam" originally meant 'grandmother' or 'old woman'; but in the sixteenth century
it gained the depreciative sense of 'virago," hag.' For "as you are" in such expressions
as this, MN.E. prefers 'that you are'; cp. "coward as thou art rt Rich.3 1.4.286. Ine.N.E.
134
HECAT
Have I not reason, beldams as
-you are?
Sawcy and over-bold, how did you dare
To trade and trafficke with Macbeth
In riddles and affaires of death;
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ARE had a literary form sounded like the 'air' that is often heard in MN. dialects, so that
the rhyme 'are : dare' is a perfect one. MN. editors generally depart from the FO. print-
ing, placing a comma after ARE and an interrogation-point after OVER-BOLD, beginning
a new sentence with HOW. But there is no ground for this ; indeed, as is usually the case,
the departure weakens the sense, for Hecate means that the witches are saucy and over-
bold in trading and trafficking with Macbeth : cp. the similar departure from the FO. in
II. 4. 27. It is needless to say that Shakspere has not represented Macbeth as ''trading
and trafficking" with the witches. The very essence of the tragedy lies in the fact that
Macbeth's ambition and the
ACT III
SCENE V
6-25
purposes of the powers of evil
come together fatally, not
through Macbeth's seeking.
SF7 CLOSE, 'secret,' a com-
mon EL. meaning of the word.
*Ir9 OUR ART: itisnot"art"
but 'nature' that characterizes
the workings of Shakspere's
wayward sisters. SF 1 ff.
WHICH IS WORSE isacom-
mon EL. E. idiom correspond-
ing to MN.E. 'what is worse.'
The lines really belong in
Middleton's Witch, where the
disgusting theme of sexual
love between witches and
young men is treated ad nau-
seam. With his usual moral
healthfulness and good sense,
Shakspere avoids such noi-
some themes. *1F 1 5 The glar-
ing inconsistency of THE
PIT OF ACHERON is ex-
plained by modern editors on
the assumption that Shak-
spere meant his audience to
Upon the corner of the mOOne understand by "Acheron"
some foul tarn in the neigh-
bourhood ! The phrase seems
to be, not a reference to the
river Acheron of the lower
world, but to the EL. notion of Acherusia; cp. Cooper's Thesaurus: "Acherusia . . is
also a poole or mere of Thesportia [sic for Thesprotia] in Epyre, out of which issueth the
ryver Acheron. . . Acherusia is also a hole or cave which the poets suppose to be a way
into hell." <lr2I DISMALL, 'calamitous,' 'disastrous,' cp. note to 1.2.53- SF 22 BUSI-
NESSE may be a plural form like "riches," "largesse," cp. note to II. 1. 14 ; the word had
an inflectionless plural in EL. E., e.g. "during all these great businesse " Browne, ' Polex.'
(1647) 1.66, as cited in N.E. D. s.v. 15. So the sense of this passage may be 'important
tasks,' cp. note to II. 1.48. But "businesse" also means 'disturbance,' 'commotion' in
EL.E., cp. note to II. 3.86. SF 23 That CORNER OF THE MOONE is not an unusual
poetical expression, imitated by Milton in his "To the corners of the moon," as it has
been explained to be, but a common EL. idiom for the 'horn of the moon,' is shown by
Cooper's translation of Ovid's "cornua lunaria" by "the poynts or corners ofthemoone."
135
And I, the mistris of your charmes,
The close contriver of all harmes,
Was never call'd to beare my part,
Or shew the glory of our art?
And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath bene but for a wayward sonne,
Spightfull and wrathfull ; who, as others do,
Loves for his owne ends, not for you.
But make amends now: get you gon,
And at the pit of Acheron
Meete me i' th T morning: thither he
Will come to know his destinie:
Your vessels and your spels provide,
Your charmes, and every thing beside.
I am for th ? ayre; this night I 'le spend
Unto a dismall and a fatall end.
Great businesse must be wrought ere noone:
)on the corner of the moone
There hangs a vap'rous drop profound;
I ? le catch it ere it come to ground:
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 24 Steevens's inference that VAP'ROUS DROP is a reference to the virus lunar e of mediae-
val demonology, mentioned in Lucan's Pharsalia, VI r is probably correct. For though
this phrase has commonly a different meaning in EL.E. (see Cooper s.v. virus lunare),
Thomas May, 1627, renders the Lucan passage u virus large lunare ministrat" hy "of the
moones poysonous gelly store she takes." PROFOUND seems to be used here in its sense
'of deep significance/ with
ACT III SCENE V
perhaps a reminiscence of
the Latin prof undo, 'poured
forth.'
*ff 26 SLIGHTS, ' arts,' ' con-
trivances,' a meaning still
preserved in MN. E.' sleight of
hand.' SF 27 ARTIFICIALL,
'cunning,' shading into 'de-
ceitful,' a meaning that has
gone over to ' artful,' cp. " thy
prosperous and artificial
fate [i.e. feat]" Per. V. 1.72.
SPRIGHTS, the common EL.
contracted form of 'spirits' ;
see note to I. 5. 41. SF29
CONFUSION, 'ruin'; seethe
note to II. 3- 7 1. SF 30 Mac-
beth does not "spurne fate"
until the end of the play.
The interpolator has quite
misconceived his relation to
the supernatural agencies
which work his ruin. BEARE
seems to have been used in
EL.E. with a sense akin to
'exalt,' N.E.D. 19; cp. the citation from Knowles, "the Spaniards bearing themselves upon
their wealth." But the N. E. D. gives the word only in a reflexive usage in this sense. Per-
haps, however, HOPES has its EL. meaning of 'confidence,' as in 1.7.35, and BEARE its
common sense of 'maintain,' with 'BOVE relating to Macbeth and meaning 'superior to.'
*TF 3 1 GRACE, 'favour.' FEARE rhymes with "beare," cp. note to 1. 1.6. SF 32 SECURITY
in Shakspere's time had a shade of meaning now commonly expressed by ' confidence,' cp.
"security gives way to [i.e. gives free rein to] conspiracie" Cass. II. 3-8. *1F33 CHEEF-
EST in EL. E. connoted an aspect of superiority now usually denoted by ' greatest ' or ' best '
or ' most important,' e.g. "Within their chiefest temple " I Hen.6 II. 2. 12, " the king's chiefest
friend" 3Hen. 6 IV. 3. II, "nephew to your chiefest enemy" Middleton's A Trick to Catch
an Old One, IV. 2. The first stage direction calls for music to accompany Hecate's
exit : in Middleton's play witches are spoken of as flying overhead "with a noise of musi-
cians." The "Come away" song is intended to accompany the exeunt of the other
witches, closing the scene. Modern editors run both together into one stage direction
which they place after v.33- *1F 34 MY LITTLE SPIRIT: Ben Jonson explains this ref-
erence in a note to his Masque of Queenes : "Their little martin is he that calls them to
their conventicles, which is done in a humane voice ; . . their little martens or martinets, of
whom I have mentioned before, use this forme in dismissing their conventions, Bja faces-
site propere hinc omnes" i.e. "Come away, come away," etc. This notion may be vaguely
involved in the " Padock calls anon" of 1. 1. The song referred to in the stage direction
is found in Middleton's Witch in the form :
136
26-36
And that, distill'd by magicke slights,
Shall raise such artificiall sprights
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurne fate, scorne death, and beare
His hopes ? bove wisedome, grace, and feare:
And you all know security
Is mortals' cheefest enemie.
MUSICKE AND A SONG
Hearke! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stayes for me.
SING WITHIN: "COME AWAY COME AWAY " &C
FIRST WITCH
Come, let's make hast; shee '1 soone be
backe againe.
EXEUNTf
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
(Song above.) (Voice above.)
Come away, come away, There's one comes down to fetch his dues,
Hecate, Hecate, come away! A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood,
Hec. I come, 1 come, I come, I come, And why thou stay'st so long
With all the speed I may, I muse, I muse,
With all the speed I may. Since the air's so sweet and good.
Where's Stadlin? Hec. O, art thou come?
(Voice above.) Here. What news, what news?
Hec. Where's Puckle? Spirit. All goes still to our delight;
(Voice above.) Here ; Either come, or else
And Hoppo too, and Hellwain too; Refuse, refuse.
We lack but you, we lack but you ; Hec. Now I 'm furnished for the flight.
Come away, make up the count.
Hec. I will but 'noint, and then I mount.
Hec. (going up). Now I go, now I fly,
Malkin my sweet spirit and I.
O what a dainty pleasure 'tis
To ride in the air
When the moon shines fair,
And sing and dance and toy and kiss !
Over woods, high rocks, and mountains,
Over seas, our mistress' fountains,
Over steep towers and turrets,
We fly by night, 'mongst troops of spirits :
No ring of bells to our ears sounds,
No howl of wolves, no yelps of hounds;
No, not the noise of water's breach,
Or cannon's throat our height can reach.
(Voices above.) No ring of bells, etc.
(Cited from Dyce's modernized copy of the MS. discovered by Steevens in 1778.) It is
probable that all this is meant by the " Song" given in the stage direction of the FO., though
the words "Come away" occur only in the first stanza; for Davenant includes the
three stanzas in his Macbeth, slightly altering the form of expression here and there.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE VI
The action and thought of this scene, as Davenant noticed in his revision of the play,
immediately follow those of Scene IV. Davenant therefore placed it before Scene V,
closing the act with the Witch Dance and Song. This arrangement is far better than
that of the textus receptus, because the recalcitrancy of Macduff, which arouses a^ain
Macbeth's murderous thoughts in Scene IV, demands an immediate explanation such as
is given in this scene. The scene is really a chorus closing Act III, and serves the pur-
pose of a narrative like the scene which closes Act II ; and in its chorus aspect it describes
to the audience the action which is to follow, and forecasts the probable consequences,
outstripping thus the dramatic development of the play and putting the audience in pos-
session of information of Macduff's flight that Macbeth does not get until later.
The modern conventional scene direction, "The Palace," is probably correct, though
it is of little moment where the scene takes place. The imagination of Elizabethan theatre-
137
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
goers was used to supplying proper scene settings for the dramatic action represented
before them. It is likewise a matter of little moment who is meant by "Another Lord,"
which Johnson proposed to alter to 'Angus,' and Dyce, on the authority of a MS. entry
in his copy of FO. 1, to ' Rosse.' The scene subserves the purpose of furnishing general
information, and is not strictly a dramatic representation.
SCENE VI: FORRES: THE PALACE
ENTER LENOX AND ANOTHER LORD
LENOX '- 10
Y former speeches have but hit
your thoughts,
Which can interpret farther:
onely I say
Things have bin strangely borne.
The gracious Duncan
Was pittied of Macbeth : marry, he was
dead:
And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too
late;
Whom you may say, if r t please you, Fleans
kill'd,
For Fleans fled: men must not walke too
late.
Who cannot want the thought, how mon-
strous
It was for Malcolme and for Donalbane
To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
SF I SPEECHES,'statements,'
here 'expressions of suspi-
cion,' cp. note to III. 1.76.
HIT, 'fallen in with,' cp. " [I]
sought with deedes thy will to
hit" Sidney, Ps. XL, as cited
in N.E.D. 15. THOUGHTS
has its M. E.and e.N. E. mean-
ing, 'anxieties.' Lenox has
only voiced the anxiety and
alarm of the other lords. SF 2
WHICH is probably the con-
nective relative, 'but you can
put them in words for your-
selves.' For INTERPRET in
this sense of 'say explicitly,'
see note to 1.3-46. Lenox
has not dared to refer to the
matter save in general terms,
,for specific reference would
be treason, and treason is dan-
gerous when Macbeth's spjes
may be lurking in any corner.
ONELY I SAY, 'I merely re-
mark,' cp. note to III. 4. 98.
SF 3 BORNE: v. 17 shows
that "borne" has here the sense of 'managed,' as perhaps also in 1.7. 17. A passage in
Ado II.3.229 shows the word in the same sense, "the conference was sadly borne," i.e.
was carried on seriously. Baret's Alvearie gives "also to do, to execute" as a synonym
of 'beare,' but possibly Baret is thinking of Latin gero rather than of English 'bear.' The
reflexive idiom 'to bear one's self,' i.e. to behave, implies this 'wield' or 'manage' meaning
in the simple verb. We are therefore justified in assuming 'wield,' 'manage,' 'conduct'
as a transitive meaning of "beare," even if such a sense is not given in N.E. D., and that
Lenox means 'things have been curiously managed.' *1F 4 OF, 'by,' a common e. N.E.
meaning of the preposition. MARRY, originally a form of adjuration, 'Mary,' with the
vowel shortened through lack of stress. But in EL. E. it was used merely as an exclama-
tion with various applications, — here, 'to be sure,' ironically spoken; i.e. 'to be sure, he
did not express his pity for Duncan until after his murder,' the allusion being to that over-
wrought utterance of Macbeth's about "silver skin" and "golden blood." ^ 7 WALKE
138
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
has its EL. sense of 'be abroad/ still preserved in MN.E. 'ghosts walk.' The rhythm
of vv.6 and 7, with its turns and twists, is full of irony : '" x "" " \\ ' x ' || * ' * ' || ' " * ""||.
SF 8 WANT is usually explained as being here tantamount to a negative verb, 'not to
have,' and as such involved in the double-negative idiom common in M.E. and e. N. E.
Similar syntax has been cited by Delius : "That any of these bolder vices wanted Lesse
impudence" Wint.T. III. 2. 56, and "be it but to fortifie her judgement . . for taking a
beggar without lesse quality" Cym.I.4.2I, where "lesse" is tantamount to a negative,
and "wanted lesse" corresponds to MN.E. 'lacked more,' and "without lesse" to MN.E.
'not having more.' But these are not quite parallel cases, and nowhere else (so far as
has been noted) does Shakspere say anything like "Who cannot want" when he means
'Who can fail to have.' It is possible, however, that the interrogation-point after FATHER
is the EL. printer's exclamation-point, denoting the irony in Lenox's words, and that
WHO is the EL. connective relative separated from its antecedent as it was in 1. 2. 2 1, and
connected with it only by the sentence stress which the speaker gave it: 'You may say
Fleance killed him, for Fleance fled — men must not walk too late! — since you, of course,
cannot have escaped the reflection how,' etc. It is also possible that "Men must not
walke too late" has fallen out of place and should immediately follow " Banquo walk'd
too late" : if we may go so far as to assume such a displacement the sense of vv. 6 and 7
becomes perfectly clear. Of the emendations — 'You cannot want' Hanmer, 'Who can
want' or 'Who cannot have' Jennens, 'We cannot want' Keightley, ' Who can now want'
Cartwright — the last gives apt stress, Who can now want, and good sense: 'As Fleance
killed Banquo because Fleance fled, every one must now conclude that Malcolm and
Donalbaine killed their father because they fled' ; and it involves only a printer's error of
misreading vo as r in his copy. MONSTROUS has two trisyllabic forms in EL. E., one
through the extra syllable caused by r (see note to 1.5-40) and the other due to analogy
with the Latin monstruum, viz. "monstruous" ; cp. "Her fault so vile and monsterous
before" Drayton's Heroicall Epistles, ed. Sp. Soc, p. 196, and "So filthy and so mon-
struous that sure I think no age" Newton's Thebais, ed. Sp. Soc, p. 5 1. SF 10 DAMNED,
'damnable' or 'damning,' an-
ACT III SCENE VI "-I6 ftfr*";
tt • 1. 1 <> 1 , , r^. 1 1 N.E.D. 3and V. 1.39. FACT,
How it did greeve Macbeth! Did he not 'crime': the word was com-
Straidht monly used in the sixteenth
t , .1 j 1- century in this sense, and is
In pious rage, the two delinquents teare, stiU / etained in th ' e legal
That were the slaves of drinke and thralles phrase ' before the fact.'
of sleeDe'
, Y , r * 111 -s 1 1.1 < & 12 DELINQUENTS: the
Was not that nobly done.'' I, and wisely too; wor a j s somewhat stronger
For 'twould have antfer'd any heart alive in el. E. than now, and stands
Ti .1 1 1. for 'criminals': cp. "delin-
o heare the men deny t. „„»„♦ « „„-«,i,Li» ri~ .~
J quent, a criminal (jlosso-
graphia. TEARE in EL.E.
has a range of meaning which includes laniare, cp. "laniatus, rent : torne : cut in peeces"
Cooper, and "All his body is rent or torne, laceratus est toto corpore" Baret's Alvearie.
In this sense it is often equivalent to MN.E. 'mangle,' cp. Cotgrave, " deschirer, to teare,
dismember, mangle," and "teare him for his bad verses" Caes. III. 3-34, and "inforced
hate . . shall rudelie teare thee" Lucr. 669. The word is therefore aptly used here to por-
tray the fury with which Macbeth, in Lenox's presence, gashed the sleeping grooms, and
gives no ground for supposing that Shakspere did not write the passage, as CI. Pr. ar-
gues from what its editors, construing the word in its MN. sense, consider inapt verbiage.
SF 15 HEART ALIVE: "of the world" and "alive" (which is tantamount to the same no-
139
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
tion, for it represents M.E. "on-live," 'in life') are frequently used in M.E. and e. N.E. as
intensifying phrases with no definite meaning. In the American ' sakes alive ! ' and the col-
loquial ' man alive ! ' the idiom
is still preserved. Lenox's ACTm SCENE VI 16-24
words are tantamount to any ■
heart,' with strong accent on c i_ T
'any.' SF 16 DENY 'T, cp. ^° that 1 say
note to 1.2.7. He has borne all things well : and I do thinke
octtt itcu.cd/^dmu at t That had he Duncan's sonnes under his
tFI7 in HE HASBORNE ALL
THINGS WELL the slight key
verse stress on "has"— 'yes, ^ s anc j > t p l ease heaven, he shall not — they
he has managed everything u i J r • J
well'— adds to Lenox's irony. Should linde
The stresses of this passage What 'twere to kill a father: so should
are so apt, and so clearly re- Fleans
fleet the bitter irony of one
who will not express his But, peace ! for from broad words, and cause
thought frankly, that it is J^e favl'd
perhaps worth while to note TT . ^ , , - T ,
them: "I, and wisely too; His presence at the tyrant s feast, 1 heare,
For 'twould have anger'd Macduffe lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
any heart alive To heare the Where he bestowes himselfe?
men deny t , then, turning
the thought with a reversal:
" So that I say, He has borne all things well : and I do thinke That had he Duncan's sonnes
under his key — As, and 't please heaven, he shall not — they should finde What 't were to
kill a father." SF 1 8 UNDER HIS KEY, 'in his power,' i.e. as he had Duncan. SF 19 AND
is a M. E. and e. N. E. use of the conjunction in the sense of ' if,' ' provided that.' " And it "
was frequently contracted in EL. E. to "an't" in lightly stressed phrases like" an 't please
you," etc. From this a fictitious word, 'an,' meaning 'if,' has been created, and this non-
existent word has been put into Shakspere wherever "and" occurs in the sense of 'if ' ; see
N. E. D. s.v. ^ 20 WERE, the subjunctive of unfulfilled condition, common in e. N. E. and
still in use. SF 21 Lenox passes from these thoughts with the reflection that it was Mac-
duff's frank speech that got him into trouble. BROAD WORDS, 'frank speech.' In the
MN. E. 'broad jest' 'broad' is similarly used but restricted to the meaning 'vulgarly frank' ;
in 'broad hint' the EL. meaning survives in its original force. CAUSE is not 'because'
clipped for the sake of rhythm, but a e. N. E. idiom common in prose as well as poetry, and
still preserved in the dialectic 'cause why' and the 'cause' of vulgar English. FAYLE, thus
used in the sense of 'deny,' 'refuse,' 'withhold from,' with a direct object, has not yet been
found elsewhere in EL. E. nor recorded in N. E. D. A similar usage occurs in " I will never
faile Beginning nor supplyment [i.e. support] " Cym. III. 4. 181. SF 22 TYRANT, 'usurper,'
cp. "To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice, that Henry liveth still" 3 Hen. 6 III. 3- 71.
His using the word with this sense argues nothing as to Shakspere's knowledge or ignor-
ance of Greek, for 'usurper' is a recognized e. N.E. meaning of the word, cp. "tyrant, a
cruel governour or usurper" Glossographia, and "tyrant, one that has usurped the sover-
eign power in a state," "tyranny, cruel and violent empire or dominion unlawfully
usurped" Kersey's Dictionarium. The word had this meaning of 'usurper' even in M.E.,
cp. Piers Plowman, III.2II,"go atack tho [i.e. those] tyrauns," i.e. Falsehood and Flat-
tery. As in so many other instances, Shakspere's apparent knowledge of the classics
turns out to be only a wide familiarity with English. Lenox has now thrown off his mask
of irony and boldly calls Macbeth a usurper. SF 24 BESTOWES HIMSELFE, 'lodges,'
a reflexive meaning of "bestow" common in e. N.E., cp. III. 1.30.
140
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 24 SONNE is "sonnes" in FO. I, which seems to be a misprint. In FOS. I, 2, and 3
"lives" was altered to "live" in v. 26 and "is" allowed to stand. But only Malcolm fled
to England: Donalbaine went to Ireland. SF25 HOLDS, ' withholds/ cp. "Your crowne
and kingdome indirectly held From him the native and true challenger" Hen. 5 II. 4. 94.
DUE OF BIRTH, 'birthright': "due" has this legal sense in EL.E., cp. "The key of this
infernal pit by due . . I keep "
ACT III SCENE VI
'Par. Lost' 11.850 (cited in
N. E. D. 6). The article is
equivalent to a MN.E. pos-
sessive pronoun. SF 27 OF,
'by.' PIOUS here and HOLY
KING, v. 30, are due to the
fact that Malcolm, according
to Holinshed,fled to the court
of Edward the Confessor, cp.
note to IV. 3. 144. SF 30 UPON
HIS AYD, 'with his [i.e. the
king's] support,' the infinitive
having the sense of 'that he
may.' U PON has a wide range
of usage in EL.E. to express
various forms of cause, cp. " I
am come hither . . upon my
man's instigation" 2Hen.6 II.
3-87, and "they Upon their
ancient mallice will forget . .
these his new honors" Cor.
II. I. 243- The phrase is
usually explained 'in his [i.e.
Malcolm's] aid,' but EL. syn-
tax does not warrant this
construction. *ff 3 1 WAKE,
' rouse,' is still in poetic usage
in MN.E. NORTHUMBER-
LAND, i.e. the county, not the
earl, of that name : in Holins-
hed Seyward is the Earl of
Northumberland. *ff 35 FREE
in Shakspere's time meant 'banish,' cp. " Free thine owne torment" Daniel, and "Free
suspicion" Ford (cited in N.E.D. 4), and there is therefore no ground for assuming a
transposition of notions as did Steevens, or for amending the text with patches like 'keep'
for "free." BLOODY KNIVES is probably a pregnant term for deeds of violence and
assassination, and is Shakspere's way of implying Holinshed's statement that Macbeth
"committed manie horrible slaughters and murders both as well of the nobles as commons."
Delius thought it a reference to the murderer in III. 4. SF 36 FREE HONORS, 'guiltless
honours,' not bought by treachery. Hamlet says, "Your majestie, and wee that have free
soules, it touches us not" III. 2. 25 1. The words recall Banquo's "bosome franchis'd" in
II. 1.28. SF38 EXASPERATE, the EL. past participle without suffix, cp. note to III. 4. 143.
THEIR KING of FO. I is changed to 'the king' in the Cambridge Text and in modern edi-
tions, and taken to refer to Macbeth. The Folio's "their" might easily be a mistake for an
original "the," since the definite article with possessive force and the possessive adjective
pronoun, especially 'the' and 'their,' are constantly subject to interchange in EL. texts:
often a first edition will have the former and later editions the latter, showing that in the early
141
24-39
LORD
The sonne of Duncane,
From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court, and is receyv'd
Of the most pious Edward with such grace
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect. Thither Mac-
duffe
Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his ayd
To wake Northumberland and warlike Sey-
ward,
That by the helpe of these, with Him above
To ratifie the worke, we may againe
Give to our tables meate, sleepe to our nights,
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody
knives,
Do faithfull homage and receive free honors:
All which we pine for now. And this report
Hath so exasperate their king that hee
Prepares for some attempt of warre.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
part of the 1 7th century editors and printers felt at liberty to substitute the more modern form,
as they felt at liberty to make a singular verb plural when it had a plural subject. But
neither "their king" nor 'the king' can mean Macbeth, for Macbeth does not yet know of
Macduff's going to England — Lenox himself informs him of it in IV. 1. 142. Delius con-
strues THIS REPORT as referring to Malcolm's escape to England and having nothing to
do with Macduff and the reprisal which Macbeth will make upon him, THEIR KING imply-
ing that the lord cannot accept Macbeth as his king, because he belongs to Malcolm's
faction; but this explanation is not satisfactory. THIS REPORT is in Shakspere some-
times tantamount to 'the report of this,' e.g. u cMessaIa. Seeke him [i.e. Pindarus], Titinius,
whilst I go to meet The noble Brutus, thrusting this report Into his eares; I may say
'thrusting' it, For piercing Steele and darts invenomed Shall be as welcome to the eares
of Brutus As tydings of this sight" Cass. V. 3- 73- Here there has been no 'report';
Titinius and Messala have themselves found Cassius's dead body. So likewise in John IV.
2.260, "Doth Arthur live? O hast thee to the peeres, Throw this report [i.e. the statement
of this fact] on their incensed rage." We have already noticed (cp. note to 1.5.3) that
" report " in EL. E. was not so strictly limited as it is in MN. E. : that it could mean ' state-
ments,' 'rumour,' or 'reputation' ; the apparent objective use of "this report "is a natural
consequence of such a range of meaning, the "this" referring, not to the statement itself,
but to the conditions which the statement represented to the mind. If we may assume
this syntax here, the lord simply says 'The King of England, having been told of these
conditions which we live under, is preparing for^a-rr^invasion' (cp> note on " attempt of
warre" below). Lenox and the lord are traitors, and that the latter has been in secret
communication with England since Malcolm's flight ten years before is not inconsistent
with Macbeth's real and Lenox's assumed ignorance in IV. 1. 142. What the lord informs
Lenox of is that the "English powre," referred to in V.2. 1, is already 'being mustered.'
In IV. 3.43 Malcolm, on Macduff's arrival, tells him that he has an offer from the King of
England of "goodly thousands," and that even before his coming Old Seyward was on
the point of setting out for Scotland with ten thousand men. This scene presents to the
audience a condition of things that Macbeth is unaware of, viz. that Malcolm has been
doing something more than telling lies during his residence in England. There is nothing
inconsistent in it ; on the contrary, it helps to keep before the mind, as a single picture, a
long and complex series of events covering a wide range of time and space. It is thus
that Shakspere gives to history the marvellous unity of art, as it were focusing its vary-
ing aspects into one single burning-point of human interest. SF 39 ATTEMPT means
'attack' in EL.E., cp. "No
ACT III
SCENE VI
39-43
man can charge us of any at-
tempt against the realm"(cita-
tion dated 1584 in N.E. D. 3),
and "to attempt, or try to
make war upon, attentare
aliquem fee//o" Phr. Gen.
SF 39 SENT HE: the pronoun
is significant ; Lenox brings
the talk back to Macbeth with
an inquiry as to why Macduff
fled. He knows only that he
was in disgrace for not at-
tending the banquet and for
unguarded language : why did
he fly? Did Macbeth send for Macduff to come to him? For SENT in this sense, cp.
note to III. 4. 129. It is implied here that Macbeth has sent for Macduff to come to court
and explain his absence, as he said he would do in III. 4. 130. IF 40 ABSOLUTE, 'positive,'
142
LENOX
Sent he to Macduffe?
LORD
He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not 1/
The clowdy messenger turnes me his backe,
And hums, as who should say 'You '1 rue the
time
That clones me with this answer.'
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
cp. " Be absolute for death" Meas. III. I. 5 (N.E.D. II). *ff4I CLOWDY, used of persons
in EL. E. with the sense 'gloomy/ 'sullen/ see N.E.D. I b. TURNES ME is an instance
of the EL. E. so-called ethical dative. It is frequent in Shakspere and quite untranslatable
in MN. terms. As here, it expresses the speaker's personal interest in what he is saying
— the narrator of the story enjoys the situation. SF42 HUMS is still used in the phrase
'to hum and haw/ to express embarrassment or hesitation, cp. N.E.D. 2c; but in M.E.
and e. N. E. it may stand independently, cp. " Al rosy hewed tho waxe she And gan to hum "
Chaucer's Troilus, II. 1 150, and "hum and stroke thy beard" Tro.&Cr. 1.3. 1 65 (cited from
N.E.D.). AS WHO SHOULD
ACT III SCENE VI 43-49 f^^^flnT^h
"as" has its e. N. E. meaning
LENOX of < as jf/ an d the relative is
And that well might used in its M.E. indefinite
mi. i. .. t fi ij i . i. , sense of 'some one.' SF 43
Advise him to a caution, t hold what distance CLOG is originally a < b i ock
His wisedome can provide. Some holy angell attached to the leg or neck of
Five to the court of England and unfold \ man to ™? z ** m ° tionf ;
J ° . . this association gives the verb
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing its meaning of 'hamper," em-
May soone returne to this our suffering ban-ass.' The word reflects
the messenger's dread of
Country Macbeth's temper.
Under a hand accurs'd!
SF44 For ADVISE . . TO in
LORD tne sense of 'recommending
t n i -xi 1 • a course of action/ see N.E.D.
I le send my prayers with him. 9b> caution, 'precaution/
EXEUNT N.E.D. 5; the indefinite ar-
ticle is used as in 1. 7. 68.
T' HOLD, 'in preserving/ illustrating the EL. usage of the infinitive, corresponding to a
MN.E. participial phrase. ^49 Phrases modifying participles used adjectively are often
separated from their participles, as here. A similar arrangement occurs in II. 3. 138.
Acts I and II had a single theme, the murder of Duncan, and apparent success crowned
the wicked work; the 'consequence' for the time was trammelled up, and Macbeth had
gone to Scone to be invested. As Banquo says in the opening verses of Act III, he has
it now, king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, as the weird women promised. The third act of the
drama opens with a fresh theme, the murder of Banquo. Though so rapidly brought to its
execution, — the faulty purpose almost cheek by jowl with the deed, — the new theme can be
traced through the same course as the old. In the opening verses the unsuspicious per-
sonality of Banquo is presented, as was Duncan's in the early part of the play ; and, like
Duncan as a guest in Macbeth's house, he is in Macbeth's power (vv. 1-44). The ' thought,'
already full formed in Macbeth's mind, is clearly represented in detail in the soliloquy of
w.49-71, recalling the soliloquy of 1.7.28 ff . ; the 'instrument' for its execution, already
provided in the maliciousness of the two disgruntled soldiers, is represented to the audience
in the succeeding dialogue, vv. 72-142. In Scene II Macbeth shares this new 'thought'
with Lady Macbeth, but this time vaguely and darkly. The reason for this is not far to
seek. If we turn to the wonderful sleep-walking scene, where Lady Macbeth presents in
broken mutterings a miniature of the mental aspects of the tragedy as they concern her
143
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
and her husband, we shall see her not only repeating the horror of Duncan's murder, for
which she is directly responsible, but haunted by visions of Banquo and Lady Macduff
as well. They all blend together in one awful scene that she cannot banish from her
mind. Shakspere intends, therefore, to put before us a double tragedy, its two parts in-
terwoven inextricably, its two actors suffering each the penalty for the acts of the other.
The execution of the 'thought' is the subject of Scene III. The new murder links it-
self with the old. But the removal of Banquo, instead of securing for Macbeth 'peace'
from the 'restless extasy' caused by Duncan's murder, adds fresh horror to it; and the
second deed of dreadful note not only brings its own immediate retribution but precipitates
the retribution for the first. The psychological 'consequences' of the two are marvellously
interwoven, for in Scene IV Duncan's ghost as well as Banquo's haunts Macbeth. Whether
the former actually appears to him or not is of little consequence: the "send those that
we bury backe" clearly shows that the murdered Duncan as well as the "blood-boltred"
Banquo is present to his mind. Not only is peace unattainable now, but from Scene IV on
it is a fight for life itself. Banquo, the menace to peace, is removed only to give place to a
menace from another quarter — Macduff. And this new situation is harder to deal with
than the old, for Macduff will not put himself in the tyrant's power ; he holds his distance.
Act III thus not only reveals the Nemesis in its subjective aspect in Macbeth's insanity,
but prepares the way for his final overthrow in the 'raising of rebellion's head' by Mac-
duff and Malcolm. The new Macduff motif thus begins to develop in the end of Scene IV,
and Scene VI as a chorus forecasts the course of this new consequence, which will be the
theme of Act IV.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE I OF ACT IV
The witch scene which opens Act IV is quite different from that of Act III, both in its style
and in its matter, replete as it is with popular, not classic, notions of witchcraft. It returns
to the four- wave rhythm found in Scene III of Act I save for a few obvious patches that are
written in the verse form of Scene V of Act III.
Shakspere found his material in Holinshed, who says that Macbeth "had learned of
certaine wizzards in whose words he put great confidence (for that the prophesie had hap-
pened so right which the three fairies or weird-sisters had declared unto him) how that he
ought to take heed of Makduffe, who in time to come should seeke to destroie him. And
surelie hereupon had he put Makduffe to death but that a certaine witch whom hee had in
great trust had told him that he should never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor
vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castle of Dunsinane." Shakspere works
these together and unites them with the prediction of I. 3- 67.
The place of the scene was marked by Rowe as 'a dark cave' ; the modern scene di-
rection is 'a cavern,' which is consistent with III. 5- 15- But what is Lenox's relation to
the action? "Come in without there" indicates that Macbeth is in some enclosed space,
and this must be outside the castle, for messengers on the way to the king are spoken of
as 'coming by.' But Lenox can scarcely have gone with Macbeth to a cavern known to
be haunted by witches, that the king may consult the powers of darkness while he stands
sentinel at the rendezvous, else he would have shown some interest in the result of the in-
terview ; moreover, in v. 49 Macbeth's meeting with the witches seems to be more or less
fortuitous, and not by appointment. That Lenox, like Banquo, has been walking with
Macbeth near the castle and has left him momentarily to see who it is that is riding by is
not sufficiently clear from the dialogue or from the action. But perhaps an Elizabethan
audience would understand some such situation and would not be too curious in localizing
the scene. In default of a better scene direction we shall have to retain Rowe's in its
modern form, 'a cavern,' and assume that Lenox is waiting outside.
144
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THE FOURTH ACT
SCENE I: A CAVERN: IN THE MIDDLE A BOILING CAULDRON
THUNDER: ENTER THE THREE WITCHES
FIRST WITCH
HRICE the brinded cat hath mew'd.
SECOND WITCH. Thrice and once the hedge-
pigge whin'd.
THIRD WITCH. H arpier cries/ T is time, T t is time.'
FIRST WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poyson'd entrailes throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Dayes and nights has thirty one
Sweltred venom sleeping got,
Boyle thou first i f th' charmed pot.
ALL
Double, double, toile and trouble;
Fire burne and cauldron bubble.
*ff I BRINDED is the EL.form
of 'brindled/ see N.E.D. s.v.
The word is now usually
applied to dogs and cattle
marked with streaks, and a
'brindled cat' is called a
'tabby cat.' SF2 THRICE AND ONCE was emended by Theobald, on the score of pro-
priety, to 'twice and once.' But Ben Jonson is guilty of the very impropriety with which
Theobald charges Shakspere in using even numbers in witchcraft ritual: "And if thou
dost what we would have thee doe Thou shalt have three, thou shalt have foure, Thou
shalt have ten, thou shalt have a score" 'Masque of Queenes' p. 171, and here Jonson
has put it out of the power of the emendator to alter his text. Moreover, "thrice and
once" is four in a series of notation by odd numbers. The comma of the FO. after
THRICE seems, therefore, to be due to the printer's close punctuation. A similar phrase,
"I have been merry twice and once, ere now," occurring in 2 Hen. 4 V. 3. 42, is not so punc-
tuated; but just above it, v. 36, we have the punctuation "both short, and tall," FO. p. 98.
HEDGE-PIGGE: the association of the hedgehog with witchcraft is very old: a relic of
it is preserved in MN. E. 'urchin' (a M.E. and e.N.E. word for hedgehog), which, popu-
larly used as the designation of a mischief-working fairy, was then applied to a mischief-
making boy. " Hedge-pigge" seems to be a fanciful diminutive of 'hedgehog,' coined by
Shakspere. SF 3 HARPIER, like Middleton's "Tiffin" and Jonson's " Rouncie," is a
fanciful name for an evil spirit, here conceived of as ' sitting aloft ' and directing the witches'
movements as did Padock and Graymalkin in 1. 1.8. It is probably an EL. popular
form of 'harpy,' as "harper "for 'harpy' is found in the quarto edition of Marlowe's Tam-
burlaine, II. 7, and it is not likely that these two independent instances are printer's errors.
"Enter Ariell like a Harpey" occurs as the stage direction to Temp. III. $. 52. As usual,
there are no quotation-marks in FO. I, but 'TIS TIME seems to be the substance of
145
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Harpier's cry. IF 5 Similar ingredients make up witches' charms in Ben Jonson's
Masque of Queenes and Middleton's Witch, Jonson supplying a rich commentary from
classical demonology to illustrate his folk-lore. FO. I has no point after THROW. SF 6
In the Masque of Queenes 'the toad that breeds under the wall' is an ingredient of one
of the witch charms. Such rhythms as COLD STONE, in which the emotional signifi-
cance of a word forces a slight pause after it which makes the descending part of the
rhythm wave, are frequent in English popular poetry. "Swifter then the moon's sphere,"
Mids.III.7, is cited by Delius as another instance of the intrusion of this popular rhythm
into Shakspere's four-wave falling verse, but such a verse as Jonson's "Flow water, and
blow wind" in the Masque of Queenes, p. 1 69, is a much better instance. These juxta-
positions of stressed impulses are a native feature of English verse and have never been
entirely banished from lyric measures. Editors try to emend them out of Shakspere, and,
laying the responsibility for this verse upon the omnipeccant printer, have given us 'under
the cold stone,' 'under a cold stone," under coldest stone,' 'under cold, cold stone,' 'under
cold-e stone' (an English flexional monstrosity), 'under co-uld stone,' 'underneath cold
stone,' 'under some cold stone,' 'under cursed stone.' *TF 7 ONE in EL. E. had not yet
developed its initial w with the consequent change of o to d, so the word is here a perfect
rhyme to " stone." FO. I punctuates with a comma after NIGHTS and a colon after ONE J
but it must be remembered that in EL. printing a colon was a lighter point than it is now,
and frequently stood for a modern comma. SF 8 The usual EL. meaning of SWELTER
is " colore suffocare" (to stifle with heat), as it is usually glossed. "Swelt" is associated
with fever in Spenser's Faerie Queene, I.vii.6, "the cheerful blood like a fever fit through
all his body swelts," where it is almost equivalent to 'boils.' Skinner gives "swelt" and
"swelter" as different forms of the same word. The picture seems to be that of a toad
which has "pestilent poyson
in her bowelles" Lyly's Eu- ACT TV QfRMR T TO OT
phues, ed. Arber, p. 327, Al1 1V ^ niNn 1 12-21
exuding this at the mouth
during its sleep. The pop- SECOND WITCH
ular superstition that toads Fillet of a fenny snake,
were venomous is also re- t , 1 11 i_ 1 J l_ 1
flectedinA.Y.L.ii.1.13. SFio In the cauldron boyle and bake;
The fo.'s comma after the Eye of newt and toe of fro^e,
second double is removed Wooll of bat and tondue of dodde,
by the Cambridge I ext, but . . . , „ . 1 1 1. 1 . ,
the words mark a caesura and Adder s forke and blinde-wormes sting,
are probably unrelated to the Lizard's legge and howlet's wing,
rest of the sentence, as in the t? 1 p c 11 . 11
£.,«, , uvL* b,w ror a charme ot powretull trouble,
child s charm rvmg, king, r 11111
double king, Never trade back Like a hell-broth boyle and bubble.
again." SF II FIRE is dis-
syllabic, as often in MN. E. ALL
verse - Double, double, toyle and trouble;
<ffi2 fillet in el.e. was Fire burne and cauldron bubble.
used to designate the lobes
of the liver, N.E. D. 5 c, and also the lobes of the lung, cp. "And lungs with fillets whole
unwounded hung" May's Lucan, VI. I (ed. 1635? sig. L). The word also means 'muscle-'
or ' nerve-fibre,' N. E. D. 5. Either of these meanings fits better with " Eye of newt and toe
of frogge," etc., than does the word in the sense of 'a rolled slice,' as it is usually inter-
preted. FENNY, 'fen-inhabiting,' see note to III. 2. 51, and cp. " Dragons fenny and living
in marishes" Topsell, 1607 (in N.E.D.2). Harrison, II. 35, says "in our fennie countries
. . serpents are found of greater quantitie [i.e. size] than either our adder or snake."
146
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 1 3 BOYLE AND BAKE are intransitive ; one of the meanings of the latter word in EL. E.
is to 'cake' or 'coagulate into a sticky mass/ N.E.D.4. SF 14 NEWTS, the small rep-
tiles known in America as lizards, were popularly believed to be hurtful in Shakspere's
time, cp. "Newts and blinde wormes, do no wrong" Mids. II. 2. 1 1, and frogs were thought
to be bred of the slime of standing pools; see Phipson, p. 322. SF 15 In the Masque of
Queenes it is the bat's wings that are used for the witch's charm on the authority of Corn.
Agrippa de occulta c Philosophia 1 1. 15, who recommends also 'bat's blood.' The popular
dread of bats is still well known. ^ 16 FORKE is the EL. name for the tongue of a
serpent, cp. "the soft and tender forke Of a poore worme" Meas.III. 1. 16. BLINDE-
WORMES were also reckoned among the popular reptile antipathies — "common annoi-
ances" as Harrison calls them — of Shakspere's time, cp. " Neverthelesse we have a blinde
worme . . which some also do call (and upon better ground) by the name of slow wormes
. . and yet their venem deadlie," etc., Harrison's England, Ill.vii (cp. Timon IV. 3- 182).
*ffl7 The LIZARD is referred to as venomous in 2Hen.6 III. 2. 325, "Their softest touch
as smart as lyzard's stings." The word was loosely applied in EL. E. as in MN.E. to
designate any lizard-like reptile from the newt to the crocodile. HOWLET is a M.E. and
e.N.E.form of ' owlet,' cp. O. FR. hulotte. A charm ingredient in the Masque of Queenes
is "the scrich-owles egs and the feathers black." SF 18 POWREFULL, 'potent,' cp.
"powrefull rime" Sonn.LV.2, "powerfull sound" All's W.II.I.I79. TROUBLE: the
sense of 'means of physical
ACT IV
SCENE I
22-36
annoyance' has not quite
faded from the meaning of
the word, though now some-
what vague.
SF22 In Ben Jonson it is
" oculi draconum" (cp. v. 15)
and u lupi crines" that are
the charm ingredients. SF 23
WITCHES' MUMMEY: the
EL. mummia or mummy, ac-
cording to the New World
of Words, is " a kind of pitchy
substance arising from mois-
ture which is sweat out of
dead bodies that have been
embalmed with divers sorts
of spices." Purchas's Pil-
grimage, V, p. 682, speaks of
a method of manufacturing
this in Ethiopia : " They make
mummia otherwise then in
other partes, where it is eyther
made of bodies buried in the
sands or taken out of ancient
sepulcheres where they had
been laide being embalmed
with spices. For they take
a captive Moore, of the best complexion, and after long dieting and medicining of him,
cut off his head in his sleepe, and gashing his bodie full of wounds, put therein all the
best spices, and then wrap him up in hay, being covered with a seare-cloth [cp. Merch.
II. 7. 5 1], after which they burie him in a moyst place, covering the bodie with earth. Five
dayes being passed, they take him up againe, and removing the seare-cloth and hay,
147
THIRD WITCH
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolfe,
Witches' mummey, maw and gulfe
Of the ravin'd salt sea sharke,
Roote of hemlocke digg'd i' th r darke,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goate, and slippes of yew
Sliver'd in the moones ecclipse,
Nose of Turke and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver' d by a drab —
Make the grewell thicke and slab:
Adde thereto a tiger's chawdron,
For th' ingredience of our cawdron.
ALL
Double, double, toyle and trouble;
Fire burne and cauldron bubble.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
hang him up in the sunne, whereby the bodie resolveth and droppeth a substance like
pure balme, which liquor is of great price." Some such horrible concoction as this Shak-
spere evidently had in mind here and in Oth. III. 4. 74, where he says "There's magicke
in the web of it . . And it was dyde in mummey which the skilfull Conserve of maidens'
hearts." MAW usually means stomach in EL.E., but the word is applied in MN.E. to
the air-bladder of a fish — see Cent. Diet. 3 — and may have been so used in EL. E. also.
For GULFE as applied to the stomach of an animal, cp. "Whether thou wilt remaine with
the serpent and . . be swallowed up into the gowlfe of his body" Arlington, 1 566 (cited
inN.E.D. 3 b). In Shakspere's time the word rhymed with "wolfe." SF 24 RAVIN'D,
'gorged with prey,' another instance of the -ed suffix in the sense of 'full of.' The noun
"ravin," in the sense of 'prey,' occurs in Nahum II. 12, "The lion . . filled . . his holes
with pray and his dennes with ravine" (cited in Cent. Diet.). SHARKE as the name of
the dog-fish or ' hound-fish ' seems to have been a new word in EL. E., and hence, probably,
the epithet SALT SEA, i.e. marinus, cp. "fishes called sharkes, most ravenous devourers"
Purchas's Pilgrimage, V, p. 712. Sir John Hawkins also says that the "shark is a fish
like unto those which wee call dog-fishes" Purchas, IV, p. 1330 (cited in Phipson). SF 25
HEMLOCKE, the cicuta already referred to in 1.3.84; cp. "hemlocke is very evyl, dan-
gerous, hurtful, and venemous" Lyte, 1578 (cited in N.E.D.). In the Masque of Queenes
it is the mandrake that is 'digged in the dark.' *ff 26 Whether BLASPHEMING is in-
tended in its modern sense of
'blaspheming against God' APT IU CfUMp I 27 50
(cp. John III. I. 161) and Al ^ l 1V S^CINC 1 }/-}V
Shakspere had in mind 'the
apostate Jew,' or whether it SECOND WITCH
is intended in its strictly Code it with a baboones blood,
^ *£5 7 tXt Then the charme is firme and £°° d -
N.E.D.3, is uncertain. We
learn from Purchas's Pilgrimage, V,p. 155, how deep was the prejudice against the Jews
in England as well as in the rest of Europe during the sixteenth century, and how the
Elizabethan, in reckoning him with Turks and infidels, thought that he was only helping
the Almighty to carry out a Biblical curse. A sympathetic account of the Jew in Eliza-
bethan England will be found in Mr, Sidney Lee's essay printed in the Shak. Soc.
Trans., '87-'92, pp. 143 ff. SF 27 SLIPPES, cp. "a slip of a tree, surculus" Phr.Gen.
The YEW was held in sinister regard from the fact that it was planted in churchyards,
cp. "dismall yew" Titus II. 3- 107. SF 28 SLIVER'D, 'lopped off,' 'clipped,' cp. "sliver,
findo" Coles, and "She that her selfe will sliver and disbranch From her materiall sap"
Lear IV. 2. 34. SF 29 TURKE AND TARTAR, the latter word designating the hordes of
northern China, were the two great divisions of the terrible infidel perils that menaced
Christendom in the sixteenth century, a terror that is still reflected in our modern usage
of these words for persons of a savage disposition. SF 30 Middleton's lines in the
Witch, 1.2, "Here, take this unbaptized brat; Boil it well, preserve the fat, You know
't is precious to transfer Our 'nointed flesh into the air" reflects the same notion; cp.
also Jonson, "Their killing of infants is common, both for confection of their ointment
(wherto one ingredient is the fat boiled)," etc. So, too, Reginald Scot, X.vii: "R [i.e.
take] The fat of young children and seeth it, . . reserving the thickest of that which
remaineth boiled in the bottome" (cp. v. 32). The sound of a in BABE was something
like that of MN. ce in 'grass,' as pronounced in the United States, so that the rhymed sylla-
bles present only a difference in length and not one of character. SF 31 FO. I and modern
editions place a comma after " drab." TF 32 SLAB : the usual form of the word is " slabby "
in Minsheu, Kersey, Skinner, Holyoke, etc.; it means ' miry," sticky," pasty ' : "slab" is
a noun meaning ' mud puddle' in Kersey and in the Glossographia. *IF 33 CHAWDRON,
'the entrails of a beast,' N.E.D. 2. SF 34 INGREDIENCE,cp.note to 1.7. 1 1. SF 37 BABOON
148
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
and "babioun," another form of the same word, were stressed upon the first syllable
in Shakspere's time, cp. "babion or great monckie" Minsheu, and "a babian or monkey,
mice 11 Percival. The same stress occurs in "For what thou professest a baboon, could
he speak" Per. IV.6.I89. *ff 38 FIRME, 'close in texture,' N. E.D.I; the reference is
to v. 32. The 'ingredience' of this mixture could not possibly be represented upon the
stage. Its horrible interest is literary, bringing together a multitude of gruesome asso-
ciations, "poyson," "entrailes," "toad," "cold stone," "sweltred venom," etc. — a cata-
logue of popular repugnances that haunt the imagination of the child and are never quite
banished from the mind of the maturer man. The chorus also has the traditional rhythm
association of popular poetry, ' x '
' x r x ' x t x
, a typical charm series of
rhythm waves whose impulses begin with explosive consonants. Such poetry is of the
sort that human nature weaves about the supernatural, and is quite different from the
artificial verse of Act III,
ACT IV SCENE I
39-47
f ENTER HECAT AND THE OTHER THREE WITCHES
HECAT
O well done! I commend your paines;
And every one shall share i' th'gaines:
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Inchanting all that you put in.
MUSICKE AND A SONG: "BLACKE SPIRITS" &C
HECAT RETIRESf
Scene V.
ENTER HECAT AND THE
OTHER THREE WITCHES
is palpably an interpolation
intended to join the machin-
ery of Act III, Scene V to
this. Modern editors alter
the AND to 'to' in order to
make the fitting more apt ; but
this does not improve mat-
ters, for it makes OTHER
peculiar, to say the least, de-
spite Dyce's consciousness
of his 'great mistake' and the
stage interpretation of Mac-
OD ^ ulNU wn^n ready# The wholg passa g e
By the pricking of my thumbes, down to v. 43 is obviously in-
Somethind wicked this way comes. terpolated probably by Mid-
p 111 dleton: HECAT RETIRES
Open lockes, who ever knockes! 46,47 has been added by modern
editors. Steevens pointed out
that the song called for is to be found in Middleton's Witch as well as in Davenant's
Macbeth. It reads thus :
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may!
Titty, Tiffin,
Keep it stiff in ;
Firedrake, Puckey,
Make it lucky;
Liard, Robin,
You must bob in.
Round, around, around, about, about !
All ill come running in, all good keep out !
*ff39 The stress "well done" may be EL. idiom: Shakspere seems to employ the same
stress in II. 4. 37, but in all other instances it is "well done." SF 43 This rhymeless verse
is not in Davenant's version. The song in the Witch is introduced by "Stir, stir about
whilst I begin the charme" : with the excision of the last two words, this would make a good
pair for " Enchanting all that you put in." Whether or not vv. 44-47 are part of the interpo-
lation is not certain. In Davenant's version they are in four-wave rising rhythm, "I, by
the pricking of my thumbs, Know something wicked this way comes," which may have
been their original form. If this be so they belong with the interpolated Hecate passage
above. Shakspere's witches would hardly say of Macbeth, "Something wicked this way
149
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
comes" ; the attitude which these words represent fits in rather with 124 ff., an indubitably-
interpolated passage. The itching of the thumbs as an omen is commented upon in
Brand's Antiquities, but only on the basis of this passage. SF 46 The opening of locks
as a witches' prerogative is
ACT IV SCENE I
referred to in Jonson's Sad
Shepherd, II. 2, "Search for
a weed To open locks with."
SF48 SECRET, 'occult,' cp.
"If secret powers suggest
but truth To my divining
thoughts" 3Hen.6 IV. 6. 68.
Macbeth here uses the term
BLACK in its EL. sense of
1 sinister,' cp. 1. 4. 5 1 , IV. 3- 52,
and "that black name, Ed-
ward, Black Prince of Wales"
Hen.5 II. 4.56. <ff 50 CON-
JURE in EL. E. is a synonym
of 'adjure,' cp. " I conjure
thee to leave me and be gon"
Err. IV. 3- 68. The word had
stress on the first syllable.
PROFESSE in EL.E. means
'make claim to know/ cp.
"In what he did professe
well found" All's W.II. 1. 105.
SF 52 A similar description
is found in Lear III. 2. Iff.
SF54 CON FOUND, 'ruin' and
' mingle together,' one of those
graphic words with double
sense so common in Shak-
spere. NAVIGATION in the
1 7th century had the concrete
meaning, ' shipping' ; cp."'this
kingdomes wonderous en-
crease of traffique and navi-
gation" Harrison's England,
11.23, and "great expense
of timber for navigation"
Stowe's Annales, 1631, p. 1024. SF55 BLADED: Collier and some modern editors ob-
ject to "bladed" because corn 'not yet in the ear' cannot be "lodged" by storms. But
"bladed" in EL.E. implies that the corn is in the green ear, cp. "those fruits of the earth
that rise up to blade (straw, stal [i.e. "stale," an EL. word for 'stalk']) and bear eares"
Comenius, 'Janua' 127, and "As soon as standing corn shoots up to a blade it is in dan-
ger of scath by tempests" ibid. 394. LODG'D, 'beaten down by the wind.' SF57 PYRA-
MIDS in EL.E. described both obelisks and pyramids, and was therefore used of any
spire-like structure; cp. Marlowe's Dido, III. I, 'The masts whereon the swelling sails
shall hang, Hollow pyramides of silver plate'; cp., too, Marlowe's Faustus, VII. 43 r
'high pyramides Which Julius Caesar brought from Africa,' and the editor's note that 'it
had been rather beyond Julius Caesar's power' to bring a pyramid from Egypt (Ward's
Old English Drama, p. 181). Cooper glosses pyramis "also a steeple," and pyramidatus
150
48-61
ENTER MACBETH
MACBETH
How now, you secret, black, and midnight
hags!
What is T t you do?
ALL
A deed without a name.
MACBETH
I conjure you, by that which you professe,
How ere you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untye the windes and let them
fight
Against the churches ; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corne be lodg'd and trees
blown downe;
Though castles topple on their warders'
heads;
Though pallaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations ; though the
treasure
Of nature's germaine tumble altogether,
Even till destruction sicken ; answer me
To what I aske you.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
•'made steeple wise" ; so Coles, "pyramis, an Egyptian building like a spire-steeple," and
Holyoke, u pyramis, a steeple, a spire, a shaft, a broach [i.e. obelisk]." The word here,
therefore, means 'towers,' 'spires,' or 'pinnacles,' and not the 'pyramids of Egypt.'
SLOPE is a stronger word in EL. E. than now, and means 'to incline,' 'slant,' 'lean': an
oblique line is defined in EL. dictionaries as 'a sloping line.' SF 58 HEAD, 'the summit
of an eminence or erection,' N. E. D. 12. In EL. E. the word denoted also 'the capstone
of a column,' N.E. D. 8 1. A similar figure is found in Merch. 1. 1.28. SF 59 GERMAINE,
'seeds.' Bacon speaks of the "principles or seedes of things," and Jonson has the same
notion in "You . . that know how well it [i.e. union] binds the fighting seeds of things"
Masques, p. 132. Cp. also note to 1.3.58. In a note to his Masque of Queenes, p. 165,
Jonson says these powers of troubling nature are frequently ascribed to witches, and
cites Remigius : "Qua possint evertere funditus orbem et manes superis miscere hac unica
cura est.' 1 The same notion occurs in Lear III. 2. 8: "all germaines spill at once That
makes ingratefull man" — cp. Lucretius's "Celesti semine omnes sumus oriundi." Theo-
bald's emendation, 'germins' (the plural form), is incorporated into the Cambridge and
other MN. texts, but it rests on the same foundation as the changing of "seedes" to
'seed' in III. 1.70. Shakspere was the first to use the word in English, and no doubt felt
at liberty to employ it collectively, as Delius suggests. The climax of this mass of asso-
ciations — unleashed winds venting their mad fury on the churches, yeasty waves swallow-
ing ships, storm-lodged corn, toppling castles and overturned pinnacles crashing down until
ruin itself is nauseated — true children of Macbeth's poetic imagination — is aptly repre-
sented in the rhythm, a series of rising, cumulative phrases piling themselves up, one after
another, without a single check in the onward flow, until the whole flood swells over its
barrier in the reversal of v. 60, ' x . It is an excellent illustration of the power of
Shakspere's versification, whose full force can readily be appreciated if one alters, for
instance, vv. 55 ff . to ' Lodging the bladed corn, uprooting trees, Toppling their castles on the
warders' heads,' etc. ; any other disposition of stress than the marvellously fitting one
Shakspere gives will rob the
ACT IV SCENE I 61-63 ^1^^
with its cumulative series,
FIRST WITCH / || x , ||„ , x f is in peculiarly
Speake. Shaksperian rhythm.
SECOND WITCH <ff 63 The MASTERS here are
Demand. not the evil spirits sitting aloft
TUIDn ay/it/^u to direct the witches as in III.
1H1RU W1 J^ H 5.35,butare'theentreasured
Wee ? 1 answer. seeds and weak beginnings'
FIRST WITCH of the events that are to influ-
ence Macbeth's destiny. But
Say if th' hadst rather heare it from our it is not a happy word: indeed,
mouthes vv. 62 and 63 are strangely out
^ P .. of keeping with the context,
Or trom our masters t f or tne First Witch's distinc-
M AC BETH t * on * s one °^ aca demic de-
^ .. , . , monology,andMacbeth'spro-
Uall em; let me see em. S aic"Call'em;letmesee'em,"
a strange anticlimax to hispre-
ceding demand. "Thy selfe and office deaftlyshow" in v.68isalsoa more orless artificial no-
tion which hardly belongs in Shakspere's demonology. It is possible, therefore, that vv. 62
to 68 are a part of the interpolated matter. The 'EM in v. 63 is not so undignified in EL. E.
as in MN.E., see note to II. 2. 13. Many modern editors alter "'em" in both cases to 'them.'
151
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF64 POWRE : w in M.E.ande.N. E. is usually written for u when it is the second element
of a diphthong followed by a consonant ; MN.E. words usually retain this spelling before /,
e.g. 'bowl/ 'brawl.' SOWES BLOOD THAT HATH EATEN, etc., is good EL. word order :
such collocations are usually avoided in MN.E. by the use of the 'of genitive. EATEN
rhymes with SWEATEN, ea not yet having become i in the former word, and the vowel
not yet having been shortened in the latter. <lr65 FARROW, 'litters/ the word is a col-
lective plural, N.E.D. 3; Steevens quotes from the laws of Kenneth in Holinshed, p. 181,
" If a sowe eate her pigges let her be stoned to death and buried." Shakspere's sow is nine
times wicked. G REAZE : the word was applied in EL. E. to any fatlike substance, N. E. D. I ;
the intervocalic z is still heard.
ACT IV SCENE I
SWEATEN is made on the
analogy of a strong past par-
ticiple ; "have sitten down,"
" hunger-starven," " had lien "
are similar e. N. E. forms.
SF66 In the Masque of
Queenes it is the "sinew"
and "hair" of a hanged mur-
derer that are used. SF 67
HIGH OR LOW, 'great spirits
or lesser spirits.' % 68 THY
SELFE AND OFFICE [i.e.
function] DEAFTLY SHOW
sounds like Act III, Scene V.
DEAFTLY is MN.E. 'deftly/
with the e not yet shortened.
The apparitions which follow
are "the hatch and brood of
time," embryos of coming
events. The ARMED HEAD
(i.e. head cased in armour,
see note to III. 4. 101) repre-
sents symbolically Macbeth's
head cut off and brought to
Malcolm by Macduff (V.8.
53). The BLOODY CHILDE
is Macduff, untimely ripped
from his mother's womb (V. 8.
15). The CHILDE CROWN-
ED with the bough in his hand
is Malcolm, who ordered his
soldiers to hew down boughs
and bear them before them
to Dunsinane (Steevens's 'observation' adopted from Mr. Upton). The apparitions are
misunderstood by Macbeth, who probably takes the armed head for rebellion's head, the
bloody child for Macduff's murdered son, and the child with the crown on his head and the
bough in his hand as the insignia of his own house, now made secure by the Dunsinane
prophecy. <ff7I The rhythm is full of omen, * ' || x ' || '' || * ' * ' || x ' x ' * ' \\ x ' ** '.
ME and ENOUGH are in all probability intended to be run together; that such elision
even of long vowels was a current feature of EL. verse is shown by the numerous in-
stances of it in EL. poetry where EL. printers have set an apostrophe instead of the vowel,
e.g. "Why shouldst thou hope of men to b' intertained" Poetic Miscellany of the Time
of James I, ed. Halliwell, Percy Soc, p. I ; "I will not strive m' invention to inforce"
152
64-72
FIRST WITCH
Powre in sowes blood that hath eaten
Her nine farrow; greaze that 's sweaten
From the murderer's gibbet throw
Into the flame.
ALL
Come high or low;
Thy selfe and office deaftly show!
THUNDER
FIRST APPARITION: AN ARMED HEAD
MACBETH
Tell me, thou unknowne power, —
FIRST WITCH
He knowes thy thought:
Heare his speech, but say thou nought.
FIRST APPARITION
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware
Macduffe;
Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismisse me.
Enough.
HE DESCENDS
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Drayton, 'Dedication/ Spenser Soc, p. 3;"To b'earle of March doth suddainely aspire"
ibid., 'Barrons Warres' VI. 4. 3? "I do exceed m ? instructions to acquaint" Jonson's
Sejanus, V.6, ed. 1640, p. 365- Such elisions were a common feature of M.E. versifi-
cation, and are found all through EL. poetry. Abbott cites a number from Shakspere, —
"How came we a shore?" Temp. 1. 2. 158, "too unkinde a cause of greefe" Merch.V. 1. 175,
etc., — and his list could be greatly extended. The apparition's ENOUGH is not only
the last word of the armed head, but Macbeth's last word also, cp. V.8.34. HE DE-
SCENDS is the direction for
ACT IV
SCENE I
73-86
the apparition to go down
through the trap-door of the
stage.
SF74 HARP'D, 'guessed,' an
EL. meaning of the word il-
lustrated in N. E. D. 7, cp.
iiC Parler a taston, to speak
byghesse or conjecture, onely
to harpe at the matter" Cot-
grave. SF 75 Though it was
a popular belief that spirits
could not be commanded,
there is a deep irony in the
witches thus informing Mac-
beth that he is not king in
dealing with the powers of
evil : so, too, there is a hidden
irony in the fact that the sec-
ond apparition, Macduff, is
described as MORE POTENT
than the first, Macbeth. SF 79
RESOLUTE, 'res'lute,' like
"absolute "in IV. 3. 38. SF80
The equivocal prophecy of
Macbeth's invulnerability is
recorded in Holinshed ( Bos-
well-Stone, p. 36) along with
the warning against Macduff
and the Dunsinane prediction.
SF 82 OF,'from,'ausual sense
of the preposition. SF 83
DOUBLE, 'doubly,' N. E.D.I,
cp. All's W. II. 3- 254 and
"Those that gull us with the
assuranceof an extraordinarie
facultie [i.e. power] . . ought
to be double punished" Flo-
rio's Montaigne, I. xxx. TF 84
TAKE A BOND OF FATE,
'require a pledge [cp. note to 1 1 1.2. 49] from death,' and thus have two bonds for the ful-
filment of the prophecy that none shall harm Macbeth. The sense of "double" is missed
by the modern reading of FATE in the sense of 'destiny'; the stress falls upon "fate,"
not upon "bond." ^85 PALE-HEARTED FEARE is a haunting, ever-present person to
Macbeth : to get rid of "feare," which he never knew before his meeting with the witches,
153
MACBETH
What ere thou art, for thy good caution,
thanks;
Thou hast harp'd my feare aright: but one
word more, —
FIRST WITCH
He will not be commanded : heere 's another,
More potent then the first.
THUNDER
SECOND APPARITION: A BLOODY CHILDE
SECOND APPARITION
Macbeth ! Macbeth ! Macbeth !
MACBETH
Had I three eares, I 'Id heare thee.
SECOND APPARITION
Be bloody, bold, and resolute ; laugh to scorne
The powre of man, for none of woman borne
Shall harme Macbeth.
DESCENDS
MACBETH
Then live, Macduffe: what need I feare of
thee?
But yet I 'le make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted feare it lies,
And sleepe in spight of thunder.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
has been the end of his titanic efforts all through the play. SF 86 TO SLEEPE IN SPIGHT
OF THUNDER is not inapposite and disconnected as it seems to us to be, but one of those
side-lights that flash out from time to time to reveal to the audience Macbeth's suffering.
Dread at the approach of a
ACT IV SCENE I
thunder-storm is a symptom
of insanity in'Anat. of Mel.'
1.2.25: 'Those which are
already mad rave down right
either in or against [i.e. at the
approach of, cp. 1.7. 19] a
tempest': see also note to
II. 3-59.
*TF88 ROUND, 'crown,' cp.
note to 1.5.29- SF89 TOP
is commented upon by MN.
editors as an unusual poetic
usage of words. Johnson ex-
plains that by "round" is
meant the base of the crown
and by "top" the ornament
above it. But in EL. E. the
word meant ' crown,' ' pitch of
attainment,' see the examples
in Cent. Diet. s.v. 8, and cp.
"O Mustapha, the top of
glorie, . . grant us victorie"
Purchas's Pilgrimage, V. 3 1 1 >
and "to the spire and top
of prayses vouched" Cor.1.9.
24. TOO'T, cp. 1.2.7. SF 9 1
ARE rhymes with CARE, see
note to III. 5. 2. SF93 BYR-
NAM WOOD is twelve miles
W.N.W.ofDunsinane. DUN-
SINANE: FO. I has "Duns-
mane," apparently an over-
looked printer's error of m for
in. Both" Dunsinane" (corre-
sponding to the MN. Scotch
accentuation) and " Dunsi-
nane" occur in Wyntown as
well as in Shakspere (notedby
Steevens). The latter form
Slatyer syncopates to Duns-
nane in "Till Dunsnane cas-
tell, high in th' ayre," which
he makes c Dusitana cacumine
montisj probably ' metri gra-
86-103
THUNDER
THIRD APPARITION: A CHILDE CROWNED
WITH A TREE IN HIS HAND
What is this
That rises like the issue of a king,
And weares upon his baby-brow the round
And top of soveraignty?
ALL
Listen, but speake not too T t.
THIRD APPARITION
Be lyon metled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers
are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be untill
Great Byrnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.
DESCEND
MACBETH
That will never bee:
Who can impresse the forrest, bid the tree
Unfixe his earth-bound root? Sweet boad-
ments! good!
Rebellious head rise never till the wood
Of Byrnan rise, and our high plac'd Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortall custome. Yet my hart
Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your
art
Can tell so much : Shall Banquo's issue ever
Reigne in this kingdome?
rfa,' though he may have in-
tended 'Dunstana.' SF95 IMPRESSE, 'force to serve as soldiers,' due to the "come against"
above. <ff 96 BOADMENTS, 'predictions,' N.E.D. I. <ff 97 REBELLIOUS HEAD : FO. I
has " rebellious dead" : Theobald emended this to ' Rebellion's head,' which the Cambridge
A^f 1
154
AJL
/*.
/„
TH
E Tl
IU^
RAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Text and other MN. editions incorporate. But there is no warrant for assuming anything
further than a mistake of d for h (the letters were contiguous in the EL. type-case, d being
above and to the left of h). HEAD in EL.E. means 'a body of people gathered together,'
N.E.D. 30, cp. "That Dowglas and the English rebels met, . . A mightie and a fearefull head
they are" lHen.4 III. 2.165. " Rebellious head," therefore, refers to the populace rising in
rebellion under Macduff's leadership, as Macbeth interprets the armed head to foretell. This
second reading, ' rebellious head,' is likewise a conjecture of Theobald's. The whole thought
is conditional, RISE being tantamount to a subjunctive, 'if no rebellious head shall rise,' etc.
MN. editors change the punctuation of the Folio, adding a comma after NEVER to make
the construction imperative. SF 98 BYRN AN is a variant form of Birnam, and not a printer's
error as MN. editors assume. Holinshed has "the wood of Bernane" ; Slatyer's Palasal-
bion, p. 288, UC B yrnance silvce" which he renders in English "woods of Wey re" ; Wyntown
gives the form" Brynnane." OUR has been found fault with as coming from Macbeth himself,
and variously emended to ' your,' ' now,' and ' old.' But Macbeth thinks of himself objectively
as one whom he and the weird sisters — he has already hinted at the community of interest
in his "sweet boadments" — are backing in a game against fate and death. HIGH PLAC'D
is a palpable reference to his castle on "high Dunsinane hill," and not to Macbeth's sov-
ereignty. SF 99 LEASE OF N ATU RE, i.e. lease of life, the same notion as Lady Macbeth's
in "nature's coppie" III. 2. 38. BREATH, 'life,' 'spirit,' still used in 'breath of life'; cp.
"Whan with honour up yolden ['yielded'] is his breeth" Chaucer, Cant. Tales, A 3052, and
Wesley's Psalms, "He guards our souls, he keeps our breath" (cited in N.E. D.). SF 100
TIME, i.e. Time thedestroyer.
ACT IV SCENE I
103-1 11
ALL
Seeke to know no more.
MACBETH
I will be satisfied: deny me this,
And an eternall curse fall on you! Let me
knowl
Why sinkes that caldron? and what noise is
this?
HOBOYES
FIRST WITCH
MORTALL CUSTOME, 'the
custom of mortality,' ' the
universal due of death,' an in-
stance of Shakspere's mar-
vellous power in bringing
together poetic associations.
YET, 'still,' in its usual EL.
position at the beginning of
the sentence : 'my heart still
throbs.' HART is a common
EL. spelling of 'heart,' see
N.E.D. s.v. «ff 102 EVER is
probably intended to be read
as 'e'er,' and the verse to
close with a rising impulse.
Shew!
Shew!
Shew!
*ffl04 SATISFIED is used in
its EL. sense of 'having full
knowledge'; Macbeth will
knowfora certainty the whole
future. His imperiousness
and uncertain temper come
out in "an eternall curse fall
on you!" SF 106 The sink-
ing caldron is Shakspere's
wayof showing that the witch-
scene is such stuff as dreams
are made of. WHAT, 'what
kind of,' cp. 1-3-39- NOISE
in EL.E. was applied to music as well as to inharmonious sound, cp. "the isle is full of
noyses, Sounds and sweet aires that give delight and hurt not" Temp. III. 2. 144. The
SECOND WITCH
THIRD WITCH
ALL
Shew his eyes, and greeve his hart;
Come like shadowes, so depart!
.UAQ^L-
155
&Csl
t<*c
/
<-cLc
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
HOBOYES are behind the scenes, and the music is of the sort that accompanies the incan-
tation scenes in Middleton's Witch. *ff 107 The triple SHEW is like the triple "haile" in
1.3-62 ff. The word is the normal historical form ; 'show' fsclue to a M.E. change of stress
incidence in the diphthong. It is probably used herein the sense of 'let him know,'asinII.I.2I.
The following stage direction reads in FO. I " A shew of eight kings and Banquo last with
a glasse in his hand." But Banquo is not one of the eight kings, and in v. 119 it is the
eighth king and not Banquo who bears the glass. The FO.'S stage direction has been vari-
ously emended. The Cambridge text reads 'A shew of eight kings, the last with a glass
in his hand: Banquo's ghost following.' But if we punctuate " A shew of eight kings and
Banquo: the last with a glasse in his hand," adding only the definite article, the stage
direction becomes clear. In EL.E. "last" means 'rearmost,' N. E. D. I e, and the error may
have arisen through the FO. editor understanding it in the sense of Mast-mentioned' and
referring it to Banquo. Shakspere follows the Macbeth tradition of Holinshed, connect-
ing Banquo with James I of England: "But here I thinke it shall not much make against
my purpose if (according to th T order which I find observed in the Scottish historic) I shall
in few words rehearse the originall line of those kings which have descended from the fore-
said Banquo. . . Fleance, therefore, (as before is said) fled into Wales," and had by the
daughter of the King of Wales (cp. note to III. 3- 18) "a sonne named Walter." The king
slew Fleance. Fleance's son, "falling out with one of his companions" who "to his re-
proch objected that he was a bastard, . . ran upon him and slue him. Then was he glad
to flee out of Wales, and coming into Scotland . . within a while was highly esteemed of
them." Having put down a rebellion in "the Westerne Isles," "upon his returne to court
he was made lord steward of Scotland." One of his descendants, Walter Steward, mar-
ried Marjorie Bruce, daughter to King Robert Bruce, "by whom he had issue King Robert
the Second of that name."
This is the first of the "eight
kings"; Robert III, his son,
was the second. Holinshed
then carries the line down
through James I, James II,
James III, James IV, James V,
all of Scotland, to "Charles
James, now king of Scot-
land," i.e. James VI of Scot-
land in 1577 (quoted from
Collier's Holinshed: the pas-
sage is not given in Boswell-
Stone). Slatyer gives sub-
stantially the same genealogy.
SHEW in EL.E. is the nor-
mal word to describe a pa-
geant or procession like this,
and is still retained in this
sense in the 'Lord Mayor's
Show.' SF 112 SPIRIT, a
monosyllable. ^113 HAIRE
is undoubtedly the right word,
and not 'air' or 'heir,' as modern editors have emended. Shakspere, it must be remem-
bered, is paying a compliment to the royal race of James. Tradition represents Robert
III as a man of "goodly and comely personage," and it is Robert III that occupies the
second place in this series if the kings appear in chronological succession, as seems to be
intended from v. 1 1 9. If, on the other hand, Macbeth sees the present of Shakspere's
156
ACT IV
SCENE I
1 12-1 1
A SHEW OF EIGHT KINGS AND BANQUO:
THE LAST WITH A GLASSE IN HIS HAND
MACBETH
Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo ; down !
Thy crowne does seare mine eye-bals. And
thy haire,
Thou other gold-bound-brow, is like the first.
A third is like the former. Filthy hashes!
Why do you shew me this? A fourth ! Start,
eyes!
What, will the line stretch out toth'cracke
of doome?
Another yet! A seaventh ! I 'le see no more:
r
^j
\
Ci u;
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
day stretching to the past of his own time, James VI is the first and the second is James V,
of whose splendid hair Ronsard wrote :
"Ce Roy D'Escosse estoit en la fleur de ses ans:
Ses cheveux non tondus comme fin or luisans,
Cordonnez et crespez, flotans dessus sa face
Et sur son col de laict, luy donnoit bonne grace."
SF 114 OTHER often means 'second' in M.E., and seems to be used in that sense here.
SF 1 15 FORMER in EL. E. meant not only 'preceding' but 'the immediately preceding one
in a series/ N.E.D. 2 a. SFII6 A FOURTH is followed by an interrogation-point in FO. I.
START, i.e. start from your spheres, cp. Ham. I. 5. 1 7. *ff 1 1 7 CRACKE in EL. E. denoted
any loud noise, the blare of a trumpet as well as the crash of thunder, N.E.D. I. It
is probably the former signification that gives us the phrase 'crack of doom,' though the
latter may have entered into it; for it is the 'judgement blast' — "Omnes resurgent in mo-
mento in ictu oculi in novissima tuba'" — rather than the 'mighty earthquake' that the Eng-
lish mind has seized on to suggest the Day of Judgement. *1F 1 18 SEAVENTH shows an EL.
spelling of long open e still retained in ' heaven,' ' head,' etc. Macbeth's " I 'le see no more "
is pathetic evidence of his
ACT IV SCENE I 1 1 9-1 24 ^T.kt'U"
And yet the eight appeares, who beares a <m 9 eight, "sixt," and
tf lasse " rirt " are tne M - E - anc * e - N - E.
wn -11 J t forms of these ordinals, which,
Which shewes me many more; and some I since ghakspere's day, have
see been given their th by anal-
That two-fold balles and trebble scepters ogy with 'fourth,' 'seventh,'
. — - — r 'ninth,' etc. The GLASSE,
carry : as Steevens pointed out, is^
Horrible sight! Now, I see, 'tis true; a reference to the magic mir-
Fj.\ l i ° J 1- u t J D -1 r °r which represented future
Or the blood-bolter d BanquO smiles Upon events, a method of divination
me, tL\h~*-\^ Ch-/~rV*^4 still practised on the credu-
And points at them for his. J™ 5 ' C P- N ' E - D - l - . s ^ ot 'i n
r his Discovery- or Witchcraft,
APPARITIONS VANISH enumerates the "regular, the
irregular, the coloured and
cleare glasses" (cited in N.E.D.) ; cp. also Gifford, p. 48, "Is it an angell from heaven or
the soule of some man that is dead which appeareth in the christall or in the glasse?" and
p. 54, "There is ado to get him [i.e. Satan] into the glasse," and p. 58, " For what though
the witch suppose it is the soule of Moses which appeareth in the christall, is he not there-
fore a witch?" SF 121 BALLES, i.e. the golden orb borne together with the sceptre as the
emblem of sovereignty, N.E.D. 3. Shakspere's epithet TWO-FOLD seems to be a refer-
ence to the double crowning of James at Scone and at Westminster. The TREBBLE
SCEPTERS, however, does not necessarily contain a reference to the sovereignty of Eng-
land, Scotland, and Ireland. The coin of James I which celebrates the union bears the
inscription " Jacobus C D. G. Mag. 'Brit. Fran. & Hib. ^ex," a style commemorating the
'triple' kingdom of Great Britain, France, and Ireland after it had ceased to be a reality.
From these references it has been inferred that Macbeth was written after October 24, 1 604 ;
but the lines might have been inserted by Shakspere at any time out of compliment to
the sovereign. SF 123 BLOOD-BOLTER'D, 'having hair matted with blood.' The normal
forms of the word are "bartered," "baultered," cp. N. E. D. s.v. 'baiter' ; "bolstered" in
157
1
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
'Arden of Feversham' III. 1.73 seems to be the same word incorrectly spelled. The o
is probably a phonetic spelling, and the word in MN.E. should rhyme with 'falter' ; 'bod-
kin' and 'bawdkin' are similar doublet forms of the seventeenth century. It is not 'a
Warwickshire dialect word in Shakspere's time,' as editors are fond of assuming, but occurs
in Holland's Pliny, 1 601, XII, xxii, p. 370 (cited by Steevens), and in Phr. Gen. "tobaulter
ones hair, complicare crines"
(cited in N.E.D.) .HfI24HIS A q T jy SCENE I 124-132
is here used in the EL. sense •*
of ' his descendants,' cp. note . <. vn . 1 . -^
to 1.6.26. TWhat, is this so?
FIRST WITCH
TI24 WHAT, IS THIS SO? j s{ jj &fa fe SQ but i
down to the stage direction, * * J
which in its original form was Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
probably 'Witches vanish' Come, sisters, cheere we up his spridhts,
as in 1.3.78, is so palpably , , ' - 7 , „ j. ljL . r °
unShaksperian that even the And shew the best of our delights:
consensus of modern editors I 'le charme the ayre to give a sound,
hasadmitteditsspuriousness. WhU per forme your antique round;
1 he rising tour-wave rhythm, " J r J ~l ?
Macbeth's stupid question, That this great king may kindly say,
the stress "Macbeth," the ar- Our duties did his welcome pay.
tificial and mechanical repre- * *
sentation of the relation of MUSICKE
the witches to Macbeth, all THE WITCHES DANCE AND VANISH f
point unmistakably to the
writer of III. 5. SF 126 STANDS, 'stands still.' AMAZEDLY, 'in consternation,' cp. N.E.D.
s.v. and Mids. IV. 1. 151. SF 1 27 SPRIGHTS, a common EL. form of 'spirits.' SF 129
SOUND has in M.E. and EL. E. the sense of 'humming,' 'murmuring,' 'rustling,' like the
' sound of bees,' the ' sound of waters,' the ' sound of the leaves in the wind.' This specific
sense was already merging into the general one in EL. E., but Shakspere makes a beautiful
use of it, playing on its identity of form with "sound," 'to swoon,' and probably thinking
of the notion 'sound of many waters,' associated with swooning, in Tw. N. 1. 1.4: "That
straine agen, it had a dying fall [the EL. musical term for ' cadence,' but suggesting ' swoon,'
and so leading to the next figure] ; O, it came ore my eare like the sweet sound [mur-
mur of rustling leaves] That breathes [often used of light, hovering winds in EL. E.] upon
a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour" — a group of associations whose beauty is
quite lost when the words are read as MN.E. SF 130 ANTIQUE as applied to EL. dancing
is illustrated by a citation from Ascham in N.E.D. : "To go on a man his [i.e. man's] tip-
toes, stretch out th' one of his armes forwarde, the other backewarde, which, if he blered
out his tunge [i.e. protruded the tongue in mockery] also, myght be thought to daunce an-
ticke verye properlye [is one of the 'pastimes' unfit for scholars] " ; cp. also L.L.L. V. I.
119. In Ben Jonson's Masque of Queenes, p. 171, the witches' incantation closes thus:
"At which, with a strange and sudden musique, they fell into a magicall dance [in a note
appended Jonson cites classic authorities for these 'antique rounds'] full of praeposterous
change and gesticulation, but most applying to their propertie : who at their meetings doe
all things contrary to the custome of men, dancing backe to backe and hip to hip, their
hands joyned and making their circles backward to the left hand, with strange phantastick
motions of their heads and bodies." ^ 132 PAY, 'reward,' a common EL. meaning of the
word. Their "antique round" is a return for Macbeth's kindly welcome.
IF 133 WHERE ARE THEY? probably originally finished v. 124, having been displaced by
'What,isthisso?' The verse division of FO. I is Where . . gone, Let . . houre, Stand . . kalen-
158
L-crva J)
CaP
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETJ
ACT IV SCENE I 133-147
r
MACBETH
Where are they? Gone? Let this pernitious
houre
Stand aye accursed in the kalender!
Come in, without there!
Y ENTER LENOX
LENOX
What 's your graces will?
MACBETH
Saw you the weyard sisters?
LENOX
No, my lord.
MACBETH
Came they not by you?
LENOX
No, indeed, my lord.
MACBETH
Infected be the ayre whereon they ride;
And damn'd all those that trust them ! I did
heare
The gallopping of horse: who was 't came
by?
LENOX
1 T is two or three, my lord, that bring you
word
Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH
Fled to England?
LENOX
I, my good lord.
MACBETH
ASIDE
Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:
The flighty purpose never is o ? re-tooke
Unlessethe deed go with it: from this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
159
der, Come . . there. It is
possible that Let . . accursed,
I' th' kalender . . there, were
intended for two verses. But
the division of the Cambridge
text is here followed because
it fits in with the interpolated
matter. <1F 133,134 HOURE..
ACCURSED: Shaksperemay
have had in mind a ''dies
maledictus 1 or l dies fEgypti-
cus, 1 'on which nothing must
be begun, for it will turn out
ill,' a day which 'is affirmed
to lead the unwary to the
shades of death': see Du
Cange's Glossarium,s.t>. dies
/Egyptici. SF 134 KALEN-
DER is an EL. spelling, prob-
ably due to an imitation of the
Greek form 'kalends': the
word itself is from the O. FR.
SF 135 COME IN, etc. : see in-
troductory note to the scene.
SF 139 A pathetic anticipa-
tion of Macbeth's own doom.
<]F 140 HORSE is plural, cp.
note to II. 4. 14. SF 144 AN-
TICIPATE is still used in the
sense of 'prevent,' 'forestall,'
see N. E. D. 3- EXPLOIT,
'act' or 'deed,' but in EL.E.
not necessarilyimplying skill.
Shakspere probably intended
also the legal meaning, 'cita-
tion,' 'summons,' which the
word had in EL. E., — see
N.E. D. 5, — and Macbeth is
thinking of his citation of
Macduff to answer for his
'contempt.' SF 145 FLIGHTY
means 'fleet,' ' swift,' N. E. D. I.
O'RE-TOOKE, 'overtaken,' a
common form of the past par-
ticiple. SF 146 THE DEED,
'itsexecution,'cp.II.2.33. GO
is probably used here in its
sense of 'start,' N.E. D. 22;
the figure is that of two
runners making for a goal,
the purpose and act together
'from the word go.' SF 147
FIRSTLINGS, 'the first of
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
their kind,' N. E. D. I. The
HEART was supposed to be
the seat of the will in EL.
psychology. Macbeth re-
flects this psychology in II.
3. 123 when he* makes the
heart the fountain of courage.
SFI49 BE IT, probably 'be 't.'
SFI52 UNFORTUNATE was
subject to syncopation in
EL. E., 'unfort'nate,' the u
not having developed to a
diphthong. Such EL. spell-
ings as "forten" show this
clearly. *ff 153 TRACE/fol-
low,' a common meaning of
the word, cp. "Can trace me
in the tedious wayes of art"
lHen.4 III. 1.48. NOBOAST-
ING LIKE A FOOLE: EL.
syntax by which subject and
ACT IV SCENE I 148-156
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it
thoght and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprize;
Seize upon Fife ; give to th r edge o 1 th r sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate soules
That trace him in his line. No boasting like
a foole; -~"
This deed I 'le do before this purpose coole.
But no more sights!
TO LENOX
Where are these gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.
EXEUNT
predicate are implied, ' I will
make,' etc., see note to III. 4.31. SF 155 SIGHTS is a common EL. word for 'portents/
'visions,' cp. Cees.1.3. 138 and ibid. II. 2.16. Macbeth refers to Banquo's ghost as a
"sight" in III. 4. 114 and IV. 1. 122. Here, however, it has probably the sense which
Cooper gives it, "spectaculum, a sight, a pageant," or, as Holyoke glosses, "a sight or
shew, spectaculumy Macbeth refers to the " shew of eight kings." Notwithstanding this,
some modern editors will have Macbeth say 'no more flights' ; others, 'no more sprights.'
Macbeth carries out his determination to have no more to do with the witches, and from
this point forth we have a man striving to free himself by main force from the entangle-
ments of evil in which he is involved. The vision of Banquo's royal line has cured him
of his desire to penetrate the secrets of the future, though he still believes in the predic-
tion of the witches and depends upon its fulfilment. His disillusionment, which is con-
summated in V. 8. 17, thus begins here.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE II
Of the scene that follows the dialogue between Lady Macduff and her son, vv. 30-64, is
omitted in Davenant's version of the play, and Rosse's farewell words, " Heaven protect
you," follow "to what they were before," v. 25. The murder scene, vv. 79-85? is likewise
omitted. Parts of these passages certainly do not sound like Shakspere,who would scarcely
represent a childish prattler as asking his mother what she would do for a husband if
his father were dead, and telling her if she did not weep for him it would be a good sign
that he should quickly have a new father. ' Pure pathos,' or no pathos, such a situation
is grotesque and could hardly have been written by one who imagined the scene between
Arthur and Herbert. To construe the dialogue as an interlude, as was the porter scene
above, does not help matters. The Rabelaisian humor of the half-awake, half-sober
porter moralizing on the effect of drink the morning after is something quite different
from the far-fetched wit of Macduff's son prattling to his mother in the terms of conven-
tional jests about marriage. The one is redolent of humanity — of a coarse sort, it is true,
160
^-i .
i
Ml
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
but that big, out-of-doors humanity that Shakspere gives us in Falstaff. This latter smacks
of the drawing-room. Moreover, the murder of a child in cold blood upon the stage in broad
daylight in full sight of the audience is hardly of a piece with Shakspere's dramatic art. The
verses at the end of Scene I seem to have been written with the purpose of making such
representation unnecessary. To represent the murder of Banquo by cutthroats in the gloom
of a night attack is an altogether different matter. To reject the passages, however, on these
aesthetic grounds is, perhaps, unwarranted in the lack of any other evidence pointing to
their spuriousness. But we must conclude that if these passages were a part of Macbeth,
" dor mitat Homer -us ," 'and Davenant's critical judgment which omittedthem was a sound one.
SCENE II: FIFE: MACDUFFES CASTLE
ENTER MACDUFFES WIFE HER SON AND ROSSE
WIFE
HAT had he done, to make him
fly the land?
ROSSE
You must have patience, madam.
WIFE
He had none:
His flight was madnesse: when our actions
do not,
Our feares do make us traitors.
ROSSE
You know not
Whether it was his wisedome or his feare.
WIFE
Wisedom ! to leave his wife, to leave his
babes,
His mansion and his titles in a place
From whence himselfe do's flye? He loves
us not;
He wants the naturall touch : for the poore
wren,
The most diminitive of birds, will fight,
Her yong ones in her nest, against the owle.
All is the feare and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisedome, where the flight
So runnes against all reason.
1 6 1
I — 14
<ff 4 MAKE, 'represent to be,'
cp. "make it Naturall re-
bellion, done i'th' blade [i.e.
'greenness/ 'freshness/ N. E.
D. 2 b. The word is altered in
modern editions to ' blaze.'] of
youth" All's W. V. 3- 5, and
"Your vertue is [i.e. consists
in] To make him worthy,
whose offence subdues him"
Cor.I.I.I78. MN.E. generally
adds ' out T to ' make ' when this
senseisintended. SF 6 LEAVE,
'abandon': "in" goes with
"place," not with "leave."
<lr 7 TITLES : Cowel's defi-
nition is "firu/a est justa
causa possidendi quod nos-
trum est 11 (title is the legal
ground for possessing what
is our own). The word also
means ' claim ' in EL. E., — cp.
IV. 3- 34, — and was transferred
to 'the record of claim' so
that it corresponded to MN. E.
'title-deed'; cp. "title; writ-
ings or records to prove one's
right" Kersey. This is the
meaning here, and not 'pos-
sessions' as it is usually
explained. The citations
supporting this last meaning
are wrongly interpreted in
Schmidt, as is "time enough
to heare . . passages Of his
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
true titles [i.e. valid title-deeds] to some certaine Dukedomes" Hen. 5 I. 1. 84. *ff8
HIMSELFE, 'he himself/ cp. note to III. 1.5. *$ 9 NATURALL TOUCH, 'natural sym-
pathy,' 'humanity'; EL. E. "touch" alone sometimes corresponds to MN.E. 'sympathy,'
cp. "Hast thou . . a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions" Temp. V.I. 21, and "touch;
feeling" Kersey. Sri 2 ALL,
'everything,' cp. note to II. ACT jy SCENE II
3-99.
14-26
ROSSE
My deerest cooz,
I pray you schoole your selfe: but for your
husband,
He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knowes
The fits o' th' season. I dare not speake much
further:
But cruell are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know our selves; when we hold
rumor
From what we feare, yet know not what we
feare,
But floate upon a wilde and violent sea
Each way and move. I take my leave of you :
Shall not be long but I *le be heere againe:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climbe
upward
To what they were before. My pretty cosine,
Blessing upon you!
icle, " [he] cursed the time
that ever he knewe Doctor Barnes," and is found also in lHen.4 IV. 3. 74, "He presently,
as greatnesse knows it selfe, Steps me [EL. ethical dative] a little higher then his vow."
As has already been pointed out in the note to III. 4. 32, OUR SELVES is sometimes used
reciprocally in EL. E., corresponding to MN.E. 'one another/ This is the simplest ex-
planation of Rosse's words, which vividly demonstrate the effectiveness of Macbeth's es-
pionage. HOLD RUMOR: the explanations of these words are numerous. That "hold"
is used in the sense of 'accept,' 'receive,' 'believe to be true' is the commonest explana-
tion. But while 'hold opinion,' 'hold belief,' etc., are idiomatic locutions in English,
"hold rumor" is not so illustrated in N.E.D., and "I finde the people strangely fantasied,
Possest with rumors, full of idle dreames, Not knowing what they feare, but full of feare"
John IV. 2. 144, seems to be a different idiom. A rumour may 'hold for true,' also, but one
may not "hold rumor." But, admitting this unusual locution, it fits but illy with "from
what we feare." HOLD FROM in EL. E. means 'restrain,' cp. "so they would hold their
fingers from him," cited in N. E. D. s.v. 1 1 , and MN.E.' hold your noise.' We have already
had this meaning in III. 2. 54. ^20 FEARE may mean 'fear is true,' 'fear is the case,' cp.
" See what a ready tongue suspition hath : He that but feares the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from other's eyes That what he fear'd is chanc'd" 2 Hen. 4
162
*lrI4 COOZ: in this abbre-
viated form of 'cousin,' 'coz-
en,' the vowel u in EL. E. was
evidently not yet shortened to
d as in MN. E., hence the spell-
ing (oo=u). *1FI5 SCHOOLE
YOUR SELFE in MN.E. usu-
ally takes a complement, 'to.'
It was used absolutely in
EL. E. and meant 'find fault
with,' 'reprove,' cp. "Well, I
am school'd" I Hen. 4 III. I.
190. The stress is on "your
selfe," 'find fault with your-
self, not with your hus-
band.' FOR: the correspond-
ing MN.E. idiom is 'as for
your husband.' Sri 7 FITS,
cp. note to III. 2. 22. A simi-
lar expression occurs in Cor.
III. 2. 33, "The violent fit o'
th'time." SF 19 KNOW OUR
SELVES, 'become acquainted
with one another' ; this obso-
lete sense of "know" is illus-
trated in N.E.D. s.v. 6 by a
citation from Halle's Chron-
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
1. 1.84. We thus get from Rosse's words a picture of loyal but unavailing efforts to keep
rumour still in regard to the murders of Duncan and Banquo. His thought passes into a
general expression of uncertainty: 'they float rudderless, tossed on a violent sea.' < lr2I
FLOATE is obsolete in this sense of moving to and fro, cp. u Let the instrument rest until
the water has done floating" James, cited in N. E. D. 4. IF 22 EACH WAY AND MOVE :
Davenant could make nothing of these words, writing in their stead ' Each way and more,
I take my leave of you.' Nor have later editors been more successful. The emendations
are numerous: 'Each way, and move' Johnson, 'And move each way' Capell, 'And
each way move' Steevens, etc., 'Which way we move' Ingleby, 'Each sway and move'
Staunton, 'Each way and none' CI. Pr., etc., etc. — quot homines tot sententice. But all
these editors have ignored the fact that "move" in EL. E. means 'to toss,' or, when used
in a reflexive sense, 'to toss (one's self)': we have Cooper glossing ago "to move or
wagge" ; jactare, "to move or wagge" ; "assiliunt imi fluctus e gurgite ponti, the waves
were moved high from the bottom of the sea" ; " J una freta torquet, Juno moves or tosses
the seas" ; so "the floods being greatly moved make a hideous noise" ; and Coles, "moved
(tossed), exagitat us" ; Holyoke, "to move or wag, jacto 11 ; "Jacto, to throw often, to
throw, cast, wag, shake, or move." Cooper's gloss "Jactare se, to bestirre himselfe and
move now this way now that way" illustrates the reflexive sense of the word; cp., too,
" in toto corpus jactare cubili, to tosse and remoove often to and fro in his bedde." So, too,
Florio in translating Mon-
APT TV QfFMF II 97-30 taigne ' L4 ' " So seemes ft
aui iv doniNc ii 2/-^u that the soule> moved and
tossed, if she have not some
WIFE hold to take loseth itself."
Fathered he is, and yet hee *s father-lesse. There can be little doubt,
__ therefore, that "move" in
^ Shakspere's verses means
I am so much a foole, should I stay longer, 'are tossed about," tossed to
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort : and [ ro ( and that u is J ust the
i word the context requires.
I take my leave at Once. EACH WAY means 'in every
EXIT ROSSE direction,' for 'each' often
means 'every' in M.E. and
e.N.E. ; cp. "I go beyond each other night" Heywood's Thyestes, Sp. Soc, I, p. 74;
so "each where" corresponds to 'everywhere' in Newton's Thebais, Sp. Soc, I, p. 1 10.
Shakspere's words as they stand in FO. I may therefore mean 'float every way, and toss
to and fro.' There is a post-positive use of AND in M. E. and e.N. E. which is so awkward
to modern ears that dictionary readers assume it to be a mistake and do not note it. A
good M.E. instance is found in the Prohemium to a version of ' Palladius de re rustica,'
written about 1440, "So sende he me sense and science Of my balade away to rade [i.e.
erase] errour, Pallade and do [i.e. translate Palladius] to glad his excellence." An e.N.E.
instance occurs in Drayton, " For twenty years and have I serv'd in Fraunce . . and have
I seene Vernoylas batfull fields . . through all my life these perills have I passed, and now
to feare a banishment at last?" Heroicall Epistles, Sp. Soc, p. 288. But this idiom is
perhaps too infrequent to assume it here. Another possibility is that "each way and
move" was an after insertion written in the margin, with a caret in the text pointing it to
a place before "upon . . sea," but by mistake inserted after it. Such displacements are
not infrequent in MSS. " But floate upon a wilde and violent sea" if expanded to " But
floate each way and move ['toss'] upon a wilde and violent sea. I take my leave of you"
makes clear sense and good rhythm. ^23 SHALL: the omission of the subject when
it can be supplied from the context is a common idiom of M.E. and e.N.E. frequently
occurring in EL. E., cp. "Then as carefull he was what to doo himselfe : at length [sc. he]
determined never to leave seeking him" Sidney's Arcadia, Sommer repr., p. 41, and "And
163
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
thereto [sc. I] will not disagree in nothing that you say But [sc. I] will content your
mind truely in all things that I may" ' Handefull of Pleasant Delites' p. 5. BUT I 'LE BE,
1 until I will be.' Rosse, of course, is leaving to join the rebels. *IF 24 THINGS AT THE
WORST, etc., seems to have
ACT IV SCENE II
been a proverbial sayingbased
upon the notion of fortune's
revolving wheel so common
in mediaeval literature, cp.
"When bale is hext boote is
next," i.e. when misfortune is
highest remedy is nighest,
Heywood, Sp. Soc, p. 170.
SF 29 DISCOMFORT seems
here to have its EL. meaning
of 'undoing' as well as 'in-
convenience.*
SF 30 SIRRA was used in
speaking to young people
as well as to inferiors, cp.
u But, sirrah, what said he to
it" Wellbred to Knowell in
' Every Man in his Humour'
III. I. SF 32 WITH, 'by means
of ," on,' cp. " I live with bread"
Rich.2 III. 2. 175. FLYES in
EL. E. is used of all winged
insects and is not restricted
to the family cMuscidce, cp.
N. E.D.I. <lr35 PITFALL,
GIN: cp. "the fowler . .
entangleth them [i.e. "little
birds"] with lime twigs which
he sets forth on a pole or
perch, or snareth them in the
noozes of a springe, a pitfall,
or gins" Comenius's Janua,
cap. 39- Minsheu describes
a pitfall thus: "esr fouea in
quam dicidunt aues ancipiter
impendentis inescato ligno."
A GIN is any sort of trap in
EL. E. SF 36 The stress falls,
of course, on POORE as men-
tally contrasted with 'rich,'
the verse having an extra syl-
lable before the caesura. De-
lius takes THEY as the re-
peated pronominal subject so
common in EL. E., 'Poor
30-43
WIFE
Sirra, your father's dead:
And what will you do now? How will you
live?
SON
As birds do, mother.
WIFE
What, with wormes and flyes?
SON
With what I get, I meane; and so do they.
WIFE
Poore bird! Thou 'dst never feare the net
nor lime,
The pitfall nor the gin.
SON
Why should I, mother? Poore birds they are
not set for.
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
WIFE
fYes, he is dead: how wilt thou do for a
father?
SON
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
WIFE
Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
SON
Then you '1 by 'em to sell againe.f
WIFE
Thou speak'st withall thy wit; and yet,
i' faith
With wit enough for thee.
birds are not trapped,' — to
SET in EL. E. may mean 'to catch birds in a net,' see Cent. Diet. II. 7, —but to take "they"
as referring to pitfalls and gins gives a simpler sense. SF 38, 39, 40, 41 The fact that these
164
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT IV
SCENE II
44-64
f SON
Was my father a traitor, mother?
WIFE
I, that he was.
SON
What is a traitor?
WIFE
Why, one that sweares and lyes.
SON
And be all traitors that do so?
WIFE
Every one that does so is a traitor, and must
be hang'd.
SON
And must they all be hang'd that swear and
lye?
WIFE
Every one.
SON
Who must hans* them?
WIFE
Why, the honest men.
SON
Then the liars and swearers are fools, for
there are lyars and swearers enow to beate
the honest men and hang up them.
WIFE
Now, God helpe thee, poore monkie! But
how wilt thou do for a father?
SON
If he were dead, you'ld weepe for him: if
you would not, it were a good signe that I
should quickely have a new father.
WIFE
Poore pratler, how thou talk'stif
165
lines are in prose and vv.42,
43 blank verse again, followed
by prose as far as v. 64, may
be construed as evidence that
only the blank verse of this
passage is Shakspere's, Lady
Macduff's words in vv.42,
43 having originally followed
after v. 37 and closed the dia-
logue. Such a conception of
the passage as the omission
of its prose parts would give
us adds pathos to the murder
of Macduff's lady and her
son — the wren and her young
one in the nest — and yet
does not conflict with Shak-
spere's known method of
treatment. The action loses
nothing by the excision, and
the interest gains enormously,
for nothing so mars a work
of art as the inhuman touch,
and nothing so clearly ex-
hibits lack of humanity as dis-
tortion in the representation
of childhood. It 41 SELL
seems to have had a punning
sense of 'deceive,' 'betray,'
cp. u Som. Whether were you
sent? Lucy. Whether my lord?
from bought and sold Lord
Talbot"lHen.6lV.4.I2. <ff 42
WIT, 'understanding,' 'intel-
ligence,' cp. "With all my
wits" Hen.5 V.2.25.
<IF47 SWEARES and LYES
are used in their EL. senses
of ' swears allegiance ' and ' be-
trays,' cp. " I 'le sweare my
selfethy subject" Temp. 1 1. 2.
156. SF48 BE: this l.M.E.
form of the third person plural
indicative of the substantive
verb was of common occur-
rence in e.N.E., and not re-
stricted to poetic or archaic
forms of expression as it is
now. SF 57 ENOW, plural of
'enough,' cp. v. 43- IF 58
HANG UP THEM : in MN.E.
the adverb usually follows the
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
pronominal object in such construction: in EL. E. it may follow the verb, cp. "they all
lockup themselves a 'late" Jonson,'Sejanus,' 1640, p. 335, and "Go thou to Juliet, helpe to
decke up her" Rom.&Jul. IV.2.4I. SF 59 MONKIE is still a term of endearment applied
to children. u Pug," another
S^t^SfX^ ACT IV SCENE II 65-79
ENTER A MESSENGER
MESSENGER
Blesse you, faire dame! I am not to you
known,
Though in your state of honor I am perfect.
I doubt some danger does approach you
neerely :
If you will take a homely man's advice,
Be not found heere; hence, with your little
ones.
To fright you thus, me thinkes, I am too
savage ;
To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nie your person. Heaven pre-
serve you
The MESSENGER is a dra-
matic device to represent
Macbeth's murderous net
closing around Lady Mac-
duff. <ff 66 STATE OF
HONOR, 'rank'; "estate"
and "state" are practically
the same words in EL. E. :
Cooper, Thomas, and Holy-
oke all gloss gradus as "a
degree or estate of honor."
PERFECT, 'familiar with,'
cp. note to 1.5-2, and "that
pretty Welsh . . I am too per-
fect in" I Hen.4 III. 1. 201, and
"I am perfit [another form of
the word] In theis notes you
gave mee" Massinger's Be-
lieve as you List, 1. 1. SF 67
DOUBT, 'fear,' a common
EL. sense of "doubt," cp.
N. E. D. 5- SF68 HOMELY,
'simple,' 'plain,' 'humble,'
N.E.D. 4 b. SF69 LITTLE
ONES: Rosse in IV. 3- 204
as well as Macbeth in IV.
I. 152 speaks of Macduff's
"babes," which is slightly in-
consistent with the part ' of
this scene which represents
only the murder of Lady
Macduff's son. SF 70 TO
FRIGHT, 'in frightening,' the
EL. use of the infinitive where
MN. E. requires the participial
phrase. ME THINKES originally in M.E. means 'it seems to me.' SAVAGE, 'brutal,' a
prominent meaning of the word in e. N.E.,cp." those pampred animalls That rage in savage
sensualitie" Ado IV. 1. 61. SF 7 1 TO DO WORSE, etc., i.e. to do more than frighten.
FELL is a stronger word in EL. E. than now, and means ' savage,' ' murderous,' cp. N.E.D. I .
*ff 73 WHETHER is a M.E. form of 'whither' not yet obsolete in Shakspere's time, cp.
"Whether in this sense [i.e. to what place] is most usually written 'whither.' But that
distinction in writing and printing is net always strictly observed. . . Mr. Butler writes it
'whether' for 'whither,' and so 'hether,' 'thether,'" etc., etc., Phr. Gen. The word has a
contracted form "wher" in EL.E., but it is not necessary to assume it here, for six-wave
verses such as this are common in Shakspere. SHOULD I, 'am I to,' a common e. N.E.
sense of the auxiliary. In the face of danger the first thought that naturally occurs to
166
I dare abide no longer.
EXIT MESSENGER
WIFE
Whether should I flye?
I have done no harme. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world ; where to do harme
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas!
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say I have done no harme?
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Lady Macduff is her helplessness — she has no refuge ; then she asks herself, 'Why should
I try to escape? I have done no harm' — a perfectly normal succession of ideas. But even
if 'the context requires why/ as some modern editors think, no alteration is necessary,
since "whether" may introduce a simple question in EL. E., cp. "Whether will ye allowe
him to protecte, to safe-conducte and to have marshall lawe as they are accustomed?"
Spenser's State of Ireland (cited in Cent. Diet.). Lady Macduff's words can therefore
mean 'And am I to fly?' if the reader wishes to put that sense on them. It is likely that
the only difference between the two phrases was one of stress. SF 74 The contracted
form ' I 've ' is probably intended here and in v. 79 r and 'I'm' in v. 75 ; both were common
in EL. E. as in MN.E. *1F 76 LAUDABLE seems to be syncopated to 'laud'ble' here (cp.
note to III. 2. 48), for GOOD requires sentence stress from its contrast to HARME. SOME-
TIME, cp. 1.6. II. «1F 77 DANGEROUS, 'dang'rous'; the word recalls the tone of Ham.
III. 1.69 ff- and of Sonn. LXVI. SF 78 WOMANLY and 'manly' now connote spiritual
rather than physical qualities; but Chaucer uses "manly" in the sense of 'strong,' 'of
fine physique,' and Shakspere here evidently is thinking of the weakness of Lady Mac-
duff's defence. Coles glosses 'womanish, womanly' by "muliebris, mollis" ; cp., also,
"nor the Queene of Ptolemy
SCENE II 79-85
ACT IV
What are these faces?
ENTER MURTHERERS
MURTHERER
Where is your husband?
WIFE
I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou may'st finde him.
MURTHERER
He T s a traitor.
SON
Thou ly'st, thou shagge-ear'd villaine!
MURTHERER
What, you egge!
Yong fry of treachery!
STABBING HIM
SON
He has kill'd me, mother:
Run away, I pray you!
DIES. EXIT LADY MACDUFF CRYING MURTHER
EXEUNT MURTHERERS
More womanly then he"
Ant.&Cl. 1.4.6. <ff 79 TO
SAY, 'of saying,' cp. note to
v. 70, above.
The FACES are probably
those of Macbeth's troops
who have surprised the castle.
It is probable that the scene
when it left Shakspere's hands
ended here with the EXIT
CRYING MURTHER,the hor-
rors of the carnage being left
to the imagination. <lr8I
UNSANCTIFIED seems to
mean 'without sanctuary,'
'violable," unprotected.' *IF82
WHERE : the EL. relative ad-
verb is often equivalent to a
MN.E. relative phrase, e.g.
"that people where [i.e.
among whom] God shall or-
daine this ark to come to
land" Bacon, 'Atlantis' 13,
1 7 (Moore-Smith). By exten-
sion of this usage "where"
comes to be a correlative of
SO in the sense of 'that . . in
it,' cp. "honour travels in a
straight so narrow Where one
but goes a breast [i.e. so
SUCH AS THOU MAY'ST,
SF 83 LY'ST, a monosylla-
narrow that in it only one goes abreast] " Tro.&Cr. III. 3. 1 54.
'it is possible for such as thou to,' cp. note to III. 1. 122.
ble in e.N.E., cp. III.2.54. SHAGGE-EAR'D, 'shaggy-eared,' ' rough -eared' ; the epithet
seems meaningless: but 'shag-haired' is a common word in EL. E. (cp. "shag haired,
villosus" Phr. Gen., "shag-haire, pelado" Percival) and occurs in 2Hen.6 III. 1. 367 in a
167
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
connection similar to this, "a shag-hayr'd craftie kerne/' "Heare" is a common six-
teenth-century spelling of 'hair'; e.g., in Ven.&Ad. 1 9 1 T QO. 1593, we have "heares" for
'haires.' u Ear'd" may therefore be an error for 'hear'd' as some editors suppose. Again,
"flag-eared" is a common EL. word meaning Mop-eared.' Thomas, 1620, glosses flaccidce
aures as "loosly flagging ears," and Percival, ed. 1 605, has " flag-eared" as a gloss for en-
capotado de orejas. Comenius says a "loll ear'd" person is one "whose eares hang
flagging downe." // and sh are single types in EL. printing, and one is liable to be mis-
printed for the other: "flagge ear'd" may therefore have been intended; cp. also "flap-
eared knave" in Tarn. IV. 1. 1 60. But it is perhaps wise to retain the reading of FO. I
even though " shagge-ear'd" is a difficult epithet to understand. EGGE is a term of con-
tempt for a puny person, cp. "Finch egge" Tro.&Cr. V. 1.40. < Ir84 FRY is now obso-
lete in the sense of 'offspring,' cp. N. E.D.I. EXIT: FO. I omits 'Lady Macduff and
4 exeunt murtherers.'
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE III
Scene III, like Scene IV at the end of Act II and Scene VI at the end of Act III, serves
the purpose of a chorus intervening between Acts IV and V, its subject-matter being not
so much res acta as res transacta — not dramatic, but historical. There is interjected an
episode from Holinshed to sharpen the personalities of Macduff and Malcolm, and the
arrival of Rosse bringing news of the action in Act IV furnishes the "messenger" to link
it with what follows. As a chorus the scene has a double character, serving as epilogue
to Act IV, "each new morne New widdowes howle," etc., and as prologue to Act V,
"Macbeth Is ripe for shaking and the powres above Put on their instruments."
SCENE III: ENGLAND: BEFORE THE KING'S PALACE
ENTER MALCOLME AND MACDUFFE
1-8
Shakspere in representing
Malcolm's test of Macduff's
loyalty follows Holinshed:
"yet doubting whether he
[i.e. Macduff] were come as
one that ment unfeinedlie
as he spake, or else as sent
from Macbeth to betraie him,
he thought to have some fur-
ther triall." SF I DESOLATE,
'des'late.' ^ 2 BOSOMES,
'hearts': the bosom was
thought of as the seat of the
emotionsinEL.E.,sothatsuch
a notion as "sad bosome"
corresponded to MN.E. 'sad
heart.' SF 3 MORTALL,'death-
dealing,' cp. "should by my
mortall sword Be drained"
Tro.&Cr. IV. 5. 134. GOOD
MALCOLME
ET us seeke out some desolate
shade, and there
Weepe our sad bosomes empty.
MACDUFFE
Let us rather
Hold fast the mortall sword, and like good
men
Bestride our downfall birthdome: each new
morne
New widdowes howle, new orphans cry, new
sorowes
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yelFd out
Like syllable of dolour.
168
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
MEN, 'brave men,' cp. note to 1.2.4. *ff 4 BESTRIDE in EL.E. means 'defend/ N.E.D.
2 c, an association traceable to such a use of the word as occurs in "a Romaine souldier
being thrown to the ground even harde by him, Martius straight bestrod him and slew the
enemie" North's Plutarch, 1595, p. 236. The same notion occurs also in 2Hen.4 1. 1.207,
"Tels them he doth bestride a bleeding land." DOWNFALL seems to be an EL. form of
the participle without -n rather than a misprint, cp. the American 'forgotten' beside the
English 'forgot.' In Skelton, 'Against the Scottes' v. 610, the same form occurs, "Now
is your pride fall to decay," and Stowe's Annales, 1615, p. 872, has "well-growe woods."
BIRTHDOME, 'land of our birth,' cp. the quotation from 2 Hen. 4, above. The suffix -dom
has a wider range of usage in EL.E. than in MN.E., cp. "the matter is verified too much
of the Popedom" Golding's Calvin's Sermons, and see 1.5. 71 of this play. "Birth-
hood," 'native country,' is likewise good EL.E. <ff 5 HOWLE, like YELL in v. 7, had not
in EL.E. the sense of depreciation which we attach to the words, see N.E.D. s.v. and note
to 1.7.78. SF6 THAT, 'so that,' as in 1.2.58. SF8 The appropriateness of SYLLABLE
is, of course, dependant on the
ACT IV SCENE III 8-17 £ otion of * n ^ho suggested
by v. o.
MALCOLME <ff8 WAILE, 'bewail,' cp.
What I beleeve I 'le waile, "TM fond ,[ l '- c - fo , olis £l to
, vn . , , i i t 1 wane inevitable strokes Lor.
What know, beleeve, and what 1 can redresse, i V . i. 26. Malcolm affects
As I shall finde the time to friend, I wil. to believe Macduff's state-
Y¥7i_ L 1 •*. i_ i- ment an exaggeration. SF 10
What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. TO FRIEND °° is a M . B . and
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our e.N.E. phrase meaning 'fa-
tondues vourable,' see N. E. D. 6 b.
, YT o ' , ,. . , , . . HF 1 1 SPOKE, 'spoken,' like
Was once thought honest: you have iov d "downfall," above, it: the
him well. repetition of the subject by a
Hi .1 i t i t r pronoun is a common EL.
e hath not touch d you yet. I am yong; ? diom stiU preserved in vul .
but something gar and colloquial English.
You may discerne of him through me, and T 12 , sc i L 5\ <m , er f*' T , he
/ ° rhythm or Malcolm s words,
wisedome f" x "" || '* " ', i S full of
To offer up a weake, poore, innocent lambe bitterness. <ff 14 touch'd,
T" "5? r J 'injured,'asinIII.2.26. SF 1 5
T appease an angry God. Modern editors accept Theo-
bald's emendation of 'de-
serve' for DISCERNE, and the Cambridge text changes FO. I's comma after ME to a
semicolon, evidently construing AND WISEDOME as a sentence without subject and predi-
cate : but "and" makes such an interpretation difficult, for it connects "wisedome" with
the preceding verb. 'Deserve' for "discerne" makes nonsense out of the latter part of
the passage: I AM YONG, which is in contrast to the thought which BUT introduces, is
meaningless with ' But you deserve something through me.' The normal contrast with
Malcolm's youth and innocency would be a characteristic of age and experience; this we
have if we take "discerne " in i ts EL. sense 'to learn by discernment,' N.E.D. 4: the
word in this sense lTusualfy followed by "of," "to discerne of truth." THROUGH ME,
i.e. by my sad experience. ' I am young, but still able to teach you what sort of a man
Macbeth is.' AND WISEDOME is connected with "something" by one of those EL.
zeugmatic constructions such as are found in 1.5.22 and III. 1. 122. Malcolm's words
are thus 'You may perceive what sort of a man Macbeth is from my experience, and learn
169
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
from me the wisdom of offering up/ etc. Besides the alteration of the punctuation in the
Cambridge text, AND WISEDOME has been emended by "t is wisdom,' 'wisdom 't were/
etc., and CI. Pr. suggests that a whole line has dropped out. But we have already had
this syntax twice in Macbeth, with the usual crop of emendations and assumptions of
corruptness in each instance, and we shall have it again in V.2.4, where the text again
makes difficulty when read
^•™,r° CENT ' ACT IV SCENE III .8-31
IF 1 8 The stress falls upon
I; either TREACHEROUS is
syncopated and the com-
pleted verse has only four
waves, or the indignation and
surprise of Macduff at Mal-
colm's implication force a
pause after "treacherous."
The strong cassura caused by
such a pause often takes the
place of an unstressed im-
pulse in EL. verse. SF 19
RECOYLE, ' give way/ 'break
down'; Cotgrave glosses
"retrograder" by "to re-
coile." Shakspere uses the
word in the sense of 'degen-
erate' in " Recoyle from your
great stocke" Cym. 1.6. 128.
SF20 IN, 'on the occasion
of/ 'in the event of/ N.E.D.
lib. IMPERI ALL, 'supreme
in authority/ N.E.D. 4; the
word takes the chief stress
of the phrase. CHARGE,
'commission/ cp. "To resist
these incursions William
Douglas, Earl of Angus, get-
teth charge" Drummond's
History of Scotland, 1654,
p. 25- Malcolm means ' in the
event of a commission im-
posed by supreme authority.'
SHALL, the EL. useof the aux-
iliary in the sense of 'ought
to," must.' The verse has six
waves. «IF2I THOUGHTS,
'fancies/ with possibly the
sense of 'anxieties.' TRANS-
MACDUFFE
I am not treacherous.
MALCOLME
But Macbeth is.
A good and vertuous nature may recoyle
In an imperiall charge. But I shall crave
your pardon;
That which you are my thoughts cannot
transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest
fell:
Though all things foule would wear the
brows of grace,
Yet grace must still looke so.
MACDUFFE
I have lost my hopes.
MALCOLME
Perchance even there where I did finde my
doubts :
Why in that rawnesse left you wife and
childe,
Those precious motives, those strong knots
of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
But mine owne safeties. You may be rightly
just,
What ever I shall thinke.
POSE, 'change/ 'alter the na-
ture of/ cp. 'do something or other, let it [i.e. brooding fear] not transpose thee' Burton's
Anat. of Mel., II. 3. 5. Oliphant, ' New English ' I, p. 378, cites the word as used by Barclay
in the sense of ' wresting the law ' ; Shakspere is fond of using words in legal senses, and " trans-
pose " may have such a sense here : ' cannot wrest your character from its true action.' ^23
170
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
WOULD, 'were to,' cp. note to 1.7.34. BROWS in EL.E. often means 'face,' 'appearance,'
cp. "This seeming brow of justice" I Hen. 4 IV. 3.83 (cited in N.E.D. 5 c). The word
usually carries with it a suggestion of hypocrisy. SF 24 SO, i.e. look like grace, an in-
stance of the EL. use of "so" to represent a notion implied in the previous statement.
HOPES, 'what I had hoped for,' N.E.D. 4 c. Macduff had expected to be welcomed by
Malcolm and return with him to the rescue of Scotland. *ff 25 That is, in the rashness
of your flight. " Hope "also means 'ground of confidence 'in EL. E.,of which notion DOUBT
is the negative; and in this negative form Malcolm couches his suspicion of Macduff, at
the same time giving the reason for his distrust. The words are a good illustration of Shak-
spere's compact phraseology. SF2& THAT, 'such,' cp. note to v. 74. RAWNESSE: both
'rashness' and 'cruelty 'seem to have blended in the EL. use of this word, cp. "Some crying
.. upon their children rawly left" Hen. 5 IV.I.I47 (cited by Cl.Pr.). *ff27 MOTIVES,
cp. "motive, a moving cause or argument" Glossographia, here 'moving cause for action.'
Shakspere frequently applies the word to persons, see Schmidt s.v. KNOTS, 'bonds,'
'ties,' as often in EL.E.; cp. N.E.D. II. 428 LEAVE-TAKING: the stress falls upon
the second element of the compound as in II. 3- 150. The pause that intervenes after the
pointed question probably takes the place of a stressed impulse, giving a verse such as
we have in 1. 5. 41, 1.5-58, II. 1. 51, and IV. 3- 1 1 1- It is possible to explain " I pray you"
as an interjected phrase not part of the verse, such as appears in III. 1.40, but this in-
volves alteration of the FO. verse division down to "What ever I shall thinke " in v. 3 1 . SF 29
JEALOUSIES, 'expressions of distrust,' cp. N.E.D. 5 and its citation from Pell, 1659:
" Sailing without any mistrust or jealousy of sands." For the plural form in "jealousies,"
"dishonors," "safeties," cp. note to III. 1. 122. DISHONORS, 'causes for shame,' a sense
now somewhat unusual, cp. N.E.D. 2 and its citation from Eden, 1553 : "they toke it for
a dishonour to . . forsake their captayne." SF 30 SAFETIES in EL.E. means ' safeguards,'
'means of safety'; cp. "This is the safety or safeguard of our confederates" Phr. Gen.,
and "It is our safetie, and we must embrace This gentle offer of the perillous time" John
IV. 3- 12; see also Ham. II. 2. 79- The word has three syllables. For the stress " mine
owne safeties," cp. note to III. 4. 135. The sentence stress falls upon MAY, i.e. it is possible
that you are. RIGHTLY, 'really,' 'perfectly,' as frequently in EL.E.; cp. "Rightly to be
great" Ham. IV. 4. 53« JUST connoted in EL.E. the notion of faithfulness in personal
obligations, a notion now expressed by 'honourable,' see N.E.D. 2 b and its citations from
Smith's Virginia, 1624: "He
APT IV SrPNPTTT 3T 3 7 was veryjust of [i.e. in respect
m> 1 IV O^CINC 111 ^1-^/ to] his promise," and from
Caes. III. 2. 90, "He was my
MACDUFFE f rien d, faithfull and just to
Bleed, bleed, poore country: me." SF 3 1 shall, 'may,'
r* a. a. I iL a1_ l_ ■ 'amgoin^to'; cp. "What is
Great tyrrany, lay thou thy basis sure, he th * t sl f all b ^ y f is flocke? „
For goodnesse dare not check thee: wear A.Y.L. n.4.88, and see note
thou thy wrongs ; to n -3. 127.
The title is affear'd. Far thee well, lord: <jf 32 tyrrany probably
I would not be the villaine that thou think'st carries with it its el. notion
For the whole space that '. in the tyrant's ^^fl^i"
graspe, tion following. «ff 33 GOOD-
And the rich east to boot. , NE ? SE s ? ems he l" e V 5 mean ,
'right and justice : the word
had a much wider appli-
cation in EL. E. than it now has. DARE, the subjunctive form, cp. III. 4. 99. WEAR,
'proclaim,' 'maintain,' arising out of its EL. connotation of 'display,' found in v. 46; cp.
171
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
" You may wcare her in title yours" Cym. 1.4.96? and 'I wore the Christian cause upon
my sword' Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain, II. I (cited in Cent. Diet. s.v. 8). "Win
and weare" is a common EL. phrase which Shakspere employs in Ado V. 1.82. In the ex-
planation of the title-page to Slatyer's Palasalbion, the word is used of usurpation as it is
here; for "tyrrany," not "country," is the implied subject, as is shown by the context:
"the Dane in armes by stealth Sought win [i.e. to win] or wed or weare her [i.e. England's]
wealth." SF 34 THE, 'thy,' the EL. use of the definite article for the MN.E. possessive
pronoun; unfamiliar with this syntax, many editors adopt Malone's emendation 'thy.'
AFFEAR'D is an EL. legal term meaning 'established,' N. E. D. 2 ; an official who fixed the
amount of fines, such as was Shakspere's father, was called an "affeeror." The word is
spelled both "affear" and"affeer," — see citation from Manwood, N.E.D. s.v. 'affeeror,' —
the ea before r being probably pronounced i. For TITLE in the sense of 'claim,' cp. note
to IV. 2. 7. The verse lacks an impulse after "affear'd,"cp. note to v. 28. ^35 THINK'ST,
' hast in mind,' and not a mis-
take for 'think me' ; cp. III. ACT JV SCENE III
37-49
MALCOLME
Be not offended:
I speake not as in absolute feare of you.
I thinke our country sinkes beneath the
yoake;
It weepes, it bleeds; and each new day a
gash
Is added to her wounds: I thinke withall
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And heerefrom gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands; but for all this,
When I shall treade upon the tyrant's head,
Or weare it on my sword, yet my poore
country
Shall have more vices then it had before,
More suffer and more sundry wayes then
ever,
By him that shall succeede.
MACDUFFE
What should he be?
2.132.
SF 38 ABSOLUTE, ' positive,'
'downright,' as in II. 6. 40;
the word is clipped to 'abs'-
ltite.' SF 39 THE is again
more definite than in MN.E.
and tantamount to ' his yoke.'
SF4I The change from neuter
gender to personal gender in
the course of the sentence is
common in EL.E.,cp. citation
from Greene in the note to
III. 2. 14. WITHALL, 'in ad-
dition to this,' 'moreover,'
cp. "withall full ofte we see
Cold wisdome waighting on
superfluous follie" All 's W.
I. I. 115, and "therewithall"
III. I. 34. SF 42 IN MY RIGHT,
'in support of my claim to
the crown,' cp. "in his [i.e.
the King of England's] right
we hold this towne" John
II. I.268,and"In her right we
came" ibid. II. 1.548. Cowel
defines a right as "not only
a right for which a writ of
right lies, but also any title
or claim . . for which no
action is given by law but
only an entry." 4 43 ENGLAND, i.e. Edward, the King of England; cp. "Norway him-
selfe" 1.2.50. SF 44 FOR, 'notwithstanding,' an obsolete meaning illustrated in N.E.D.
25 a. IF 46 WEARE in the sense of 'display,' a kindred sense to that found in v. 33.
YET goes with MORE, 'still more'; for the position of the adverb, cp. note to 1.4.20.
SF 48 SUNDRY, 'distinct,' 'diverse,' a meaning now obsolete; see Cent. Diet. s.v. SF 49
WHAT, 'who,' 'what sort of person,' cp. note to 1. 3- 39- SHOULD BE, 'is to be,' cp.
note to II. 3- 127.
172
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
^50 After verbs like KNOW, see, say, etc., the infinitive 'to be' is often omitted in
EL.E., cp. "a grave man whom we had seen of great trust with Plexirtus " Sidney's Ar-
cadia, p. 209 b ; cp. also u I can say no more of myself but [sc. that I am] beloved of my
people" ibid. p. 44. SF 51 PARTICULARS in EL. E. often means 'peculiar characteristics/
cp. "the particulars of future beings must needs be dark unto ancient theories" Browne's
Urn Burial, IV (cited by Cent.
ACT IV SCENE III 5 o-66 ^L^^ded^
grafting] involves a similar
MALCOLME association of ideas. <lr52
It is my selfe I meane: in whom I know open'd seems here to have a
M,i ..1 p , r, 1 double meaning applying to
the particulars of vice so grafted the unfo i ding & an J f develop-
That, when they shall be open'd, blacke ment of the graft and to the
Macbeth disclosure of fault; for the
.„. . 1 1 latter meaning, cp. "It is a
Will seeme as pure as snow, and the poore great wisdom in a prince not
to reject . . them who . . open
to him his misdemeanours to
the commonwealth" Drum-
mond's History of Scotland,
ed. 1654, p. 241. SF54 BEING
COMPAR'D, i.e. when his
misdeeds are compared, an
EL. construction according to
sense rather than grammar.
SF55 CONFINELESSEseems
to be made upon the analogy
of "fineless" and to mean
'limitless'; there is no other
instance of the word given in
N.E.D. MY HARMES, 'in-
juries done by me,' cp. "the
most bloody nursser of his
harmes" I Hen.6 IV. 7. 46.
*ff 56 DIVELL, the form with
i still survives in vulgar Eng-
ln my voluptuousnesse: your wives, your Hsh. In el. literary English
state
Esteeme him as a lambe, being compar'd
With my confinelesse harmes.
MACDUFFE
Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a divell more
damn'd
In evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLME
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitfull,
Sodaine, malicious, smacking of every sinne
That has a name: but there f s no bottome,
none.
the word is frequently a
monosyllable, cp. note to 1.3.
107. "Damned in hell" for
'damned to hell' is common
EL. phraseology illustrating
the use of IN to express the
end of an action, and the FO.
punctuation, with its comma
after "evils," is probably cor-
rect as indicating the relation
of "in evils." SF 57 EVILS
and 'ills 'are the same words, and no distinction was made between the two forms, "evil"
being written where 'ill' was spoken as here. This is not confined to Scotch idiom, as
stated in N.E.D. ; there are numerous instances in literary English. TO TOP: cp. "to
top or over-top one, superare, exuperare" Phr.Gen., and see the note to IV. 1.89; cp.
173
daughters,
Your matrons and your maides, could not
fill up
The cesterne of my lust, and my desire
All continent impediments would ore-beare
That did oppose my will: better Macbeth
Then such an one to reigne.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
also v. 52. BLOODY, 'murderous/ cp. note to III. 1.30. SF58 LUXURIOUS in M.E. and
e. N.E. means 'lecherous/ cp. u thou damned and luxurious mountaine goat" Hen. 5 IV. 4. 20.
FALSE, 'false-hearted/ cp. note to II. 3.143. *ff59 SODAINE is a M.E. and e. N. E. form
of the word that is now ' sudden/ and means ' rash/ ' passionate ' ; cp. " sodaine and quicke
in quarrell" A.Y.L. II. 7. 151, and " How, child of wrath and anger ! theloudlie? For what,
my sodaine boy?" Jonson's Alchemist, IV. 2. 569. There is an extra impulse before
the cassura and the second half-verse begins with a reversal, "smacking of," etc. SF 63
CESTERNE is a l.M.E. and e. N.E. spelling of 'cistern'; in EL. E. the word was commonly
applied to a pool. *ff 64
CONTINENT, 'restraining/ a ACT jy SCENE III 66-84
common EL. meaning 01 the
word, and not an imitation of
the Latin continens as it is
often explained, see N. E. D. 3.
SF65 WILL, 'pleasure/ cp.
note to III. I. 120; in Shak-
spere's time the word was
often used for 'lust.'
MACDUFFE
Boundlesse intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it bath beene
Th f untimely emptying of the happy throne
And fall of many kings. But feare not yet
To take upon you what is yours: you may
temp'rance.' IF 67 nature, Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
'character/'disposition';the A d ld h { SQ
phrase goes with "intern- J T J J
hoodwinke.
We have willing dames enough ; there can-
not be
That vulture in you, to devoure so many
As will to greatnesse dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclinde.
MALCOLME
With this there growes
In my most ill-compos T d affection such
A stanchlesse avarice that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
Desire his jewels and this other's house:
them out before you, that they And my more-having would be as a sawce
mayebeafalluntoyou"Cov- T fc mQ h , m that J should
erdale s version 01 Judges o 7
forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyall,
Destroying them for wealth.
SF 66 INTEMPERANCE, 'in-
perance. A TYRANNY, 'a
sort of usurping power/ cp.
note to III. 6. 23. That this
meaning is involved in "tyr-
anny" is shown by the thought
which follows, 'it empties
thrones'; the figure is of a
piece withthat EL.psychology
of the will referred to in the
note to 1.3. 1 39 ff. IT HATH
is frequently contracted to
"'t hath" in EL. verse, and
probably is so here. *1F 68
THRONE, i.e. of many kings,
the EL. dnb kolvov construc-
tion. SF69 FALL, 'cause of
ruin/ cp. " I wil not dryve
II. 3, and "The tongue of man
is his fall" Authorized Ver-
sion of Eccles.V. 13 (cited in
N.E.D. s.v. 17). YET, 'not-
withstanding/ 'though this is
the case': in MN.E. syntax 'yet' follows immediately after 'but.' SF 7 1 CONVEY, 'carry
on/ with the notion of secrecy, N. E. D. 1 2. In Holinshed (Boswell-Stone, p. 38) Macduff
promises to "convey the matter wiselie." SPACIOUS PLENTY, 'unrestricted license';
Baret glosses 'plentie' by "leave, licence, power." SF 72 TIME, 'the world/ cp. note to
1.5.64. HOODWINKE in Shakspere's time still retained much of its literal meaning,
174
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
* blindfold/ cp. the citation from Cotgrave in note to III. 2.46. *ff 74 The demonstrative
pronoun in EL. E. is sometimes equivalent to ' such a,' ' such,' cp. " that rawnesse " IV. 3- 26,
"these traines" IV. 3. 1 18, and "Crassus . . bought bondmen that were masons, carpenters,
and these devisours and builders" North's Plutarch, p. 597: THAT VULTURE TO here,
therefore, means 'such a vulture as to.' SF 76 WITH THIS, 'in addition to this,' a frequent
meaning of the preposition in e.N.E. SF 77 ILL-COMPOS'D, 'badly compounded,' cp.
N.E.D.4. AFFECTION, ' disposition,' N. E. D. 4. SF 78 " Staunch" is a noun in EL. E. mean-
ing 'that which quenches,' and STANCHLESSE, therefore, a normal compound. SF80
The personal pronoun of the third person was very frequently used indefinitely in EL.
syntax, cp. "Let Amuracke himself or any he the proudest of you all" Greene's Al-
phonsus, 1662. Here it stands for 'one man's.' *ff 8 1 MORE-HAVING is hyphenated in
FO. I. A SAWCE in EL. E. is 'a provocative of appetite' ; this meaning is still retained in
the proverb 'Hunger is the
ACT IV SCENE III 84-90 ^^tLwt
Lady Macbeth's words in III.
MACDUFFE 4.36. <ff82 THAT, 'so that.'
This avarice forge, ' invent,' n.e.d. 4.
Stickes deeper, growes with more pernicious <jp 85 stickes deeper
roote 'has a deeper root,'cp. III. I.
Then summer-seemind lust, and it hath bin ?o. *86 summer-seem-
11 ING : tne wor ds evidently
1 he sword of our slaine kings: yet do not denote the opposite of 'deep-
f eare * rooted': a similar notion is
S,i 1 1 .1 n p. 11 .11 involved in "lest the base
cotland hath foysons to fill up your will earth , § Disdaine to roote
Of your meere owne: all these are portable, the sommer-swellingflowre"
With other draces weirfh'd. TwoGent.n.4.i62 . "Seem"
00 in EL. E. means both 'to ap-
pear' and 'to belong to,' 'to
be suitable to,' and the two notions often blend. Perdita, in Wint.T. IV. 4. 74, says that
rosemary and rue"keepe seeming [i.e. comely appearance] and savour [i.e. fragrance] all
the winter long"; "summer-seeming," therefore, in normal EL. E. suggests a flower that
blooms in the summer-time, i.e. an annual, and has the same meaning as "sommer-swell-
ing," i.e. summer-blooming. The difficulty of the epithet when construed as MN.E. has
given rise to various emendations, chief among which is 'summer-teeming' Theobald, and
'summer-seeding' (d is immediately over m in the EL. type-case) Heath apud Steevens,
1 785 ; these emendations are better than such patches usually are, but so long as " summer-
seeming" gives an apt and intelligible sense we are not justified in improving upon it.
Malone called attention to the lines in Donne's Love's Alchymie: "And as no chymique
[i.e. chemist] yet th' Elixar got, But glorifies his pregnant pot If by the way to him befall
Some oderiferous thing or medicinal [med'cinal], So lovers dreame a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night," i.e. a short night of pleasure that belongs to
winter because of the bitterness which follows (?), ed. 1650, p. 32. Shakspere makes
"summer" stand for 'pleasant' in " If 't be summer newes Smile too 't before: if winterly,
thou need'st But keepe that count'nance stil" Cym.III.4. 12. SF 87 THE SWORD OF OUR
SLAINE KINGS: cp. "for that crime [i.e. avarice] the most part of our kings have beene
slaine and brought to their final end" Holinshed (Boswell-Stone, p. 39). SF 88 FOYSONS
in EL. E. means 'resources,' an extension of its sense of 'strength,' 'power,' N.E.D. 2.
FILL UP, 'satisfy,' cp. N.E.D. s.v. f, and its citation "comes . . to fill up your grace's
request" Merch. IV. 1. 159- WILL, 'pleasure,' 'sensual appetite,' as above, v. 65. SF 89
OF goes with "fill" and means 'with.' MEERE in EL.E. means ' absolute,' cp. v. 152 and
175
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
"a foreign stranger mere" Peele, 'Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes' 1.45 ; the words "meere
owne" have a peculiar fitness when applied to the king's property: "this [i.e. property]
none in our kingdom can be said to have in any lands and tenements, but only the king"
Cowel s.v. * property.' PORTABLE, 'endurable,' see N.E. D. s.v. 'importable' and cp.
Holinshed, ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 38, "mine intemperance should be more importable unto
you than the bloudie tyrannie
ACT IV SCENE III
of Macbeth now is." SF 90
GRACES, 'good qualities,'
1 virtues,' N. E. D. 1 3 b, a com-
mon meaning of the word in
the 1 7th century, cp. "these
graces [i.e. virtues] challenge
[i.e. claim] grace [i.e. favour] "
3Hen.6 IV.8.48.
^92 AS, 'such as/acommon
meaningof theadverbin EL.E.
VERITY, 'faithfulness,' cp.
"his verity in love" A.Y.L.
III. 4. 25. It is syncopated to
'ver'ty.' IF 93 BOUNTY, 'gen-
erosity,' N. E. D. 4. PERSE-
VERANCE and "persever" is
the normal EL. stress, and
not peculiar to Shakspere,
cp. " O lively life that death-
less shall persever" [rhymes
with ever] Collier, 'Lyrical
Poems,' Per. Soc, p. 12, and
"And wilt thou still persever
in thylove" Greene, Orl. Fur.,
488. "Perseverance" is the
stress given by Minsheu : the
word is syncopated to 'per-
sev'rance.' SF94 DEVOTION, 'earnest application,' N. E.D. 5- *ff95 RELLISH OF, not
'taste for,' but 'trace of,' cp. "some acte That has no rellish of salvation in V Ham. III.
3-92; "it smacks of" and "it rellishes of " are common glosses of sapit in EL.E. ABOUND:
cp. "aboundeth in wickednesse" Coverdale's version of Jer. VI. 6, and "to abound . . in
wickedness and vices, abundare nequitia et vitus" Phr. Gen. *ff 96 DIVISION is an EL.
musical term denoting 'the execution of a rapid melodic passage originally conceived as
the dividing of each of a succession of long notes into several short ones' : cp. "the larke
makes sweete division" Rom. &Jul. III. 5-29. Malcolm's vices run the gamut of crime.
SF97 ACTING, 'executing,' cp. note to III.4. 140. The verse is one of six waves. *ff 98
MILKE OP CONCORD: see note to 1.5. 18. SF 99 UPRORE, 'break up in revolution,' cp.
"permiscere Grceciam dictus est, to trouble all Greece and set it in an uprore," and "ttimul-
tuari Gallias comperit, he found that the countreys of France were in an uprore" Cooper,
and "an uproar, tumult, or hurley burley, tumultus, insurrectio" Holyoke. Modern edi-
tors would botch this graphic word into' uptear," uproot," uprear.' UNIVERSALL PEACE
is an EL. phrase for ' world-wide peace ' ; Shakspere uses it also in Ant.&Cl. IV. 6. 5? " The
time of universall peace is neere." CONFOUND, 'bring to naught,' as frequently in EL.E.
SF 100 The passage is a delicate compliment to James I, whose proud boast was that he
had peacefully accomplished the unity of England and Scotland, and whose whole political
endeavour was to establish something like a 'universal peace' among the nations.
176
91-102
MALCOLME
But I have none: the king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temp'rance, stablenesse,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowlinesse,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no rellish of them, but abound
In the division of each severall crime,
Acting it many wayes. Nay, had I powre,
I should
Poure the sweet milke of concord into hell,
Uprore the universall peace, confound
All unity on earth.
MACDUFFE
O Scotland, Scotland!
MALCOLME
If such a one be fit to governe, speake:
I am as I have spoken.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT IV
SCENE III
I02-I 14
SF 104 WITH, 'by.' UNTITLED, the negative of 'titled,' 'having no title,' cp. "False
Duessa now untitled queene," i.e. having no claim to the throne, Spenser's Faerie Queene,
V.9.42. BLOODY SCEPTRED, 'bloodily ruled,' cp. "This royall throne of kings, this
sceptred isle" Rich. 2 II. 1.40. Holinshed's words are :"the wicked tyrant that now reigneth
over you, without anie right or title oppressing you with his most bloudie crueltie." *1F 105
WHOLSOME means both 'prosperous' and 'healthy,' cp. "the tender of a wholesome
weale" Lear 1.4.230, and "like a mildew'd eare Blasting his [i.e. its] wholsom brother"
Ham. III. 4. 64. SFI06 SINCE THAT: in M.E. and e. N.E. particles are frequently
strengthened by 'that'; the idiom is now archaic. TRUEST, 'most rightful,' 'legitimate,'
cp. "the true prince" I Hen. 4 1.2. 173 (though Falstaff is punning on the phrase). <lr 107
An INTERDICTION in Scot-
tish law isa restraint imposed
upon a person incapable of
managing his own affairs on
account of unsoundness of
mind, improvidence, etc., cp.
Scottish Acts of James VI,
1597, c. 118: "That the per-
son at quhais instance the
other is interdicted or inhibite
produce the said interdiction
and inhibition to the clerke of
the shire" N.E.D. 'interdict' 2.
This is another illustration of
By his owne interdiction stands accus d, Shakspere's wide legal know-
ledge. Modern editors, in-
cluding those of the Cam-
bridge text, unaware of this
legal sense of 'interdiction,'
and supposing the word to
have a religious signification,
have adopted the "accurst"
Dy'de everyday she liv'd. Fare thee well! of fos. 2, 3, etc., for the"ac-
cust " of FO. I, which seems
to be an anomalous spelling
of 'accus'd,' due to s coming
in contact with the participial
ending; in EL. E. the word
1 hy hope ends heere ! means 'revealed in true char-
acter,' N.E.D. 6. «ff 108 BLAS-
PHEME was used in EL. E. in the sense of 'slander,' 'speak great evil of,' N.E.D. 3; the
sense still survives in MN.E., but not in such a connection as here. BREED, 'breeding,'
'ancestry,' N.E.D. 2 b. *ff 109 SAINTED, 'saint-like,' 'holy,' cp. "This outward sainted
deputie . . is yet a divell " Meas. III. 1 . 89- FO. I hyphenates " sainted-king," why it is not
easy to explain. SF 1 1 1 DY'DE EVERY DAY SHE LIV'D: Shakspere evidently remem-
bered St. Paul's words, "I die daily" I Cor. XV. 31. LIV'D : the inflectional ending of
weak verbs in EL. E. still retained in many instances its M.E. syllabic force, cp. "Who with
a taper walked in a sheete" Drayton, Sp. Soc, I. 288, and "Whenas myne eyes I raked
out with pawes" Newton, 'Thebais,' Sp. Soc, 1.92, and "And seemed to disswade the
hand" ibid.} so "he look-ed," "I dream-ed," "I procur-ed," and such forms occur con-
stantly in EL. poetry. "Lived" is dissyllabic in Cees. III. I. 257 (cited by Williams and
Dyce). But the FO.'S "liv'd" makes a verse of the type illustrated in v. 28. *¥ 1 1 2 EVILS,
1 sins,' ' vices,' a common meaning in EL. E. ; cp. N. E. D. 5 and the citation from ' The Mir-
177
MACDUFFE
Fit to govern !
No, not to live. O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant bloody sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholsome dayes
againe,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
his owne interdiction stands accus'd,
And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royall
father
Was a most sainted king: the queene that
bore thee,
Oftner upon her knees then on her feet,
r 'de every day she liv'd. Fare thee well !
These evils thou repeat'st upon thy selfe
Hath banish'd me from Scotland. O my
brest,
hope ends heere!
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ror for Magistrates/ " King Edwardes evils all wer counted mine." UPON as denoting the
thing effected by the action has a wider range of usage in EL. E. than in MN.E., see v. 13 1 ;
M do good upon one " and u do
ACT IV SCENE III
harm upon one" are common
idioms in Shakspere. The
notion in REPEAT is probably
that of 'reiterating charges.'
SF 113 BREST : see note to v. 2.
SFII6 SCRUPLES, 'doubts/
as in II. 3. 135. THOUGHTS,
'purposes'; the verse is one
of six waves. SF 1 18 THESE,
'such as these/ cp. note to
v.74. TRAINES, 'tricks/ cp.
"And all her traynes and all
her treasons forth did lay"
Spenser's Faerie Queene,
V. 9- 47, and "train, a trap
or wheedle" Kersey. SF 1 19
MODEST, 'sober/ cp. "men
modest or moderate enough,
homines satis frugi ac sobrii"
Phr. Gen. PLUCKES ME,
i.e. holds me back, SF 120
CREDULOUS : the u had not
yet become iu as in MN. E.,
and the word was subject to
syncopation, cp. "mirac'lous"
in v. 147. SF 122 PUT TO,
'confide in/ cp. " I 'le put My
fortunes to your service"
Wint.T. 1.2.439- SF 123 UN-
SPEAKE, 'to speak the con-
trary of/ like "unsay"; cp.
"she wishedtounknowewhat
she knewe" Sidney's Arca-
dia, 260b. SF 124 BLAMES,
I 14-137
MALCOLME
Macduff, this noble passion,
Childe of integrity, hath from my soule*
Wip'd the blacke scruples, reconciFd my
thoughts
To thy good truth and honor. Divellish
Macbeth
By many of these traines hath sought to win
me
Into his power, and modest wisedome pluckes
me
From over-credulous hast: but God above
Deale betweene thee and me ! For even now
I put my selfe to thy direction, and
Unspeake mine owne detraction, heere abjure
The taints and blames I laide upon my selfe,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet
Unknowne to woman, never was forsworne,
Scarsely have coveted what was mine owne,
At no time broke my faith, would not betray
The devill to his fellow and delight
No lesse in truth then life: my first false
speaking
'charges," accusations/ a f re- Was this upon my selfe : what I am truly,
Is thine and mypoore countries to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy heere approach,
Old Sey ward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a. point, was setting foorth.
Now wee ? 1 together; and the chance of
goodnesse
Be like our warranted quarrell ! Why are
you silent?
quent meaning of the word in
M. E.ande. N. E., see N. E. D. 2.
SFI25 NATURE, 'character.'
SFI3I TRULY, 'really/ 'ac-
cording to nature/ cp. "ef-
figies . . Most truly limn'd"
A. Y. L. II. 7. 193. SFI33
THY : apparently misprinted
"they" in FO.I. HEERE AP-
PROACH: such compounds
are frequent in EL. E., cp
"heere remaine" v. 148, and
"before breach" Hen. 5 IV. 1. 179. SFI34 OLD SEYWARD is Holinshed's phraseology;
the epithet does not savour of disrespect in EL. E., but is tantamount to ' senior.' SF 1 35 AT
178
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
A POINT, i.e. ready; "at point" is a common EL. phrase, cp. "all at point to die with
violent laughter" Chapman's Odyssey, XVIII. 140; the indefinite article is unusual, but
Halliwell cites two instances from EL. literature, and CI. Pr. quotes Florio's definition
"essere in punto, to be in a readinesse, to be at a point." FOORTH : a M.E. lengthening
of o + r followed by a consonant was still preserved in EL. E., probably with the sound u,
giving such spellings as "foorth," "woorth," "woord," etc. <lr 1 36 WEE'L, 'we'll go,'
with the usual omission of the verb of motion. CHANCE OF GOODNESSE has been much
discussed, and there are at least eight emendations recorded, for the most part lame and
impotent conclusions, based upon a lack of familiarity with Elizabethan idiom. But the
N. E. D. shows that " goodnesse " in M. E. and e.N. E. had the sense of ' advantage,' ' profit,'
passing into 'prosperity,' 'good fortune,' 'good success' ; cp. its citation from Coverdale,
1 550, " After trouble and adversite foloweth al maner of goodnes and felicite." This mean-
ing is a natural inference from "God send you good of it, feliciter tibi cedat" Baret's
Alvearie ; "much good do 't you" was a common EL. phrase. In Rich, 2 II. 1. 212 \iork
says, "What will ensue heereof there's none can tell, But by bad courses may be under-
stood That their events can never fall out good." The same meaning occurs in the FO.
text of Rich. 3 1.4. 194, " I charge you, as you hope for any goodnesse" (the Quarto reads :
"to have redemption"); so"blisse and goodnesse on you" Meas. III. 2. 228. But another
interpretation is possible by taking "of goodnesse" as a limiting genitive in the sense of
'rightfulness,' 'right and justice,' as used in IV.3-33- In either case Malcolm's words
mean 'May our chance of good success be as sure as our cause is just,' i.e. May God
defend the right I SF 137 WAR-
ACT IV SCENE III 138-145 £^t^£*jE
and justice, with also the lit-
MACDUFFE . eral sense of the word which
Such welcome and unwelcom things at once is now borne by its by-form
r m . i i , .i ° 'guarantee.' OUR QUAR-
T IS hard tO reconcile. RELL,' my cause,' 'my claim,'
ENTER A DOCTOR cp. "The quarrell of a true
MALCOLME inheritor" 2Hen.4 IV 5. 169.
XYr n Malcolm unconsciously uses
Well, more anon. the ma j es ty plural.
TO DOCTOR
Comes the kind forth, I pray you? *Wforth, 'abroad,' 'in
* 1 u 1/ public, an EL. meaning or the
DOCTOR adverb now obsolete. *1FI4I
I, sir; there are a crew of wretched soules CREWinEL.E.didnotalways
m, 1 . ,1 11 . have the derogatory sense that
That stay his cure; their malady convinces it has now e | cep / in phrases
The great assay of art; but at his touch — like 'boat's crew'; here it
Such sanctity hath heaven diven his hand— ™ e r a " s <com P a "y of people.'
J . , O < fl : I42 STAY, 'wait for,' as in
1 hey presently amend. in. 5. 35. convinces, 'de-
feats,' i.e. will not yield to ;
the word in EL. E. also means ' to demonstrate anything to be erroneous,' cp. N. E. D. 6, and
the meaning here may be 'demonstrates as ineffectual.' SF 143 GREAT ASSAY: "assay"
means 'effort' or 'attempt,' N. E. D. I, and "great" is used in its EL. sense of 'mighty,'
'powerful,' cp. "great tyranny" v. 32. ART, 'professional skill,' cp. IV. I.IOI and "work
in which they have . . used a great deal of art" Moxon, 'Mechanick Exercises' (cited in
N. E. D. 4). 4 144 Fault has been found with SANCTITY, and Theobald proposed ' sanity,'
evidently supposing that the word meant 'healing power'; but no trace of this meaning
has as yet been found in EL. E. The word seems to be here used in the sense of ' miraculous
179
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
power'; Purchas, 'Pilgrimage' V.3I0, speaking of "soules or persons" supposed to be
"begotten of the Holy Spirit," says that they are held in "such reputation" that "if their
haires be laid upon any they say that their sicknesses are cured," and goes on to cite a
particular instance in the words "In this reputation of sanctitie they have a certaine old
woman," etc. Here the notion involved in the word "sanctity" is the same as that im-
plied by Shakspere, viz. 'miracle-working power.' SF 145 PRESENTLY, 'immediately,'
the usual meaning of the word in e. N.E. ; cp. "with this knife I 'le helpe it presently"
Rom.&Jul. IV. 1.54. AMEND,
SCENE III
not 'improve,' as in MN.E., 1 p/y j\r
but 'recover,' N.E. D. 6 b. Al ^ X 1V
145-159
SF 146 EVILL in M.E. and
e.N.E. had the meaning of
'disease,' 'malady'; in this
sense it is recorded in N.E. D.
as late as 1725. The "king's
evil " was one of a number of
compounds like "foul evil,"
"falling evil," and described
various scrofulous affections.
"The evil" itself thus came
to designate scrofula, which
was a common affection, be-
yond "the great assay of art,"
in the 1 5th and 1 6th centuries.
The power of the king to heal
this disease by laying on of
hands was popularly traced
to Edward the Confessor,
and was from time to time
asserted by the Plantagenet
and Stuart kings. James I,
during the early years of his
reign, revived public inter-
est in the matter, expressing
his fears that he might be
considered superstitious in
following the practice of his
predecessors. The king, how-
ever,compromised by ascrib-
ing the potent effects of the
royal touch to the efficacy
of prayer. This was in the
latter part of 1603, see Gar-
MALCOLME
I thanke you, doctor.
EXIT
MACDUFFE
What's the disease he meanes?
MALCOLME
'T is calPd the evill:
A most myraculous worke in this good king;
Which often, since my heere remaine in
England,
I have seene him do. How he solicites
heaven,
Himselfe best knowes: but strangely visited
people,
All swolne and ulcerous, pittifull to the eye,
The meere dispaire of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stampe about their neckes,
Put on with holy prayers: and f t is spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange
vertue,
He hath a heavenly guift of prophesie,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speake him full of grace.
diner's History of England,
I. 152. Shakspere seems pointedly to refer to this peculiar explanation in "How he
solicites heaven, Himselfe best knowes," and in speaking of the power as a "healing
benediction," so that the passage must have been written when James's public declara-
tion was fresh in the public mind, say 1605 or 1 606, and not in "after years," as Gar-
diner assumes, when this peculiar interpretation had been forgotten. 9f 147 MYRAC-
ULOUS, 'mirac'lous,' see v. 120. SF 148 HEERE REMAINE: cp. v. 133; so "their often
meeting" Jonson, ' Sejanus,' 1 640, p. 335, and "the often harmonie" Drayton, ' Barrons
Warres.' SF 149 I HAVE: probably contracted to "I've." SOLICITES, 'wins the favour of,'
180
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
cp. "to solicite men's minds and entice them with brybes" Cooper, and the similar notion
involved in the use of the word in 1.3. 130. <ffl50 HIMSELFE: see note to III. 1.5.
VISITED was probably shortened to 'vis'ted'; the word was widely used in EL. E. in
the sense of 'afflicted/ and "visiting" is still found in the Bible in the sense of 'visi-
tation' or 'infliction of evil.' SFI5I PITTIFULL is likewise syncopated, cp. III. 2. 47.
SFI52 MEERE, 'absolute,' 'utter,' cp. note to v. 89. *ff 153 STAMPE is an EL. word for
'coin,' cp. "I found thee of more valew Then stampes in gold" Merry W. III.4. 15. The
coin hung about the necks of those touched for the 'evil' was the angel of about ten shil-
lings value and known as "evil-gold," N.E. D. 6. Charles II had a special coin made for
the ceremony, which came to be known as a "touch-piece." < ff 154 HOLY PRAYERS:
the form of prayer used on these occasions was inserted in the prayer-book in 1684 and
remained until 1 7 1 9 (CI. Pr.). SPOKEN, 'currently reported,' cp. "there's wondrous
things spoke of him" Cor. II. 1. 152. *ff 1 56 WITH, 'in addition to,' as frequently in
EL. E. VERTUE in M.E. and e. N.E. meant 'power,' cp. "knowing in himselfe that vertue
had gone out of him" Mark V.3-30. SF 157 GUIFT: Baret laments the lack of a letter
"to sound like gamma 11 ; "for in spelling and reading we sound g before e and i after
another sorte then we do before a, o, or u"; this lack was often supplied by gu in EL.
writing, and the device is still current in MN.E. 'guess' (M.E. "gesse") and 'guilt' (M.E.
"gilt"), etc. The GUIFT OF PROPHESIE may be a covert reference to James's fondness
for theological discussion : after the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 it was commonly
remarked that "His majesty spoke by inspiration of the Spirit of God," and Ellesmere
quoted the legal maxim l^ex est mixta persona cum sacerdote. The words, however,
are primarily due to Holins-
ACT IV SCENE III 159-I63 ^PSTw^St
DnQQ . Stone, p. 40) — that Edward
ENTER ROSSE tne Confessor, besides his gift
MACDUFFE G f touch fortheking'sevil, was
See, who COmeS beere? inspired with the gift of pro-
MALCOLMS f he 7' '158 blessings,
wv^v^w *-, 'evidences of divine favour,
My countryman; but yet I know him not. cp. "eminence, wealth, sover-
MACDUFFE *%*"?> Whi ch, to say sooth,
., . . 111 are blessings" Hen.8 II.3.29.
My ever gentle cozen, welcome hither! SF159 speake, 'prove,' cp.
MALCOLME "HowethisgraceSpeakeshis
T 1 , . r> 1 r* 1 1 .. ownestandin^"TimonI.I.30.
1 know him now. Uood Lxod, betimes remove
The meanes that makes us strangers! ^160 From Malcolm's ex-
np»ccp planationof his wordsin v. 162
it would seem that he does
bir, amen ! not know whether Rosse is
to be trusted or not — the
enemies of Macbeth do not "know themselves." Other interpretations are that Malcolm
fails to recognize Rosse because of the distance (Delius), and that he fails to recognize
him because of his long absence from Scotland (Furness) : the first quite ignores Mal-
colm's own explanation ; the second gives "makes us strangers" the slightly forced mean-
ing of ' has kept me away from Scotland.' *1F 1 6 1 GENTLE, ' courteous,' ' noble,' cp. note
to III. 2. 27. Macduff's hearty welcome of Rosse carries us back to their last meeting,
Act II, Scene IV, and tells us that Rosse is no longer on the side of Macbeth as well as
reassures Malcolm of his fidelity. SF 1 63 MEANES: cp. note to II. 4. 29. MAKES US
STRANGERS, 'causes us to act in such an unnatural way,' 'makes us suspicious of one an-
other,' cp. Macbeth's "you make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe" 1 1 1. 4- 1 12.
181
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT IV
SCENE III
164-173
In this passage, as in the former one and in Ado II. 3-49? the words carry the notion of
'suspicions.' SIR, probably the majesty 'sir,' cp. note to III. 4. 129.
SF 165 KNOW IT SELFE, 'acknowledge what it really is,' cp. "know yourself, consider
what you are, in re descendas" Phr. Gen. ; the M.E. sense 'confess," acknowledge,' N. E.D.3b,
was probably still impliedly present in many of the idiomatic uses of the word. Rosse car-
rieson Malcolm's notion of 'knowing.' *ff 1 66 WHERE, 'for in Scotland' ; in EL. E. "where"
is often used like the connec-
tive relative. NOTHING does
not mean 'nobody' as it has
been interpreted, but the con-
struction is arrb kolvov 1 for
SMILE in v. 167 has its EL.
meaning of 'prosper' as v^ell
as that of MN.E. 'smile':
i.e. 'where nothing prospers
and no one smiles but he
who knows nothing.' *lrl68
RENT is a e. N. E. verb mean-
ing 'to tear/usually replaced in
MN.E. by ' rend'; cp. "rent-
ing his face with his nayles"
Cooper. SF 169 MADE: to
make a groan, a sigh, a shriek,
etc., are idiomatic EL. locu-
tions in which the verb is
now replaced by 'utter'; cp.
Schmidt s.v. ' make,' and " he
made a groan at it" Per. IV.
2. 117. SF 170 MODERNEin
EL. E. often means 'com-
monplace,' cp. "which mod-
erne lamentation might have
mov'd" Rom.&Jul. III. 2. 120
(cited by Delius), and 'That
were no modern conse-
quence' Jonson's Poetaster.
EXTASIE,as is shown by "violent," has much the same meaning as in III. 2. 22, i.e. fit of
mad passion. Rosse says that no more importance is attached to it than to the ravings
of delirium. DEADMAN'S is a compound word in EL. E., often hyphenated and often, as
here, printed as one word, with the stress deadman's; it survives in certain place-names,
see N. E. D. s.v. and cp. "the strait passe was damm'd with deadmen" Cym. V.3- 1 1, there
cited. " Sickeman," found in Vicary, E. E. T. S., p. 1 6, seems to be another such compound.
SF 171 FOR WHO is one of those bold locutions which, while violating the rules of gram-
mar, logically reflect normal development of language: cp. III. 1.25. One of these is
still preserved in the colloquial idiom "Who have we here?" GOOD, 'brave,' cp. note
to 1.2.4. SF 172 Shakspere probably refers to the custom of decorating the bonnet
with sprigs of holly, broom, etc., assumed as badges of the various Scottish clans ; cp.
Planche, ' British Costume' p. 176. EXPIRE: it must be remembered that a 'vegetative
soul' as well as an 'emimal soul' played an important part in the biology of Shakspere's
time; cp. 'The common division of the soul is into three principal faculties, vegetal,
sensitive, and rational, which makes three distinct kinds of living creatures, vegetal
plants, sensible beasts, rational men. . . Necessary concomitants or affections of this
182
MACDUFFE
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSSE
Alas, poore countrey,
Almost affraid to know it selfe! It cannot
Be caird our mother, but our grave; where
nothing
But who knowes nothing is once seene to
smile;
Where sighes and groanes and shrieks that
, rent the ayre
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow
seemes
A moderne extasie: the deadman's knell
Is there scarse ask'd for who; and good
men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
vegetal faculty are life and death/ etc., Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' 1. 1.25. Herbert, 1634,
reflects the same notion in " Palmeto . . is a soft pith in which consists the soule and vege-
tative virtue of that tree, which cut out the tree expires" (cited in N. E.D. 'expire' 5 b).
Shakspere's " expire," therefore, and "sicken," below, are applicable to both plants and
men. *ff 1 73 OR ERE, 'even
ACT IV SCENE III
173-180
MACDUFFE
Oh, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLME
What's the newest griefe?
ROSSE
That of an houres age doth hisse the speaker :
Each minute teemes a new one.
MACDUFFE
How does my wife?
ROSSE
r , well.
MACDUFFE
And all my children?
ROSSE
Well too.
MACDUFFE
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
ROSSE
No; they were wel at peace when I did
leave 'em.
MACDUFFE
Be not a niggard of your speech : how goes r t?
before,' a doubled form of
"ere" current in M.E. and
e.N.E., and often confused
with " or e'er," the contracted
form of 'or ever.'
*ffl73 OH: the distinction
between "Oh" and "O" is
not made in EL. printing.
RELATION, 'report,' as fre-
quently in EL. E. ; cp. " I will
believe thee and make my
senses credite thy relation"
Per. V.I. 123. SF 174 NICE,
'accurate,' with the notion
of 'fanciful,' 'sophisticated.'
Macduff alludes to Rosse's
flower metaphor. Rosse's
Why well. fondness for poetic and grace-
ful verbiage is evident all
through the play; cp. Act I,
Sc. Ill, Act II, Sc. IV, etc.
Though he rarely appears
in the play, Shakspere con-
trivestoimpressusso sharply
with his character that Mac-
duff's epithet, "ever gentle,"
i.e. always courteous, always
a gentleman, seems to fit him
exactly. For WHAT'S 'what
is' may have been intended,
making the verse one of six
waves. The FO. prints Oh
. . true as one verse. NEW-
EST, 'latest,' cp. note to 1.2.3.
<1F 175 OF AN HOURES AGE:
cp. "but of a minute old " Cym. II. 5-31- HISSE : the idiom is now usually 'hiss at,' see
N.E.D. s.v. SPEAKER, 'reporter,' cp. note to v. 154. SF 176 TEEMES, 'gives birth to,'
cp. "The earth obey'd and strait Op'ning her fertile woomb teem'd at a birth Innumerous
living creatures" Milton, 'Paradise Lost' VII. 454. H 177 CHILDREN : three syllables,
cp. note to 1.5.40. SF 178 BATTER'D AT, 'laid siege to,' cp. "batter, to play upon with
ordnance " Baret's Alvearie. Macduff is thinking of his family as protected by the defences
of his strong castle. It 179 WEL AT PEACE: the truth of Rosse's equivocal answer de-
pends upon the fact that "well" is used euphemistically in EL. E. of the dead ; cp. "we use
To say [i.e. are in the habit of saying] the dead are well" Ant. &C1. II. 5. 32 (cited by Steevens).
"At peace" is still so used in MN.E., but not "well." *1F 180 Macduff's suspicions are
aroused by the brevity of Rosse's answers, cp. "niggard of question" Ham. III. 1. 13.
*1F 181 TRANSPORT in EL. E. is used of carrying news, messages, terms, etc. ; cp. "Which
183
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
[i.e. the terms] . . shall be transported presently to France" lHen.6 V. I - 39 T an d "Might
not you transport her purposes by word?" Lear IV. 5- 19- SFI82 HEAVILY: cp. u hcec
tristia dicta reportat, he bringeth this heavie aunswere" Cooper. The word is probably
syncopated to 'heav'ly': "easly" is a constantly recurring form of 'easily' in EL. texts.
«JF 183 WORTHY in M.E. means 'able/ 'strong/ 'possessing power or wealth/ and much
of this earlier meaning clung
to the word in Shakspere's ACTIV SCENE III 181 - 195
time. OUT r 'awaytrom home/
a common meaning of the d/^ccc
adverb in EL. E. ; this usage ROSSE
easily passed into 'under When I came hither to transport the tydings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a
arms,' like our MN.E. 'up
'out in '45/ £•£• i n the Jacobite
rebellion of 1745, still pre-
serves this sense of the word,
as does also 'call out the mi-
litia.' SF 184 WITN EST, 'at-
tested/ still preserved in the
phrase 'witnesseth his hand
and seal' THE RATHER
. . FOR THAT, 'the more
strongly because/ cp. " Let
me aske The rather for I
now must make you know"
Meas.I.4.2I. <ff 185 POWER,
'troops/ an association of
ideas like that in the Latin
copia: cp. v. 236. SF 186
TIME OF HELPE seems to
mean 'opportunity for mili-
tary aid to be sent' ; "helpe"
in EL. E. sometimes means
'allies/ cp. " Now if the helpe
of Norfolke and my selfe . .
Will but amount to five and
twenty thousand" 3Hen.6 II.
1. 178 (cited in N. E. D. 3 b).
EYE, 'presence/ cp. "she . .
is banish'd from your eye"
Temp. II. I. 126, and "We
shall expresse our dutie in his
eye" Ham. IV. 4. 6. InN.E.'D.
the word is said to occur with
this sense only in phrases, but
Shakspere seems here to use
rumour
Of many worthy fellowes that were out;
Which was to my beleefe witnest the rather
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
Now is the time of helpe; your eye in
Scotland
Would create soldiours, make our women
fight,
To doffe their dire distresses.
MALCOLME
Bee f t their comfort
We are comming thither: gracious England
hath
Lent us good Seyward and ten thousand
men;
An older and a better souldier none
That Christendome gives out.
ROSSE
Would I could answer
This comfort with the like! But I have
words
That would be howl'd out in the desert ayre,
Where hearing should not latch them.
it absolutely. IF 188 DOFFE
(i.e. do off), 'put away/ N.E.D. 3- 189 ENGLAND, 'the King of England/ cp. v. 43- SF 191
NONE, 'there is none/ the EL. omission of subject and predicate with the syntax noted in
v. 50. IF 192 GIVES OUT is still used in this sense of 'report.' SF 195 LATCH is an
e.N.E. word for 'catch': in Sonn. CXIII the eye is said to latch a form; cp. also "By
hearing we know one sound from another, for a sound . . latch'd by the outward eare . .
is conveyed to the inbred aire [i.e. ear — an interesting commentary on the possibility
of "shag-ear'd" being a mistake for 'shag-hair'd' in IV. 2. 83]" Comenius's Janua, 330.
184
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT IV
SCENE III
195-210
<ff 1 95 It is possible that WHAT CONCERNE THEY THE GENERALL CAUSE is the
first member of a double question, since WHAT is frequently used in EL. E. as an untrans-
latable interrogative particle
without pronominal force and
practically equivalent to the
Latin ne. Sometimes this EL.
'what' is understood by the
modern editor as a particle of
exclamation expressing sur-
prise : one of these occurs in
Ham. 1. 1. 19, " What is Hora-
tio there?" where there can
be no surprise felt by the
speaker, who is expecting
Horatio. But as FO. I prints
a commaafterTHEY themod-
ern punctuation is here fol-
lowed. SF 196 FEE-GRIEFE
seems to be made upon the
analogy of " fee-farm" (cp.
Tro.&Cr. III. 2. 53), "fee-
buck," " fee-penny," etc.,
where "fee" denotes a grant
for some particular service.
Macduff jokingly says, * Who
is so fortunate as to deserve
this special favour?' SF 197
The omitted subject and pred-
icate again: 'There is no
honest heart but has a share
in the woe which I shall tell,'
referring to Macduff's "gen-
erall cause." <lr 202 POS-
SESSE, 'make owner of,' a
sense of the word now some-
what rare. SF 203 HUMH!
Modern editors print 'hum ! '
which N.E. D. gives as a by-
form of 'humph'; but the
latter form dates from 1 68 1,
and the meaning, 'doubt or
dissatisfaction,' does not at all
fit this passage. " Humh" is
probably the modern inter-
jection of despair that is not
represented in the literary
language, but is a sound made
by a groan of anguish, a re-
laxed vocal utterance with
labial or nasal colouring ac-
cording as the lips are closed
or left open at the end of it : quite different from the short grunt of dissatisfaction ex-
pressed by 'humph!' The same interjection occurs in Oth. V. 2.36, u Oth. Humh! ©es.
185
MACDUFFE
What concerne they?
The generall cause? or is it a fee-griefe
Due to some single brest?
ROSSE
No minde that's honest
But in it shares some woe ; though the maine
part
Pertaines to you alone.
MACDUFFE
If it be mine
Keepe it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSSE
Let not your eares dispise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possesse them with the heaviest
sound
That ever yet they heard.
MACDUFFE
Humh! I guesse at it.
ROSSE
Your castle is surpriz'd ; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were on the quarry of these murther'd deere
To adde the death of you.
MALCOLME
Mercifull heaven!
What, man! ne re pull your hat upon your
browes ;
Give sorrow words: the griefe that does not
speake
Whispers the o're-fraught heart and bids it
breake.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
And yet I feare you: for you're fatall then When your eyes rowle so." SF 205 MAN-
NER: cp. "she is dead and by strange manner" Cass. IV. 3- 189- SF 206 QUARRY, 'heap
of slaughtered game/ cp. note to 1.2. 14. SF 207 DEATH OF YOU, 'your own death' :
the prepositional form of the genitive is frequently used in EL. E. where MN.E. prefers
the adjective pronoun. One of these idioms is still preserved in 'it will be the death of
me.' SF 208 Shakspere so frequently describes gestures and action in his dialogue that
we can almost see the play as we read it. Pulling the hat over the brows seems to have
been in his time a mark of desperation, cp. "with your hat penthouse like ore the shop of
your eies" L.L.L. III. 1. 17, and "How melancholly doth he sit with his hat like a pent-
house over the shop of his eyes" Poor Robin's Hue and Cry after Honey (cited from
Halliwell's note on the L.L.L. passage). SF 209 SPEAKE in EL. E. rhymes with BREAKE,
cp. note to 1. 1.6. SF2I0 WH I SPERS,' whispers to,' cp. "whisper her eare and tell her" Ado
III. I. 4. O'RE-FRAUGHT,
ACT IV SCENE III
'over-freighted,' 'over-laden.'
Collier thought that Shak-
spere had in mind a couplet of
Florio's translating Seneca's
"curce leves loquuntur, in-
gentes stupent" Montaigne's
Essays, 1.2, viz. "light cares
can freely speake, G reat cares
heart rather breake." But the
expression may have been
proverbial ; it occurs several
times couched in varying
phraseology in Bodenham's
Belvedere.
<1F2I2 I MUST, etc., i.e. I
had to be absent; "must" is
originally a past tense. SF2I3
I HAVE SAID, 'I said so,' is
an instance of an absolute
use of 'say' now obsolete.
It occurs in Ant.&Cl. III. 2.
34; cp. also "You have said,
but whether wisely or no let
the forrest judge" A.Y.L.
III. 2. 129. "Thou hast sayd,"
the Authorized translation of
gv tmnc [i.e. you have said
so] in Matt. XXVI. 64, pre-
serves the same phrase, and
is idiomatic EL. E., not a
G recism. SF 2 1 4 US, i.e. for ourselves, the reflexive use of the personal pronoun. *ff 2 1 5
CURE, 'assuage' ; it must be remembered that "cure" in EL. E. means 'to treat with the
purpose of healing,' and not necessarily to succeed in the treatment as it does in MN.E.,
cp. N.E.D. 3 and "To cure, to heale, to help, medico', loathing of meat is eased and
cured with some bitter thing, cibi satietas atque fastidium subamara aliqua re relevatur"
Baret's Alvearie. Malcolm's words "cure" and "deadly" are therefore not necessarily
contradictory. DEADLY, 'killing,' 'mortal,' as usually in EL. E. IF 21 6 It has been the
subject of much dispute whether Macduff means that Macbeth has no children and there-
fore cannot feel the bitterness of a father's revenge, or simply remarks that Malcolm is
186
21 I —219
MACDUFFE
My children, too?
ROSSE
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
MACDUFFE
And I must be from thence!
My wife kil'd too?
ROSSE
I have said.
MALCOLME
Be comforted:
Let T s make us med'cines of our gjreat revenue.
To cure this deadly greefe.
MACDUFFE
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their damme
At one fell swoope?
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
too young to understand the depth of a father's grief. But it is hardly likely that the
ordinary reader of Shakspere would have hesitated to refer Macduff's words to Macbeth,
coming as they do after Malcolm's suggestion of a bitter revenge and followed as they
are by the epithet M hell-kite," if Shakspere editors had not suggested the difficulty. For
Macduff to pause between these two thoughts and turn to Rosse with the artificial remark
that Malcolm has no children might be a 'literary' touch, but is surely not a human one.
Even had he done so, the audience would have to know beforehand that Rosse was a
father too in order to make Macduff's turn to him for sympathy at all natural, and the
audience has had no means of being sure of this. That Macbeth has a son according to
one of the Scottish traditions does not interfere with Shakspere's making him childless
here ; and even if there were such a tradition in Holinshed, Shakspere need not have used
it. He has prepared for such a situation as this by Macbeth's bitter speech about the
"barren scepter" and the "unlineall hand," showing the deep yearning for fatherhood in
the man and thus making us realize how terrible Macduff's revenge would have been had
not fate put it beyond his power to wreak it. Macduff's thought is not that Malcolm
cannot understand his grief (Malcolm's 'deadly' is clear enough evidence to the con-
trary), but that no revenge on
ACT IV
SCENE III
220-229
MALCOLME
Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFFE
I shall do so;
But I must also feele it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven
looke on,
And would not take their part? Sinfull
Macduff,
They were all strooke for thee ! Naught that
I am,
Not for their owne demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their soules. Heaven rest
them now!
MALCOLME
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let
griefe
Convert to anger: blunt not the heart, en-
rage it.
on thy account. NAUGHT,
'wicked,' a common EL. meaning of the word that is preserved with weakened force in
MN.E. 'naughty'; cp. "crooked, shrewd, evill, naught, pravus ; naughtie and horrible,
nefastum et dirum" Baret's Alvearie. SF 229 CONVERT TO, 'change its nature and be-
come,' a meaning of the phrase current in the 1 6th and 1 7th centuries, cp. N.E.D. II e.
187
Macbeth can be adequate to
assuage it. *ff 218 DAMME,
'mother,' in EL. E. is not re-
stricted to quadrupeds as it
is in MN.E., cp. the citation
fromTopsell, 1 607, in N. E. D. :
"the duckling the first day
[can] swim in the water with
his dam."
^220 DISPUTE, 'oppose,'
'strive against,' N. E.D. 6 ; in
EL. E. the word was not re-
stricted to argumentation.
The sentence stress is " I
shall do so," cp. also 1 1 .4. 1 8 :
similar stress is still some-
times heard in colloquial Eng-
lish. *ff 225 STROOKE is the
EL. form of the participle be-
fore its u was shortened to
u and developed to a as in
MN.E. In EL. E. the word
was used of 'smiting by a
mysterious power,' cp. "I
shall meet him like a basilisk
and strike him" Fletcher's
False One, IV. 2 (cited in
Cent. Diet.). MN.E.' strick-
en " still retains a shade of
this meaning. FOR THEE, i.e.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
by its entry in proper place
in EL. dictionaries with melos
as a gloss, as, e.g., in Holyoke
and Coles; cp. also "a won-
der to her time, in which she
did nothing out of time "
Grisell,'ed. Per.Soc,
'The motions of the
spheres are out of time "
Massinger's Roman Actor
(cited by Delius) ; " Some few
lines set unto a solemn time"
Fletcher'sFalseOne,I.2 ;and
" I must fit all these times or
there's no music" Middle
SF232 INTERMISSION, 'respite/ cp. "They . . Afresh with conscious terrors vex me
round That rest -or intermission none I find" 'Paradise Lost' 11.802 (cited in N.E.D.).
SF 233 FIEND in EL.E. carries with it the notion of 'monster' as well as of 'demon.' *TF 235
TIME, 'tune, "measure' : the
Cambridge text and all mod- ACT jy SCENE III 230-240
ern editors assume that the '
word is a misprint for 'tune.'
But "time" is an EL. word MACDUFFE
for 'tune,' as is clearly shown Q, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue ! But, gentle
heavens.
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and my selfe;
'PatientGrisell/ed.Per.Soc, Within my sword's length set him; if he
p. 15; "The motions of the
scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
MALCOLME
This time goes manly.
Come, go we to the king ; our power is ready ;
ton's Chaste Maid, 11. 3 (cited Our lacke is nothing but our leave : Macbeth
in Cent. Diet.). In Ham. in. \ s ripe f or shaking, and the powres above
I. 166 the QOS. all read t-» 1 • • . r> 1
"Like sweet bells jangled out Put on their instruments. Receive what
of time," which the fos. cheere you may:
change to "out of tune" and j^ . { h f ^^ ^ ,
modern editors improve into 00 J
'Like sweet bells jangled; EXEUNT
out of tune and harsh.' In
Tw.N. II. 3. 100 "time" seems to have the same meaning as here, but has been allowed
to stand by most modern editors. It is apparent from these illustrations that the dis-
tinction between melody and rhythm was not sharply drawn in EL.E., and in view of this
it is best to let the "time" of FO. I remain in the text. MANLY: in EL.E. adjectives end-
ing in -ly are used as adverbs without change of form, e.g. "everi sonet orderly pointed"
Robinson's Handeful of Pleasant Delites, title-page. Malcolm's reference is, of course,
to "play the woman" (as on an instrument) in v. 230. *1F236 POWER, 'army,' as above,
v. 185; cp. "a power of Danes arrive at Kingcorne " Holinshed, ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 21.
SF237 OUR LACKE, i.e. what we lack, with a suggestion of the meaning 'absence of a
person,' making the phrase epigrammatic. LEAVE, 'royal permission to depart' or 'final
audience with the king,' cp. N. E. D. SF 239 PUT ON has its EL. meaning of ' set to work,'
cp. "Wee'l put on those shall praise your excellence" Ham. IV. 7. 132. Divine vengeance
is ripe and the powers above are setting the scene for the final catastrophe, the deep con-
sequence into which the 'instruments of darkness' have betrayed Macbeth. SF 240 It is
perhaps worth recalling that the thought which closes the scene and forecasts the ultimate
consequence is the same thought that Macbeth gives utterance to when he embarks on his
career of bloodshed: "Time and the houre runs through the thickest day."
188
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
Act III pictures the internal catastrophe of the tragedy; Act V will portray the external
catastrophe; Act IV links the two together. The internal Nemesis is Banquo's avenging
minister; the external Nemesis is Macduff. The chief points of interest of the succes-
sive acts of the drama are thus Macbeth, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm. In Act IV it
is the fear of Macduff, as in Act III it was the dread of Banquo, that is the central theme.
The act begins with the witches' 'harping this fear aright' ; it goes on to Macbeth's deter-
mination to remove its cause that he may 'sleep in spite of thunder,' his failure, and the
revenge he will wreak by crushing Macduff's family. Scene II portrays the execution of
this vindictive purpose ; Scene III pictures the working of the consequence that Macbeth
has failed to 'trammel up' and its leading on to the final catastrophe of Act V. This last
scene we have called a chorus connecting Acts IV and V : but perhaps some word of
qualification is necessary. The formal interest of a chorus — viz. that the actors in it shall
not be participators in the tragedy — is lacking here, but the essential chorus interest is ob-
served : for the main purpose of a chorus is to sum up the action which precedes and
focus it upon what follows, and this function Scene III subserves. Although its actors
are involved in the play itself, and perhaps more intimately involved than in the previous
chorus scenes, yet they are during its course spectators as well, reviewing its action and
forecasting its development. This is clearly brought out by Malcolm's words at the end
of the scene: "Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, and the powres above Put on their instru-
ments." He and Macduff thus picture themselves as the instruments of a divine vengeance
rather than as individuals seeking their own selfish ends.
Act V presents the conclusion of the drama in a triple aspect which it will be well for
the reader to bear in mind when he begins to study it — viz. the end of Lady Macbeth, the
end of Macbeth, and the end of the Scottish interregnum of blood and tyranny. Around
these subjects have been, as it were, the current interests of the play, eddying now about
one theme, now about another, but always moving toward a final goal.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE I OF ACT V
The sleep-walking scene is one of the most striking of the whole play. It not only
gives us a notion of the mental torture which Lady Macbeth suffers, but represents to
us as in a mirror the action of Acts II and III. No device could be more skilful : for the
new events which attend the flight of Macduff and the murder of his family are in danger
of absorbing all our sympathies and turning the main current of interest from Macbeth to
Macduff and Malcolm. It serves another purpose, too, for it brings us back to Lady
Macbeth herself, who has slipped out of the drama during the preceding act. We have
already pointed out how she is involved in the internal catastrophe of Act III: but the
play would lack symmetry were she not involved in its external Nemesis as well. This
fifth act has a score to even for her as well as for Macbeth.
189
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
THE FIFT ACT
SCENE I: DUNSINANE: ANTE-ROOM IN THE CASTLE
ENTER A DOCTOR OF PHYSICKE AND A
WAYTING GENTLEWOMAN I -15
DOCTOR
HAVE too nights watch'd with you, but can
perceive no truth in your report. When was it
shee last walk'd?
GENTLEWOMAN
Since his Majesty went into the field, I have
seene her rise from her bed, throw her night-
gown uppon her, unlocke her closset, take foorth
paper, folde it, write upon 't, read it, afterwards
seale it, and againe returne to bed; yet all this
while in a most fast sleepe.
DOCTOR
A great perturbation in nature, to receyve at
once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects
of watching! In this slumbry agitation, be-
sides her walking and other actuall perform-
ances, what, at any time, have you heard
The place direction is, of
course, a modern addition.
DOCTOR OF PHYSICKE dis-
tinguishes the physician from
the doctor of IV. 3. 129, who
seems to be a doctor in the
sense of 'learned man/ N. E.
D. 4 or 5? such as James I
gathered about him. *IF I
WATCH'D in EL.E. implies
ier
say
sitting up at night, cp. II.
•--2. 71. SF 3 WALK'D : the word is common in EL.E. to denote unconscious locomotion, and
does not need a qualifying phrase' in her sleep'asin MN.E. SF4 WENT INTOTHE FIELD :
Steevens, supposing that Macbeth was besieged in his castle of Dunsinane, found a con-
tradiction in these words. But Holinshed tells us : u Heere upon issued oftentimes sundrie
bickerings and diverse light skirmishes ; for these that were of Malcolme's side would not
jeopard to joine with their enemies in a pight [i.e. pitched] field . . But after Macbeth per-
ceived his enemies power to increase by such aid as came to them foorth of [i.e. out of]
England with his adversarie Malcolme, he recoiled back into Fife, there purposing to abide
in campe fortified at the castell of Dunsinane" ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 41. The time of this
scene is therefore just before the arrival of the English power, and antecedent to that of Scene
"II. SF5 NIGHT-GOWN, a night-robe or dressing-gown, as in 1 1. 2. 70. SF 6 A CLOSSET
in EL.E. was a writing-desk or cabinet, N.E. D. 3 a; cp. "I have lock'd the letter in my
closset" Lear III. 3. II. SF 7 To FOLDE a paper seems to have been a preliminary to
writing a letter, the folding marking margins ; cp. " I have accustomed those great persons
that know me to endure blots, blurs, dashes, and botches in my letters, and a sheete with-
190
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
out folding or margine" Florio's Montaigne, 1. 39- Lady Macbeth writes no letter in the
play. But it is possible that Shakspere means to imply here that the first suggestion of
the murder of Duncan was conveyed by a letter from Lady Macbeth to her husband. In -
1.5.57 Lady Macbeth has received "letters" from Macbeth in the interval between Scenes
IV and V of Act I, though only one letter appears in the action : 1.5-25 points to the thought
of Duncan's murder as being already in Macbeth's mind, and to his having expressed
scruples about it, yet lending himself to the act. And "Chastise with the valour of my
tongue" may imply that Lady Macbeth's pen has been at work already, her "high thee
hither" expressing her impatience for him to get near enough for her to pour her spirits
in his ear. It is quite possible that this was Shakspere's conception of the situation, and
that the Elizabethan actor expressed it by the way in which he read the letter which opens
Scene V of Act I, and the stress he put upon the word 'tongue' in 1.5.28. In 1.7.47 ff. the
plot seems to have been in the minds of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth longer than has been
represented on the stage. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth's act maybe one of those im-
plications, so common in Shakspere, which throw new light back upon an action long after it
has passed the attention, to give it a richer value in the completed picture. Either explana-
tion saves us from the necessity of considering this letter-writing of Lady Macbeth's as
merely a casual and unrelated act mentioned by her attendant as a symptom of sleep-walk-
ing. Nor would Shakspere in a scene like this be likely to represent the action of receiving
a letter by the act of writing one, as has been suggested. We may see here also Shakspere's
vivid psychology : the fact that her husband is absent and that she is anxious for his safety
produces the " perturbation," and she repeats, step by step, the experience of that other criti-
cal time when her husband was absent and she was anxious about him. SF 9 MOST in M. E.
and e. N. E. was more frequently used with monosyllabic adjectives to make the superlative
than it is now. FAST, 'sound,' now used only in the phrase 'fast asleep.' SF 10 The
doctor uses professional language: PERTURBATION is the term used for 'anxiety,' 'sor-
row' in Burton's Anat. of Mel. SF 1 1 DO THE EFFECTS OF is an EL. phrase meaning
'perform the acts associated with' ; cp. "You say you love me and yet do the effectes of
enmitie" Sidney's Arcadia, p. 254, and "the verie horses, angrie in their maister's anger,
with love and obedience brought foorth the effects of hate and resistance" ibid., p. 268.
H 12 WATCHING, 'waking,' cp.v. I and "though it cost mee ten nights' watchings" Ado II.
1.386. SLUMBRY,'occurring
APT V CfPNP 1 lA0f> in slee P/° n eof theEL.adjec-
A ^ 1 V S^CINE, 1 10-2U tivesin.^. AGITATION, 'ac-
tivity,' not'mentala^itation' :
GENTLEWOMAN cp.N. E.D.I. IF13ACTU-
That, sir, which I will not report after her. all performances, 'ac-
tive functions,' 'mechanical
DOCTOR acts': "actuall" had this lit-
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you eral sense in el.e. Thedoc-
1 11 tor opposes actual perform-
ances to mental operations.
GENTLEWOMAN
Neither to you nor any one. havind no wit- 7 l< ? AFTER , HE , R 1S EL - E -
</ ' o Iqj- » a g she said it cp NED
nesse to COnfirme my speech. I2c ; the notion' is still pre-
served in restricted usage with
'repeat' and 'say,' but not with 'report.' *1F 19 The gentlewoman's canny reluctance to
shelter herself under the physician's professional privilege is probably due to Shakspere's
knowledge of law. The question of the incompetency of the testimony of an "uncon-
firmed," i.e. unsupported, witness in trials for treason was not settled until 1695. The
gentlewoman declines to take any risks : for her unsupported statement as to what Lady
Macbeth has said would amount to treason if the doctor chose to betray her confidence.
191
ax
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT V
SCENE I
21-37
" "pas," etc., formed the
without suffix. Some
SF 2 I The interjection LO was commonly thus used in M.E. and e.N.E. with a following
pronoun to attract attention, cp. "Whylo-you now; I have spoke to the purpose twice"
Wint.T. 1.2. 106. SF22 GUISE, 'peculiar habit,' N. E. D. 2 ; VERY intensifies the noun,
giving the sense of an adverb 'exactly.' SF 23 STAND CLOSE, 'keep hidden,' the usual
meaning of the EL. E. phrase. SF 24-30 The prose has the rhythm cadence of blank
verse, cp. note to II. 3- 28.
<ff26 'T IS HER COMMAND
shows Lady Macbeth's ter-
ror of the darkness which
she herself invoked in I. 5«
51. The doctor's interest is
professional, and his profes-
sional notes give a realistic
touch to the picture. *1F 28
SENSE ARE: modern edi-
tions alter to 'sense is'; but
"sense" in EL. E. can be a
plural form: in M.E. mono-
syllabic nouns endingins, like
"cas,
plural
of these historical forms sur-
vived in e. N.E., e.g. Sidney
writes : " Do you not see the
grasse ["grasse" in EL. E.
means ' blade of grass,' N.E.D.
3] how they excel in colour
the emeralds, everie one striv-
ing to passe his fellow, and
yet they are all kept of an equal
height?" 'Arcadia' p. 37 b ;
"businesse," another of these
inflectionless plurals, is cited
in the note to III. 5.22. "Sense"
occurs as a plural in "my
adder's sense To cryttick and
to flatterer stopped are "
Sonn.CXII. 10, where the fact
that "are" rhymes with "care"
has saved it from the havoc
of emendations. Other such
forms are "ballance" Merch.
IV. 1.255 (altered to 'balan-
ces' by Rowe), and "corpes"
in I Hen. 4 I. 1.43 (emended
to 'corses' by Staunton).
"Horse," already noted in
II. 4. 14, belongs to another class of words like 'mile,' etc., which retain O. E. forms. ^31
ACCUSTOM'D, 'customary,' N.E.D. I| the word is now usually restricted to persons.
The notes of habit here imply a periodic recurrence of Lady Macbeth's hallucinations.
*ff34 YET, 'still,' an adverb of time in this position in EL. E., cp. note to IV. 1. 100. *ff36
SATISFIE, 'assure' ; Collier, unfamiliar with EL. idiom, thought Shakspere wrote 'fortify,'
but cp. Coles's gloss "satisfied, certior factus" and see the note to IV. 1. 104.
192
ENTER LADY MACBETH WITH A TAPER
Lo you, heere she comes! This is her very-
guise; and, upon my life, fast asleepe. Ob-
serve her; stand close.
DOCTOR
How came she by that light?
GENTLEWOMAN
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her
continually; T t is her command.
DOCTOR
You see, her eyes are open.
GENTLEWOMAN
I, but their sense are shut.
DOCTOR
What is it she does now? Looke how she
rubbes her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN
It is an accustom'd action with her to seeme
thus washing her hands: I have knowne her
continue in this a quarter of an houre.
LADY MACBETH
Yet heere 's a spot.
DOCTOR
Heark! she speaks: I will set downe what
comes from her to satisfie my remembrance
the more strongly.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SF 38 DAMNED, either 'damning' or 'damnable' ; cp. note to 1.2. 14. There is probably
a long pause after SAY ; Lady Macbeth then lives over again the moments of the murder
itself; she counts the c lock strokes as the time set for the murder of Duncan arrives.
SF 39 HELL IS MURKY': this apparently unconnected notion is usually taken as an ex-
pression of Lady Macbeth's horror at the soul-gloom she is plunged in. Delius, following
a suggestion of Steevens, took it for a fear-inspired exclamation of Macbeth's at the time
of the murder, "chastised" by Lady Macbeth's words that follow : but this seems to be a
somewhat artificial interpretation. The thought may be due to one of those graphic as-
sociations of ideas which Shakspere's words frequently imply : the remembrance of the
oppressive gloom of the night when they started forth to murder Duncan, or even Lady
Macbeth's recollection of her own words, "the night is murky," unites with her horror at
the gloom in which her soul is plunged, and is transformed into terms of her present ex-
perience — "Hell is murky!"
ACT V SCENE I
That one of the effects of her
madness is a terror of the
darkness Shakspere has al-
ready shown us in v. 26, and
these two great horrors of
darkness and hell may well
why, thelitis time to doo t.— Hell IS b l end toget h er in her mind in
anawful harmony. In Temp. I.
2.214 Ferdinand's mad cry as
he jumps into the sea, "Hell
is empty, And all the divels
are heere," seems to be due to
the same spiritual vision of a
haunted soul as that which
causes Lady Macbeth's out-
cry. SF40 Here we get more
details of the murder thus
reflected back upon it : Mac-
beth is afraid, and Lady Mac-
beth, as she has so often done,
taunts him with persona l
cowardice, appealing to one
of the deep springs of action
in the man's character. FIE
is an interjection of indignant
reproach in EL. E., whose
force has been much weak-
ened in later usage, see N.E.D.
s.v.l. ^41 In M.E. and e. N.E. the interrogative WHAT often means 'why.' SF 42
ACCOMPT, 'account,' cp. note to 1.6. 26. SF 43 There is probably a pause here, followed
by "Yet who would have thought the olde man to have had so much blood in him?" This
horrible, grim reflection of Lady Macbeth's depends for its point on age's poverty of blood ;
cp. "Stay, father, for . . My youth can better spare my blood then you" Titus III. 1. 1 33 T
and "I 'le pawne the little blood which I have left" Wint.T. II. 3. 166. It throws back a
lurid light on the dripping daggers which Macbeth forgot to leave in Duncan's chamber.
The inhuman jest would have been disgusting at the time of the act itself: there the touch
of nature was necessary — " Had he not resembled My father as he slept I had don't";
now we see the act in all its demoniac fury. A tragic interlude follows, probably with
more washing of hands. *lr 46 The new movement, though printed as prose in FO. I and
in all modern editions, is couched in the rhythm of a ballad refrain. This lyric form and
193
38-51
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say! — One: two:
then f t is time to doo 't. — Hell is
murky! Fye, my lord, fie! a souldier, and
affear'd? what need we feare who knowes
it, when none can call our powre to accompt?
— Yet who would have thought the olde man
to have had so much blood in him ?
DOCTOR
Do you marke that?
LADY MACBETH
The Thane of Fife
Had a wife:
Where is she now?
— What, will these hands ne're be cleane? —
No more o r that, my lord, no more o f that:
you marre all with this starting.
X
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the awful jest which precedes give the thought of the murder of an innocent mother the
horror of demoniacal laughter. Lady Macbeth's words also seem to express the joy of a
triumph over her hated rival. *ff 50 NO MORE O'THAT: a new theme, with again the
reflection of a fresh interest into a preceding scene, the grim repetition noting the authorita-
tive insistence of Lady Macbeth's presence of mind. SF5I YOU MARRE ALL, 'you spoil
everything'; the phrase was almost stereotyped in EL. E. : cp. 'their own foolish pro-
ceedings that mar all' Burton, 'Anat. of Mel.' II. 2. 55. STARTING, cp. "he trembleth
(starteth) at them; quaking,
ACT V SCENE I
starting (shivering)" Come-
nius's Janua, 370; and also
the note to III. 4. 63-
*ff52 GO TOO in EL. E. is a
strong expression of disap-
proval, like MN.E. 'Come,
come, now ! ' cp. N. E. D. 9 1 b.
Here we seem again to
have KNOWNE implying its
common M.E. sense of 'ac-
knowledged.' The last usage
of the word in this sense
cited in N. E. D. is dated
1450, but it may neverthe-
less have possessed its M.E.
shade of meaning in Shak-
spere's time : often a longer
interval than a hundred years
will separate two successive
citations in the dictionary.
"Know" seems to have the
sense 'acknowledge' also in
"'T were better for you if it
were known in councell [i.e.
in secret] : you '11 be laugh'd
at" Merry W. 1. 1. 122 (Shal-
low has just told Falstaff,
"The Councell shall know
this"). Again, in "Let but your
honourknow . . Whether you
had not sometime in your life
Er'd in this point which now
you censure him, And puld the law upon you" Meas. II. 1.8. It is pretty clear, therefore,
that the N. E. D.'s citations s.v. 13 ought to be carried down to the seventeenth century. If
the word has not this sense in this passage it is hard to see why the physician should have
said, "Go too, go too ! " SF 54 The stress on the gentlewoman's SPOKE also implies the
'acknowledge' meaning of the doctor's "knowne" : 'she has said what she should not say,
but whether or not it is a confession of fact, heaven only knows!' SF55 WHAT SHE
HAS KNOWNE, 'what she has gone through,' a meaning still preserved in such MN.E.
phrases as 'I have known misfortune.' SF 59 Lady Macbeth's OH, OH, OH ! in MN.E.
suggests rather a groan of pain than the sigh of an overburdened heart. But from Florio's
glossing of Italian aih by "oh, aye me, alas" and hai by "oh me" it would seem that
EL. E. "oh" corresponded to MN.E. 'ah,' not MN.E. 'oh.' The variation between "ah"
and "oh" in the Quarto spellings points in the same direction and can easily be accounted
194
52-65
DOCTOR
Go too, go too; you have knowne what you
should not.
GENTLEWOMAN
She has spoke what shee should not, I am
sure of that: heaven knowes what she has
knowne.
LADY MACBETH
Heere f s the smell of the blood still; all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh !
DOCTOR
What a sigh is there 1 The hart is sorely
charg'd.
GENTLEWOMAN
I would not have such a heart in my bosome
for the dignity of the whole body.
DOCTOR
Well, well, well!
GENTLEWOMAN
Pray God it be, sir.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
for on the assumption that the o represented a long, open o. SF6I CHARG'D, 'burdened/
cp. N. E.D.I and V.8.5. *1F 63 DIGNITY in M.E. and e.N.E. often means 'worth," value/
cp. "a finger's dignity" Tro.&Cr. 1.3-204. IF 64 WELL, WELL, WELL ! seems to be the
expression of amazement still
ACT V SCENE I
66-77
DOCTOR
This disease is beyond my practise: yet I
have knowne those which have walkt in their
sleep who have dyed holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH
Wash your hands, put on your night-gowne.
— Looke not so pale; I tell you yet againe,
Banquo 's buried: he cannot come out on T s of n. 2. 66-72. SF70 i'tell
YOU YET AGAINE: a frag-
ment of her talk with Macbeth
DOCTOR
current in MN.E., and not an
aposiopesis, as usually print-
ed. The gentlewoman replies
to the literal sense of the
words.
<ff66 BEYOND MY PRAC-
TISE, 'outside of my ex-
perience/ cp. "Meere pratle
without practise Is all his
souldiership" Oth. I. I. 26.
«ff 68 HOLILY: that is, after
the administration of the sac-
rament. SF 69 is an epitome
grave.
Even so?
LADY MACBETH
To bed, to bed ! there 's knocking at the gate :
come, come, come, come, give me your hand.
What's done cannot be undone. — To bed,
to bed, to bed!
EXIT LADY MACBETH
after the banquet scene. SF 7 1
ON 'S illustrates the frequent
EL. confusion of the un-
stressed forms of "of" and
"on." SF 73 EVEN SO? in
EL. E. expresses surprise like
our MN.E. 'Is it possible?'
cp. " your brother cannot live.
Isab. Even so?" Meas. II.
4.33- SF 74 Shakspere makes
the semiconscious purpose
of getting to bed reflect Lady
Macbeth back to her going to bed on the night of Duncan's murder, the knocking at the
gate, Macbeth's dazed mental condition, and, supreme touch, the helpless regret of his
"Wake Duncan with thy knocking: I would thou could'st." There is no finer illustra-
tion of the power of word associations to reproduce or suggest experience than the one
which Shakspere gives us in these random utterances of Lady Macbeth : a few broken,
disconnected phrases put before us a mass of perceptions, judgements, emotions, and all
the external surroundings which framed them, so that the scene is as vividly present to our
minds as if we were ourselves actors in it. And no more vivid picture of the hell that the
human mind can make for itself out of its own experience has ever been revealed to the eye
of the soul in sacred literature or profane than the one whose gates have here been for a
moment opened to us. It is like the delirium of a fever in which the mind, loosed from
the control of consciousness, returns to the scenes that have engraved themselves most
deeply on its experience, and, following the deep grooves of association over and over
again, lives through these experiences and all their concomitant perceptions, judgements,
and emotions, only to return again and yet again, sucked back into their eddying currents
as soon as the outer edge is reached, in an endless cycle of torture. Grant only the re-
moval of the external stimuli to attention, and one has in the soul itself the material for a
hell which needs no fire and brimstone to suggest its torture. For Lady Macbeth the
play is over, her cup of horrors is drained: it needs only the messenger to announce her
end — "The queene, my lord, is dead." Macbeth will fight against his doom a while longer,
195
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
as he has fought it all along. And his stubborn resistance will save him at the last, not
from paying the penalty of his acts, but from the complete destruction of soul that has
overtaken his wife. Though in V.5- 17 ff. he will come to the edge of the abyss into which
Lady Macbeth has plunged and for a moment stand tottering on the brink of suicide,
he will save himself and boldly front his doom, challenging his fate on the ground that
he has been deceived by his
ACT V SCENE I
intelligence
his love, a
in it elements
justness.
and misled by
claim that has
essential
of
*ff 78 DIRECTLY, 'without
more ado.' SF 79 The change
to rhythm in a way closes
the scene itself and adds a
sort of epilogue that affects
one like a sudden change
from a minor key to the key
of C major. WHISP'RINGSin
EL. E. is the equivalent of ' in-
sinuations, "slanders' ; in the
Authorized Version it trans-
lates the xpidvpLOfioi of II Cor.
XI 1. 20, rendering the Greek
original with an exactness of
connotation not now possi-
ble. SF80 UNNATURALL,
'unnat'ral,' as frequently in
EL. E. ; i.e. deeds which vio-
late natural instincts breed
unusual disturbances of the
human organism. The doc-
tor's words have more point
in EL. E., where TROUBLES
means ' diseased conditions ' ;
cp.Oth. III. 3. 4 1 4, where I ago
is ''troubled with a raging
tooth"; Lepidus is "trou-
77*-%7
DOCTOR
Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEWOMAN
Directly.
DOCTOR
Foule whispVings are abroad: unnaturall
deeds
Do breed unnaturall troubles : infected mindes
To their deafe pillowes will discharge their
secrets:
More needs she the divine then the physitian.
God, God forgive us all! Looke after her;
Remove from her the meanes of all annoyance,
And still keepe eyes upon her. So, good
night.
My minde she has mated, and amaz'd my
sight;
I thinke, but dare not speake.
GENTLEWOMAN
Good night, good doctor.
EXEUNT
* The text returns to the standard numeration.
bled with the greene-sick-
nesse," in Ant.&Cl. III.2.5, and Antony is "troubled with a rume" ibid. III. 2. 57. Baret
glosses "a minde troubled" by alienatus. This meaning of the word is still current in
colloquial English. INFECTED MINDES, 'hearts tainted with crime' (cp. note to III. 1.65
and N.E. D. 6) as well as 'minds tainted with disease,' N.E. D. I b. SF8I This figurative
use of DISCHARGE, N.E. D. 8 c, now rare, was common in Shakspere's time; the original
meaning of the word is 'disburden,' not 'emit.' SF 83 GOD, g6d illustrates the increment
of stress that comes by repetition. The words give a deep touch of human sympathy :
the evidence of a terrible punishment for sin always makes the beholder feel the weakness
of his own nature, "saved as by fire." SF84 ALL, 'any.' ANNOYANCE is glossed "in-
jury" in Kersey, "Icesio 11 in Phr. Gen. and Cooper. The physician's inference is that
Lady Macbeth will try to commit suicide. IF 85 STILL, 'always,' cp. 1.7.8. SF 86 SHE
HAS was probably contracted. MATED is a M.E. and e. N.E. word meaning ' dazed,' cp.
"I thinke you are all mated or starke mad" Err. V. 281. AMAZ'D, 'bewildered,' 'con-
fused,' cp. II. 3- 1 14. SIGHT is often used for eyes in EL.E., or rather for perception by
196
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the sense of sight, cp. "The mind and sight distractedly commixt" Lover's Compl.28.
The doctor cannot believe the evidence of his eyes. SF87 GOOD NIGHT, GOOD DOC-
TOR is another of those human touches so frequent in Shakspere : the gentlewoman's " good
night " brings the scene to a close in a phrase pregnant with homely association ; her u good
doctor" sinks the professional interest in the human, and in her simple words vibrates
a sympathy born of their common vigil and their common vision of the unspeakable awful-
ness of human sin. The falling rhythm of the last word has a lingering note,— "Good
night, good doctor," — almost as if she had said, "Yea, God forgive us all!" One can
easily perceive the peculiar force of this by imagining the scene to close in rising rhythm
with v. 85.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE II
After the tragic climax of Scene I, Scene II brings us back to Macbeth and the doom
that is gathering about him as the powers above put on their instruments. The scene is
a continuation of the theme of Scene VI of Act IV, byway of prologue to the catastrophe
that is coming on. The editors of the Clarendon Press Macbeth were inclined to doubt
its authenticity. But in its condensation and tenseness of expression it would be hard to
parallel its style outside of Shakspere ; and its central notion — v. I 2, Macbeth expressly
recognized as mad by some of the actors in the drama— is an organic part of the play that
could scarcely be omitted without marring the assthetic structure of the whole. Moreover,
its action supplements the "since his Majesty went into the field" of Scene I in such a
way as to show that the two were conceived together.
SCENE II: THE COUNTRY NEAR DUNSINANE
DRUM AND COLOURS
ENTER MENTETH CATHNES ANGUS LENOX SOLDIERS
1-5
MENTETH
HE English .powre is neere, led
on by Malcolm,
His unkle Seyward and the good
Macduff:
Revenges burne in them; for
their deere causes
Would to the bleeding, and the grim alarme
Excite the mortified man.
Alvearie, " a nephew . . qui ex
filio filiave natus est, nepos ex fratre, vel sorore" ; Cooper glosses nepos "the sonne or
daughter's sonne, a nephew"; Comenius, 604, is also quite clear on this point: "In the
rank of them that lineally descend are the grandchild (the nephew— grandson — and neece),
the great-grandchild (the nephew's son and the neece's daughter), the great-great-grand-
child, and so downward with all their posterity." So " cousin " is a general term in EL. E. :
"they that are of the same race — linage — and pedegree are called coozens, and kinsmen
197
SF2 SEYWARD is spoken
of by Holinshed as being
the grandfather of Malcolm :
" Duncane having two sonnes
by his wife which was the
daughter of Siward, earle of
Northumberland" Boswell-
Stone,p.25. But "nephew"
in EL.E. means 'grandson'
as well as corresponds to
MN.E. 'nephew,' cp. Baret's
Alvearie, " a nephew
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
by blood" Comenius, 601. It was, perhaps, this use of "nephew" that led Shakspere
to call Seyward Malcolm's UNKLE. GOOD, ' brave/ cp. note to 1.2.4. SF 3 REVENGES:
the EL. distributive plural of abstract nouns, cp. note to III. I. 122. DEERE is used in
EL. E. of what stands in an intimate relation to a person, whether of affection or of interest ;
in this latter usage it is almost untranslatable into MN.E. SF 4, 5 The FO. prints a
comma after BLEEDING, but all modern editors depart from its punctuation. Two in-
terpretations of these words have been given : Theobald, followed by most of the editors
down to CI. Pr., took THE MORTIFIED MAN in the sense of 'an ascetic,' referring to
Rom. VIII. 3 r "but if yee through the spirit doe mortifie the deeds of the body, ye shall
live." Steevens added citations from Greene's Never too Late, "I perceive in the
words of the hermit the perfect idea of a mortified man," and from Monsieur d'Olive,
1 606, "He like a mortified hermit sits." But "mortified man" in EL. E. does not neces-
sarily imply that the mortified person is averse to bloodshedding. In Bullein's Dia-
logue, 1564, E. E. T. S., p. 24, Ambodexter says, " I do remember that reverent mortified
father, that holy man, Bishop Boner; . . if he were againe at libertie [he was confined in
the Marshalsea in 1564] he . . trimely would roste these felowes and after burne them."
This "mortified father" was the Bishop Bonner of 'Bloody Mary's' reign. Warburton
noticed the difficulty in the definite article, and was for reading 'a mortified man.' The
editors of the CI. Pr. likewise objected to this established interpretation on the score of
feebleness, and showed that "mortified" in EL. E. also meant 'made dead.' They saw in
the passage a possible reference to the 'well-known superstition that the corpse of a mur-
dered man bled afresh in the presence of the murderer.' (Burton, ' Anat. of Mel.' 1. 1.25,
says that 'Campanella tries to prove the opinion of Paracelsus that there is a spiritual
soul' by the fact that 'carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.') They give the inter-
pretation, 'their dear causes would rouse a dead man to bleeding and to the grim call to
arms,' admitting that the words yield an extravagant sense, but contending that we must
choose between extravagance and feebleness. They suggested, too, that the whole pas-
sage maybe spurious. The N.E. D. makes their interpretation more intelligible by show-
ing that GRIM ALARM in EL. E. can mean 'furious [s.v. 2 a] onset [s.v. II],' and that
BLEEDING can mean 'gory,' ' sanguinary' (s.v. I b). Shakspere uses "bleeding" in this
sense in John II. 1. 304, "bleeding ground" ; in Rich.2 111.3-94, "bleeding warre" ; in Rich.3
IV. 4. 209, "bleeding slaughter" ; and in Cass. III. 1. 1 68, "bleeding businesse." These con-
notations also apply to the former interpretation. But the objection of lack of point if
we take "mortified man" as standing for ascetic still holds, and that of extravagance still
remains if "mortified man" is tantamount to 'dead man'; and the objections that both
interpretations depart from the FO. punctuation and that the notion demands the indefinite
article likewise remain in either event.
But if we take the words with their context we have the suggestion of revenge being a
burning fever. CAUSE in EL. E. means 'sickness,' 'disease,' N.E. D. 12; Shakspere in
All'sW. II.I.II3 writes "toucht With that malignant cause" ; in Cor. III. 1.235 the first
senator says, " Leave us to cure this cause " ; Menenius adds, " For [i.e. ' he uses the word
cause'] 'tis a sore upon us, You cannot tent [i.e. probe] your selfe." In 2Hen.4 IV. 1.53
the archbishop says, "Wherefore doe I this [i.e. take up arms in rebellion]? Wee are all
diseas'd And with our surfetting and wanton howres Have brought our selves into a burn-
ing fever, And wee must bleede for it" ; cp. also "A fever in your bloud? why then, inci-
sion [i.e. bleeding] Would let her out in sawcers" L.L.L. IV. 3-97 ; cp., too, Rich.3 III. 1. 183.
Bleeding for fever was common medical practice in Shakspere's day. The latter part
of the sentence carries out this medical phraseology but gives it a different turn. MOR-
TIFIED as an EL.E. medical term means 'benumbed,' 'incapable of function,' cp. Ker-
sey, "mortification . . in surgery: a loss of the native heat and of sense in any part
of the body." This meaning is clearly implied in Lear II. 3. 14, " Bedlam beggars who . .
Strike [i.e. thrust] in their num'd and mortified armes, Pins, wooden-prickes, nayles."
MAN in EL.E. is used frequently in the sense of 'manhood,' 'manliness' : in V. 8. 18 Mac-
198
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
bcth says that Macduff's words have cowed his " better part of man/' i.e. the better part
of his manhood, his personal courage; Marston in 'Antonio and Mellida' I.I.I 60 has
"O now Antonio . . Heap up thy powers, double all thy man"; Ben Jonson in ' Every
Man in his Humour' II. I writes "Mee thought hee bare himselfe in such a fashion, So
full of man and sweetnesse in his courage." THE MORTIFIED MAN in EL. E. can there-
fore mean 'their paralysed manhood,' the definite article being used as a possessive pro-
noun. EXCITE, in its sense of 'arouse,' 'quicken,' N.E.D.2 c, is a fitting word for GRIM
ALARM, which in EL.E. means not only the 'stern alarm' of war, but has also the sense
of ' incitement,' N. E. D. 6, now obsolete. The connection between the two clauses may easily
be that of an EL. d~b koivov construction, always a stone of stumbling to modern readers,
cp. notes to 1.5.24,111.1. 1 22, and IV. 3. 1 5. If this be the case we have WOULD expressed
in the first clause with its EL. sense of 'are ready for,' cp." he is very sicke and would to bed"
Hen. 5 II. 1.86, recalling Malcolm's words "Macbeth is ripe for shaking"; in the second
clause its 'must have' meaning is understood, cp. "that would be scann'd" Ham. III. 3-75,
and "Sorrow would sollace and mine age would ease" 2Hen.6 II. 3. 21. To sum up, this
interpretation gives us as the MN. E. sense of the whole passage : ' Revenges burn in them :
I say burn, because they suffer from a fever which needs to be bled, and war's stern
alarm must furnish the furious incitement to rouse from its lethargy their lifeless man-
hood, so long crushed under the heel of the tyrant.' This reading not only preserves the
punctuation of FO. I but gives to Shakspere's words that graphic and tense connection
which is so characteristic of his writing. The only objection to it is that the words and
syntax are unfamiliar to MN.E. But Shakspere is never considerate of the modern
reader, and did not reckon with the comprehension of a generation which would read his
plays three hundred years after he wrote them. If, however, the objection is to hold, the only
escape from the dilemma of obscurity or weakness is to throw the blame upon the printer or
upon the editorial careless-
ACT V SCENE II 5- I I ness of Hemminge and Con-
dell, and say that the passage
ANGUS * s 'hopelessly corrupt.'
Neere Byrnan wood <ff6 well is used as an in-
Shall we well meet them; that way are they tensive adverb in el.e. with
. , j j t k e not i on f 'fitness,' 'ad-
COmming. vantage,' still preserved in
CATHNES such phrases as 'he is well
Who knowes if Donalbane be with his brother? able,' 'I can well afford,'
R _ 'you are well met,' etc. *ff8
LENOX FILE> , listf » cp> nI L95> and
For certaine, sir, he is not: I have a file "Our present musters grow
Of all the gentry: there is Seyward's sonne, ^on the file" 2Hen.4 1.3. 10.
o J J 1 SF 9 GENTRY in its EL. sense
And many unruffe youths that even now includes the nobility. SF10
Protest their first of manhood. unruffe : Autolycus an-
swers the shepherd's "We
are but plaine fellowes, sir " with " A lye : you are rough and hayrie," playing on " plaine "
in the sense of 'smooth.' "Rough," "hearie," was a common EL. gloss for hirsutus, see
Cooper, s.v. ; and cp. "rough or rugged with haires or bristles" ; "my brother is hearie
but I am smooth" Baret, ' Alvearie.' un- had a much wider range of application in EL.E.
than in MN.E., giving forms like "unlevell," "unpossible," "unperfect," "uncessantly."
The Folio spelling seems to be phonetic. *f 1 1 PROTEST THEIR FIRST OF MAN-
HOOD: 'proclaim the first of their manhood' is the usual explanation, — cp. "my neer'st
of life" III. 1. 1 17, — but it is an awkward one. The words are better taken as a con-
tinuation of the thought in the previous clause, with "protest" in its EL. sense of 'put
199
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
in evidence,' 'cite as evidence' ; cp. Comenius, "a man's chin is covered first with down,
then a long and large beard; . . yet some are beardless, some have beards beginning to
bud.'' This gives point to
the EVEN NOW, the ''first
of manhood" being the down
on their unrough chins.
ACT V
SCENE II
I I — I 6
MENTETH
What does the tyrant?
CATHNES
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say hee 's mad ; others, that lesser hate
him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certaine,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.
<ffll WHAT DOES THE TY-
RANT? illustrates a common
EL. arrangement of the in-
terrogative sentence now ob-
solete. SF 13 LESSER is an
adverb in EL. E., see N.E. D.
s.v., and cp. "No lesser of
her honour confident" Cym.
V.5.I87. Macbeth'sinsanity,
like Hamlet's, is but sug-
gested to the reader : Shak-
spere is too much of a poet
to declare explicitly what insanity is, or to label Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth as
mad. They have all "a feaver of the madde" in them that lifts them out of the common
range of experience and makes them interesting. Moreover, the phenomena of insanity
in Shakspere's time were vague and mysterious, as is evident from Burton's treatment of
the subject. The abnormal acts of Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello belong to that
borderland of diseased mentality which in Elizabethan, as in classic phraseology, was
denoted by the term "melancholy." Macbeth does not understand human and divine
laws, — l non cognoscit homines, non cognoscit leges, 1 — Lear and Othello do not understand
women, Hamlet does not understand himself: this touch of the mad, this lack of balance
of soul and mind, this 'mind diseased' and all its havoc of human life and human hopes is
the theme of Shakspere's great tragedies. In Hamlet and Macbeth the exciting influences
of the tragedy come from without, the ghost in the one case, the witches in the other; in
Othello and Lear they work from within, rising from a natural jealousy and suspicion ren-
dered inordinate by an inordinate love. In all it is their failureto understand the souls of men
and the laws of life that gives the deep pathos. SF 14 FOR CERTAINE, i.e. I report it for
a certainty, was used thus absolutely in EL. E. in the sense of M N. E. ' one thing is certain ' ;
it is now felt rather as an adverbial phrase qualifying the verb of the sentence in which
it stands. SF 15 Caithness's words have made great difficulty for modern editors, some
of whom would change "cause" to 'course' or to 'corse,' under the usual assumption that
where the text is unintelligible as MN.E. it is corrupt. But BUCKLE IN is used in this
same figurative sense of 'limit,' 'enclose' (N.E. D. I b) in "That the stretching of a span
buckles in his summe of age" A.Y.L. III. 2. 140, where the EL. meaning 'fasten in any
way' passes over into figurative usage. CAUSE is not only intelligible in EL. E. but ex-
actly the word that suits the connection, for it means 'disease,' see note to "deere causes"
v.3. DISTEMPER'D in EL. E. is a medical term denoting what was conceived to be a
disproportionate mixture of the bodily humours: see N.E.D. 'distemper' sb. 13- In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it is frequently used with reference to insanity, which,
in the EL. mind, was associated with a diseased condition of the 'humours.' N.E. D.s.v.
3 b cites Hooker, 1594, as speaking of "distempered affection"; Herbert, 1 633? of "dis-
tempered fears" ; Hobbes, 1 65 1, of a "distempered brain" : this latter association is still in
use, though it has lost its sharpness. As the word "distempered" also means 'im-
moderate,' 'extreme,' — Hooker, I586,speaks of a "distempered or extraordinarie choler,"
N.E. D. 5, — "distempered cause" is a very apposite reference to Macbeth's insanity and
.has nothing to do with 'dropsical affections' or with 'discontented parties in the state.'
200
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*ff 1 6 RULE in EL. E., as frequently in MN.E., is used in the sense of 'regimen/ and "rule
of health " is a M. E. and e. N. E. phrase for ' regimen of health.' The verb " rule " in EL. E.
also meant 'to control the passions/ cp. "To rule his affection and talk, animo et orationi
moderari" u I could not rule myself but that, etc., imperare animo nequivi gum," and " I
should be scantly able to rule my selfe, vix compos mei essem " Baret's Alvearie. The
words, then, are not a mere general figure but have immediate reference to the "mad" above
and to Macbeth's distem-
ATT V Qpnvrp tt t f r pered will, which he himself
t\\^ 1 V oL>CrlNC, 11 lb — 2^ fj rst recognized to have
passed beyond his "rule" in
ANGUS 1. 1. 139-
Now does he feele „
TT , . i . r 1 • i i ^ I7 STICKING ON HIS
His secret murthers sticking on his hands; hands seems to be the
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith- phrase which in Coles has
i i > the form "to stick a hand,
; cegre distrahi, raro prcesti-
Those he commands move onely in command, nari," and to mean that Mac-
Nothind in love: now does he feele his title b « th <f n n°wfind no one to
TT ,° . i • 1-1 » 1 take his secret murders otr
Hang loose about him, like a giant s robe his hands? as Malcolm and
Upon a dwarfish theefe. Donalbaine took the odium of
-._.j_,p_,_. Duncan's murder and the
assassins that of Banquo ;
Who then shall blame the market is glutted now, he
His pester'd senses to recoyle and start, can 'P alm , them ofr on no
ivt-1 ii i • • i • i • i i one - A similar EL. expression
When all that is within him does condemne i S "to lie upon one's hands,"
It selfe for being there? which occurs in "The mar-
chandize . . Are all too deere
for me: Lye they upon thy hand and be undone by 'em!" Ant.&Cl. II.5. 105. The
'merchandise' that Cleopatra here alludes to is the messenger's announcement that An-
tony is married to Octavia. SF 18 MINUTELY, with the stress on the first syllable,
is an EL. compound like MN.E. 'hourly/ cp. "God's minutely providence," cited from
Hammond (1605-1660) in Cent. Diet. UPBRAID in EL. E. means 'to cast in one's teeth/
'to twit with/ as it is glossed in Comenius and Baret's Alvearie; cp. "I would not boast
my actions, yet 'tis lawful To upbraid my benefits to unthankful men" Massinger's Un-
natural Combat, 1. 1 (cited in Cent. Diet.). FAITH in EL. E. carries with it the notion of
'fealty/ cp. "The lords took . . their oaths of faith and allegiance unto Don Philip" W.
Phillips, 1 598 (cited inN.E.D.9). The revolts of Macbeth's own subjects cast in his teeth
his disloyalty to Duncan. SF 19 IN COMMAND, 'by reason of command/ cp. "in an im-
periall charge" IV. 3.20. SF 20 NOTHING is the EL. adverb, cp. note to 1.3-96. TITLE,
'claim to the sovereignty/ cp. note to IV. 3- 104. SF 23 PESTER'D in EL. E. means 'ham-
pered/ 'cumbered/ cp. "now all places are pestered with builded houses" Comenius, 522 ;
the word passes over into the general sense of 'vex/ 'annoy/ cp. "would over boord have
cast his golden sheepe As to unworthy ballace [ballast, lading] to be thought To pester
roome" Drayton's Heroicall Epistles, 61, Sp. Soc, p. 290; see also Ham. 1. 2. 22 ; the word
is retained in the sense of 'annoy' in MN.E. In Shakspere's time it seems also to have
been applied to an overloaded stomach, cp. "to pester, to cloie" Baret's Alvearie; Per-
cival glosses it by the Spanish enfadar, enfastidiar ; Cotgrave, by empesche, and gives
"empesche de sa personne, unwieldie, pursie, grosse ; poictrine empesche, troubled with
obstruction and (more particularly) obstruction of the stomach": hence the turn of the
phrase which follows. Macbeth himself says he has "supt full with horrors." The refer-
201
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ence of course is to the "start- ACT y SCENE II 25-31
ings or Macbeth s madness
as being but the natural re- rjTHMCQ
suit of his crime-cloyed soul. C A 1 H N bb
recoyle and start, 'for Well, march we on,
recoiling and starting'; the j Q a [vq obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
EL. infinitive often corre- \n i it pi 11 1
spondingtotheMN.E.prepo- Meet we the med cine ot the sickly weale,
sition and participle. For And with him poure we in our countries purde
"recoyle "in its EL. sense of t^ 1 j r
'break," break down,' cp. IV. Each dr0 P ° f US '
3. 19, and for "start" see note LENOX
to in. 4.63. Or so much as it needes
SF25 MARCHWEONisanor- To dew the soveraigne flower and drowne
mal EL. form of the first per- the weeds.
son plural imperative. 127 u 1 1 id-
the med'cine of the Make we our march towards birnan.
SICKLY WEALE is Mal- EXEUNT MARCHING
colm ; the word has been
taken in its somewhat rare EL. sense of 'physician,' cp. Florio's " medico, a medicine, a
leach, a phisitian" (cited by CI. Pr.), but such an interpretation weakens the force of the
WITH HIM : Malcolm too will, if need be, shed his last drop of blood for his country, and
the healing purge of their shed blood will medicine the sickly weal. *ff28 POURE, 'pour
out' ; in EL. E. the word did not require the complementing adverb. OUR COUNTRIES
PURGE is the EL. E. objective genitive idiom. SF 29 EACH in M.E. and EL. E. is often tanta-
mount to ' every,' cp. note to IV. 2.22 and its citation from Heywood. U S is the reflexively
used personal pronoun common in EL. E. IT NEEDES, 'is necessary,' the M. E. and e. N. E.
impersonal idiom. SF 30 SOVERAIGNE in EL. E. is used of anything that has a potency
for healing, cp. "the most soveraigne prescription in Galen" Cor. ILL 127. The verbiage
of the whole scene is medical, — fever of revenge, paralysis of manliness, dropsical affec-
tions with their distempered humours, cloyed sensations with embarrassed digestion, purg-
ing medicines, sovereign flower, — and forms a close associational link between this and
the preceding scene. This constant recurrence to medical phraseology clearly reflects
Shakspere's conception of Macbeth's mind as 'diseased.'
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE III
Scene III pictures Macbeth "sick at hart" in the midst of the disasters thickening round
him, but nerving himself for the crisis and bringing back to us that former Macbeth which
we became acquainted with at the beginning of the play. He shows a new imperiousness
born of a rule by force and fear — Seyton, send out! Doctor, how's your patient? — a
new testiness, the fruit of nights of watching and days of dread — The divell damne thee
blacke, thou cream-fac'd loone ! Where got'st thou that goose-looke? — a new impatience
springing from a feeling that his only means of safety lies in prompt action. With these
there is the note of regret and a sense of the vanity of a life which has yielded him nothing
that he had hoped for, though it has granted everything that he asked of it. But in spite
of these, the new Macbeth is the old Macbeth ; and as he returns to the sphere of bold,
resolute action, throwing aside the ill-fitting robe of duplicity and indirectness worn during
his later years, he seems in a measure to regain his original freedom and his original no-
bility. As he himself puts it, they have tied him to a stake, but he will fight the course.
202
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
In this tragedy of misguided force Shakspere never for a moment allows his Hercules to
show weakness : he never whines. In his moment of deepest despair he recovers himself by
his own self-contempt. Play the Roman fool? Not he!
SCENE III: A ROOM IN THE
ENTER MACBETH DOCTOR AND
MACBETH
RING me no more reports; let
them flye all :
Till Byrnane wood remove to
Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with feare. What's
the boy Malcolme?
woman? The spirits
CASTLE
ATTENDANTS
)f
have pronounc'd
Was he not borne
that know
All mortall consequences
me_thusi
1 Feare not, Macbeth ; no man that r s borne
' of woman
Shall ere have power upon thee. T Then fly,
false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The minde I sway by and the heart I beare
Shall never sagge with doubt nor shake with
feare.
I — 10
The scene opens with Shak-
spere's graphic directness:
the attendants have brought
word that the nobles are de-
serting Macbeth ; he will not
hear such news. ^F I FLYE
ALL, not 'let them all fly' but
'let them fly in a body'; "all"
in EL.E. is frequently used as
an adverb meaning 'as a
whole,' cp. "where so ever
the mind is busied there it is
all " Florio's Montaigne, 1.38.
SF3 TAINT has been taken
exception to and 'faint' pro-
posed as a substitute ; mod-
ern editors usually retain
"taint," explaining it as
meaning 'become corrupted.'
But fear does not corrupt.
In EL.E., however, "taint"
means 'wither,' cp. "failing
of that moisture it flags,
tainteth (withereth) and by
and by drieth away" Come-
nius, 'Janua' 106. Macbeth's
notion is therefore similar to that of 1.3. 18 and 23, 'fear cannot dry his blood and waste
his marrow till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane.' He is as strong as ever he was:
what is the boy Malcolm to oppose him? *IF4 SPIRITS, monosyllabic 'sprites' as usual.
SF5 CONSEQUENCES, 'what follows,' 'the future,' cp. note to 1.7.3- PRONOUNC'D in
EL.E. may mean 'proclaimed,' but the word is probably used intransitively with ME as
the EL. ethical dative, cp. note to 1 1 1.6. 41. The verse seems to be an alexandrine, and
as such has a peculiar impressivenessin its onward flowing rhythm. SF 7 UPON is used
in'its sense of 'over,' cp. "command upon me" in III. 1. 17. The verse has an extra im-
pulse before the caesura, aptly marking the transition in the thought. SF8 The contemp-
tuous reference to the ENGLISH EPICURES is probably due to Holinshed, p. 180 (ed.
Bothwell-Stone, p. 42), as pointed out by Steevens : " For manie of the people, abhorring
the riotous manners and superfluous gormandizing brought in among them by the Eng-
lishmen, were willing inough to receive this Donald for their king, trusting, because he
had beene brought up . . in the lies . . without tast of the English likerous delicats, . . they
should . . recover again the former temperance of their old progenitors." "Epicure" in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is used for 'one who gives himself up to sensual
203
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
pleasure.' This sense has given rise to our MN. meaning of the word. IF 9 SWAY BY,
'govern by/ 'hold my prestige by/ cp. " And, Henry, had'st thou sway'd as kings should
do, Or as thy father and his father did, Giving no ground unto the house of Yorke, They
then had never sprung like sommer flyes" 3Hen.6 II. 6. 14, and Coles's glosses, "sway,
guberno, impero" " to sway with one, prcevaleo." *IF 1 SAGGE'is glossed by Kersey
"to hang down by one side," and the word is still used in the United States of anything
that bends under a heavy
ACT V
SCENE III
II — 19
tb
ee
ENTER SERVANT
blacke, thou cream-
weight. "A sagging gait"
is EL. E. for 'slouching/ and
since "sway" also means
'advance' in EL. E., Shak-
spere may have had in mind
the unsteady and vacillating
gait of an old man. BEARE
rhymes with FEARE in EL. E.,
cp. note to 1. 1. 6. The rhythm,
with its strong monosyllabic
impulses, is peculiarly con-
fident.
SF 1 1 LOON E seems to have
been a Scottish term of abuse
in Shakspere's day ; it occurs
in Patten's account of the
Duke of Somerset's march
into Scotland, ed. Arber, p.
114. SF 12 GOOSE-LOOKE:
cp. "this goose, you see, puts
downe his head before there
be anything neere to touch
him" Sidney's Arcadia, III.
237 (cited in N.E.D.). SF I 3
THERE IS: the singular
verb with "there" followed
by a plural complement is
common EL. idiom. SF 15
PATCH is an EL. word for
'fool.' Moth plays upon it
in L.L.L. IV.2.32, "So were
there a patch set on learning
to see him in a schoole."
SF 1 6 DEATH OF THY SOULE! illustrates the use of the word "death" in imprecations
like "Death and damnation!" Oth.III.3-396. LINNEN, i.e. white; CI. Pr. cites "Their
cheekes are paper" from Hen. 5 II. 2. 74. WHAY is a common EL. spelling of 'whey.'
SF 19 The repeated " Seyton ! — Seyton, I say!" interjected into Macbeth's soliloquy
graphically pictures the rash impatience of his mind. The FO. punctuates with a comma
after SEYTON in both instances. SF 20 BEHOLD has a number of intransitive uses in
EL. E., — cp. N.E.D.8, — and it may mean 'stop to consider/ — 'when I face this crisis.' SF2I
CHEERE and the FO.'S "dis-eate me now" have caused great difficulty: many editors
assume that "dis-eate" is a printer's error for the "disease" of FO. 2 used in its EL.
sense of 'trouble/ 'vex'; but were that the meaning it would be "trouble me ever," not
"trouble me now," for disease suggests continuous action. Besides, the emendation is
204
The divell damne
fac'd loone!
Where got'st thou that goose-looke?
SERVANT
There is ten thousand —
MACBETH
'Geese,' villaine?
SERVANT
Souldiers, sir.
MACBETH
Go pricke thy face and over-red thy feare,
Thou lilly-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soule! those linnen cheekes of
thine
Are counsailers to feare. What soldiers,
wh ay-face?
SERVANT
The English force, so please you.
MACBETH
Take thy face hence.
EXIT SERVANT
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
weak and the word 'disease' has no relation to PUSH. Other emendations are 'disseize'
and 'defeat,' equally unsatisfactory. The words taken just as they stand, allowing for the
possibility of a somewhat anomalous spelling in CHEERE and DIS-EATE, give a better
sense than any of the alterations proposed. "Cheere" may easily be a confusion of spell-
ing between " cheere " and " chaire " ; the two words seem to have had the same pronuncia-
tion in EL. E., "cheere" probably still retaining its open e alongside of the newer i. N. E. D.
under the substantive records
act v scene in 19-29 "±1™llS- a rf T«T ent H;
J ' century spelling or "cheere,
e . T -11 anc ^ the confusion may well
bey ton! 1 am SICk at hart, have worked the other way.
When I behold Seyton, I say! this push "Chair" frequently means
W-11 1 J- A 'throne'inEL.E. ; "chairedor
ill cheere me ever, or dis-seate me now. ^ » ,» • ., ' , . u »
1 stalled is glossed cathedra-
I have liv'd long enough : my way of life tus in Holyoke; and cp. "is
Is falne into the seare, the yellow leafe; J he chayre emptie? . . Is the
A , , 1.1111 J I 1 . king dead? Rich.3.IV.4.470.
And that which should accompany old-age, "Chair" in the sense 'en-
As honor, love, obedience, troopes of friends, throne' exactly fits the con-
I must not looke to have; but in their steed, T^Z^lMt^t^tlicl
Curses, not lowd but deepe, mouth-honor, is el. e. for 'forever," for the
breath rest °^ m V ^fe,' cp. " Let me
i V ,, .11 , 1 1 p • 1 1 nve here ever" Temp. IV. I.
Which the poore heart would tame deny, and 123. push as a verb we
dare not. have already had in a similar
Sey
, j connection in III. 4. 82, "push
us from our stooles"; the
noun also means 'test' or
'issue' in EL. E., cp. "Wee'l put the matter to the present push" Ham. V.I. 3 1 8, and
"What propugnation is in one man's valour To stand the push and enmity of those This
quarrell would excite?" Tro.&Cr. II. 2. 136. DIS-SEATE, 'unseat,' cp. "the hot horse . .
seekes to dis-seate his lord" Two Noble Kinsmen, V.4. 72 — the hyphen is significant.
Macbeth's words, therefore, mean, 'This crisis will either establish me on the throne for
the rest of my life or unking me at once.' THIS PUSH could well be the object of BEHOLD
were it not for the FO. punctuation, " behold : Seyton, I say, this push," etc., for the EL. rela-
tive pronoun is frequently omitted in M.E.ande.N.E.evenin restrictive clauses where MN.E.
sense requires it, cp. " Haply I see a friend will save my life" Err. V. 1. 283, and "The way is
danger leadeth to thy cell" Drayton, 'Duke of Normandie,' p. 417. Such an interpreta-
tion gives unity to Macbeth's words and reflects into them a moody despondency like
that of V.5.23 : 'I am sick at heart when I behold this fierce opposition which will estab-
lish me in perpetuity upon my throne or remove me from it now. For I have lived long
enough, etc.,' i.e. the game is scarce worth the candle. SF 22 For WAY OF LIFE John-
son proposed 'May of life' to avoid what he thought confusion of metaphor; but for a
'May to fall into the yellow leaf is a notion more confused than that of Shakspere's
words. WAY in EL. E. means 'course'; Steevens cited the phrase "way of life" from
Per. I.I. 54, " Thus ready for the way of life or death " ; cp., too, " Hee 's walk'd the way
of nature" 2Hen.4 V.2.4. *ff23 IS FALNE: "To fall in age" is the idiom cited from
Palsgrave, 1530, in N.E.D. ; the phrase "fall into" was used with a wide range of applica-
tion in EL. E. to describe 'persons passing into some specified condition, bodily or mental,'
N. E. D. 38. SEARE, ' withered,' ' dry,' is now only poetic, cp. " deformed, crooked, old, and
sere" Err. IV. 2. 19. *ff 27 After BREATH modern editors add a comma not in FO. I ; but
in Macbeth's thought "which" seems to refer only to "breath"and not to "mouth-honor" :
205
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the word in EL.E. often means 'flattery,' cp. "publicke fame or private breath" Wotton,
1639 (cited in N.E. D. 4 c), and "commends and courteous breath" Merch. II. 9. 90. <1F 28
DENY is used in its EL.E. sense of 'refuse.' As has been pointed out by Clark, this
soliloquy is one of the long-time suggestions in Macbeth. Coming in as it does between
the two impatient calls for Seyton, his only faithful noble, it gives us a glimpse of the man's
loneliness, and, without delay- ,. -- ,
ACT V SCENE III
ing the action, awakens sym-
pathy for him in the crisis
that is approaching.
SF30 MORE, 'further,' cp. III.
4. 137. SF33 French in his
' Shakespeareana Genealogi-
ca' (cited in Furness's Vario-
rum) says that the Setons
of Touch were hereditary ar-
mour-bearers to the kings of
Scotland. SF35 MOE is a
comparative M.E. form used
as a noun with the partitive
genitive following which sur-
vived into e.N.E. SKIRRE is
a phonetic spelling of ' scur,'
an EL. word meaning 'to flit,'
'pass hurriedly over'; it is
used by Jonson (cp. Cent.
Diet, s.v.) and by Fletcher,
"the light shadows That in a
thought scur o'er the fields of
corn" Bonduca I.I (cited by
Steevens). <lr36 MINE: an
EL. form of the pronoun fre-
quent before a word begin-
ning with a vowel. SF37Mac-
beth's quick turning to the
doctor to ask how his patient
is getting on aptly brings the
thought of Lady Macbeth
into the action. The doctor
probably enters while Mac-
beth is talking to Seyton,
though the FO. puts his en-
trance at the beginning of the
scene ; for it is hardly likely that Macbeth would ignore the doctor in the soliloquy, and there
is no occasion for his appearance in the action before this point. His coming in here to
report on Lady Macbeth's condition would naturally bring out Macbeth's question. Had
he been on the stage before, Shakspere would probably have assumed that Macbeth
knew about the "thicke-comming fancies." As it is, the doctor probably comes to tell the
king of what he saw in Scene I, but the imperative interruption, "Cure her of that," and
the impatient demand that follows, prevent him from communicating his news. The sim-
ple inquiry with its homely phrasing indicates a deep concern for Lady Macbeth ; but
here, as in II. 3. 124, a selfish indifference has been read into Macbeth's words. English-
men do not sentimentalize in a crisis such as Macbeth is in ; and a German inference
206
30-39
ENTER SEYTON
SEYTON
What's your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH
What newes more?
SEYTON
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH
I 'le fight till from my bones my flesh be hackt.
Give me my armor.
SEYTON
'T is not needed yet.
MACBETH
I 'le put it on.
Send out moe horses;
round;
Hang those that talke of feare.
mine armor.
How does your patient,
DOCTOR
Not so sicke, my lord,
As she is troubled with thicke-comming
fancies,
That keepe her from her rest.
skirre the country
Give me
doctor?
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
of Macbeth's selfishness because he does not express to the doctor his love and anxiety-
is apt to be misleading. His brusque ' How T s your patient, doctor?' is the truest note of
his anxiety that he could give. SF 39 REST, i.e. sleep, was the recognized remedy for
insanity in Shakspere's time,
x r>T» \r crnxic in orv a/- and Macbeth knows from his
ACT V SCENE III 39-46 own experience what loss of
sleep means.
MACBETH
Cure her of that. ^39 FO.I prints "Cure of
C >ix1 . . . • J J- t J that," but the rhythm points
an st thou not minister to a minde diseas d, to the loss of a w y ord? / nd thc
Plucke from the memory a rooted sorrow, "her" of fo.2 is probably
Raze out the written troubles of the braine, ^ ^ ht one - As CURE ! n
. . . . . . EL. E. means 'to treat medi-
And with some sweet oblivious antidote cinally,' cp. iv.3.215, Mac-
Cleanse the Stufft bosome of that perillous beth's direction is 'treat her
nn for that.' The doctor probably
SlUlie makes some gesture of dis-
Which weighes upon the heart? sent here, indicating that the
trouble is past curing, and
DOCTOR leading to Macbeth's ques-
Therein the patient t[ ? n ' half soliloquy, half com-
-_ . 1 . ip plaint at the impotence 01
Must minister to himselte. science. Plato's maxim, in
the form u cuncta mala cor-
poris ab animo procedunt, qua; nisi curentur corpus curari minime potest, 11 was an axiom
of current medical practice which Shakspere probably had in mind when he wrote these
oft-quoted words. Burton in citing it adds: 'Yea, but you will here infer that this is an
excellent good indeed if it could be done ; but how shall it be effected, by whom, what art,
what means? hie labor, hie opus est. 1 SF40 MINISTER here and in v. 46 was probably
syncopated to 'min'ster'; cp. "And minister in their steeds [i.e. steads]" Timon IV. 1.6,
and "keep in awe Your gelded ministers; shall I yielde accompe Of what I doe to you?"
Massinger's Believe as you List, 1.2. The word is used in EL. E. in the sense of 'pre-
scribe,' cp. "you gave me bitter pils, And I must minister the like to you" Two Gent.
II. 4. 149- SF 4 1 'Sorrow,' says Burton, 'is a sole cause of madness' . . . ' If it take root
once it ends in despair' I. ii. 3- 5. SF 42 RAZE OUT, ' erase,' cp. ' razing out one name and
putting in another' Jonson, 'Bart. Fair' V.2. ^43 OBLIVIOUS, 'causing forgetfulness,'
'soporific,' cp. Milton's "oblivious pool" Par. Lost, 1.263 (cited in Cent. Diet.). ANTI-
DOTE: cp. Minsheu, "a medicine given against venime . . veneni propulsatorium, i.e. a
driver away of venome" ; this driving away or purging notion of the word seems to have
been in Shakspere's mind. SF44 STUFFT, 'crammed full,' the usual EL. meaning of the
word; Comenius speaks of a "stomach stuffed or cramm'd full," so here it is the heart
'clogged with troubles' that Macbeth is asking the doctor to purge. PERILLOUS is syn-
copated to 'per'lous' in EL. E., cp. "So hard and perlous to be brought to passe" Dray-
ton's Barrons Warres, III. 30. 4. Macbeth thinks of the diseased soul as an overladen
stomach that must be purged: " strangulat inclusus dolor atque exazstuat z'nf us," as cur-
rent medical parlance, citing Ovid, had it. Such repetitions of a word as we have here
are very frequent in Shakspere and the best EL. writers, and give no occasion for the
numerous emendations that have been proposed for "stuffe." *ff45 The doctor's reply
echoes the medical notion of Shakspere's times. Burton says that in these cases of
minds diseased 'from the patient himself the first and chiefest remedy must be had'
II. 61. The words which follow are Macbeth's attempt to dismiss the matter. Remedy,
if there is one, lies in action, not in brooding. He can at least fight — 'fight the course,'
207
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
as he says later : he is still sure of winning. A wave of loneliness comes over him as
he says, " Doctor, the thanes flye from me" — the rats are leaving the sinking ship ; but he
puts the thought aside with a jest, turning the 'suffering country' into terms of medical
diagnosis. All through the
ACT V SCENE III
passage his impatience keeps
breaking out in petulance —
1 Come, sir, quick ! ' 'No, take
it off!' 'Bring it along after
me!'
SF48 The STAFFE was the
shaft of the spear, and is in
Shakspere frequently used
for the spear itself. But it
may also be the royal sceptre
of authority, cp. "gineta, a
captaines leading staffe" Per-
cival. This latter meaning
seems to be more appropriate
to the context : Macbeth
fightswithaswordinV.7.3I ff-
SF49 SEND OUT, 'send out
messengers or scouts' as in
III. 4. 129, Macbeth having
in mind the "Send out moe
horses "above. Delius, think-
ing the sentence unfinished,
punctuated it as an anacolu-
thon. FO. I cuts off the words
by semicolons. SF 50 The
COME, SIR, DISPATCH! is
addressed to Seyton or the
attendant who is buckling on
Macbeth's armour ; likewise,
the PULL'T OFF, I SAY!
(v. 54) is an impatient order
to remove some piece of ar-
mour, probably the helmet —
he will not be afraid, but
will meet death full in front :
BRING IT AFTER MEinv.58
evidently refers to the same
thing. Macbeth's repetition
of DOCTOR, with its second
demand for attention, graphi-
47-62
MACBETH
Throw physicke to the dogs; I 'le none of it.
— Come, put mine armour on; give me my
staffe.
Seyton, send out. — Doctor, the thanes flye
from me. —
Come, sir, dispatch ! — If thou could'st, doc-
tor, cast
The water of my land, finde her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very eccho,
That should applaud againe. — Pull ? t off, I
say
What rubarb,cenny, or what purgative drugge,
Would scowre these English hence? hear'st
thou of them?
DOCTOR
I, my good lord; your royall preparation
Makes us heare something.
MACBETH
Bring it after me.
I will not be affraid of death and bane,
Till Birnane forrest come to Dunsinane.
DOCTOR
ASIDE
Were I from Dunsinane away and cleere,
Profit againe should hardly draw me heere.
EXEUNT
cally shows the medical man's
nervousness. *ff5I The first step in seventeenth-century diagnosis was the examina-
tion—" casting"— of the diseased patient's urine. SF52 PURGE is used in its general
sense of 'cure.' *lr55 The "cyme" of FO. I seems to be an overlooked printer's error for
CENNY, an EL. form of 'senne,' i.e. cassia, a purgative drug: cp. "the common purgation
called casia fistula 11 Cooper; the words that follow fix the plant as a purgative, so that it
is likely that the correction of FO.2, "caeny," corresponds to Florio's spelling, "senie";
Turner spells the word "sene,"Cotgrave "sene," defining it as 'a purge' ; Boorde, p. 289,
208
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
spells it u seene," and gives it in a list of purgative medicines ; Minsheu, who spells it " senie "
and "sene,"also notes its purgative qualities. Thevariousemendations — 'rhubarb-clysme'
Badham, 'sirrah' Bullock, 'ochyme' Seager — either lack point or require a commentary.
PURGATIVE was probably syncopated in EL. E. <lr 59 BANE is used in its EL. sense of
destruction, N.E. D. 3. *1F6I The doctor is evidently perplexed; his interview has not
turned out well. He had perhaps intended to let the king know that he is aware of the
cause of Lady Macbeth's thick-coming fancies ; he may even have had some brave notion
of charging him with the murders of Duncan and Banquo. But in Macbeth's hands he
is as wax. A pointed question, a curt order, a sharp arraignment of his profession, a jest
on his practice, and the poor doctor is left helpless and alone, with no thought in his mind
but to get away.
SCENE IV: COUNTRY NEAR BIRNANE WOOD
DRUM AND COLOURS: ENTER MALCOLME SEYWARD
MACDUFFE SEYWARD f S SONNE MENTETH CATHNES ANGUS
AND SOLDIERS MARCHING
MALCOLME
OS INS, I hope the dayes are
neere at hand
That chambers will be safe.
MENTETH
We doubt it nothing.
SEYWARD
What wood is this before us?
MENTETH
The wood of Birnane.
MALCOLME
Let every souldier hew him downe a bough
And bear 't before him: thereby shall we
shadow
The numbers of our hoast and make dis-
covery
Erre in report of us.
SOLDIERS
It shall be done.
1-7
Scene IV continues theaction
of Scene II. <ff I COSINS,
the EL. use of the word in the
sense of 'kinsmen,' cp. note
toV.2.2. SF2 CHAMBERS
in EL. E. corresponds to
MN.E. 'private rooms,' and
hence the omission of 'our.'
It also describes the residence
of the king, N. E. D. 6, and
Malcolm's words convey a
reference to the murder of
Duncan as well as to the con-
ditions described in III. 6. 35.
NOTHING, the EL. adverb.
<ff5 THEREBY in EL.E. some-
times seems to have stress
on its first element : see also
Cor. V. 3- 133, 2Hen.6. II. I.
187, L.L.L. IV.3-283, Meas.
III. 1.6. SHADOW in EL.E.
is a regular word for ' conceal,'
cp. " His nose being shadow-
ed by his neighbour's eare"
Lucr. 14 1 6, and "they seek
out all shifts that can be . . to
shadow their self love" J. Bradford, died 1555 (cited in Cent. Diet.). SF6 DISCOVERY in
EL.E. means 'information,' N.E. D. 4, and is the regular word for 'reconnaissance'; cp.
"Here is the guesse of their true strength and forces By diligent discoverie" Lear V. 1. 13
(in N.E.D. 3 b). <ff 7 REPORT OF US, 'in reporting our numbers,' cp. note to III. 6.37.
209
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*ff8 NO OTHER BUT is EL. idiom for 'no one besides'; Macbeth is abandoned by his
thanes. Delius took "no other" as 'not otherwise than/ giving the phrase the sense it
bears in 1 1 1. 4. 97; but such an interpretation makes Sey ward's words rather pointless, as
Malcolm's followers are probably already aware that Macbeth is at Dunsinane. CONFI-
DENT was probably syncopated to 'conf'dent' in EL.E., however harsh such syncopa-
tion may sound to modern ears; but there is no other clear instance of it in Shakspere.
The word sometimes means 'overbold' in EL.E., and probably has that meaning here.
<ff9 AND WILL INDURE r 'and he means to hold out against': in M. E. and e. N. E. syntax
the subject is frequently left unexpressed when it can be easily supplied from the context ;
and this idiom is found in
^X+TJ«£Z ACT v SCENE IV 8 -'4
curs without any pronoun be-
ingexpressed. "Indure"here bEYWAKL»
means 'withstand,' 'oppose,' We learne no other but the confident tyrant
N?kD e fc!%io SU sETTiNG Keepes still in Dunsinane, and will indure
downe before is a regu- Our setting downe befor ? t.
lar EL. E. phrase for 'be-
sieging.' MAINE is in wide MALCOLME
use in EL.E. in the sense of tf ig ^ is ma i ne hope:
'chief ; in an effort to make _» . i • 1 , ^ f .
the sense more apt in mn.e., For where there is advantage to be given,
'vain' has been conjectured Both more and lesse have tfiven him the
for "maine." SF 1 1 ADVAN- r o\>n1t
TAGE TO BE GIVEN is like- reVOll,
wise unintelligible as mn. e., And none serve with him but constrained
and various emendations of things
the phrase have been pro- wn ". .
posed: Johnson was for 'ad- Whose hearts are absent too.
vantage to be gone,' others
read 'advantage to be got,' 'to be gotten," to be ta'en,' 'to 'em given,' etc. But the evident
word play on " given " speaks for the authenticity of the text, which makes good sense in EL.E.
For "advantage" means 'opportunity,' 'chance,' in Shakspere's time: see N.E. D.s.v., and
cp. "The next advantage will we take" Temp. III. 3. 13 J the use of the substantive verb in
the sense of ' have to,' ' must needs,' has already been noted in II. 1.43 j cp. also " You know,
sir, where I am to go and the necessitie [i.e. you know where I have to go and the reason] "
Jonson's Poetaster, III. I. So here, 'where an opportunity for desertion has to be given [i.e.
in the open field] his followers have abandoned him, so that he knows better than to risk
battle outside his castle.' SF 1 2 MORE AND LESSE : the words are used in their EL. senses
of 'great ones,' 'nobles,' and 'those of lower rank and station,' N.E.D. 2. HAVE GIVEN
HIM THE REVOLT : "revolt" in EL. E. means 'desertion,' cp. "gravitie's revolt to wanton-
ness" L.L.L. V. 2.74; Comenius glosses "renegadoes, that turn Turks" by "revolters."
"Given" in EL.E., as we have already seen (cp. note to I. 3- 1 1 9) r expresses the notion of
'forcing one to accept,' and the phrase means force him to accept the consequences of their
desertion; MN. idiom retains this association in 'to give one the slip.' SF 13 THINGS is
applied to persons in EL. E. to connote an absence of volition ; in I Hen.4 III. 3. 1 3 1 ff- the
hostess resents Falstaff's use of the word "thing" in this sense of 'personality without
will power,' and "beast" in the sense of 'personality without reasoning power': "I am
no thing to thanke heaven on, I wold thou shouldst know it . . Falsi. . . Thou art a beast
to say otherwise. Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou!" MN.E. in such phrases as
'poor thing' still retains this earlier shade of meaning. Shakspere gives point to the word
in the following line, 'whose love, as well as power of volition, is absent.'
210
ACT V SCENE IV 14-21
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*1FI4 CENSURES, 'judgements/ a common meaning of the word in EL. E. SFI5 ATTEND,
'wait for,' cp. "from thence he could attend small succour" Sidney's Arcadia, p. 256.
TRUE in EL.E. is very frequently applied to things which are to be relied upon as well as
to trustworthy persons, cp. "true complaint" Meas. V. 1. 24, "true sight" Sonn.CXLVIII.2,
"Your spirit is too true, your feares too certaine" 2Hen.4 1. 1.92, and IV. 1. 122 of this play.
PUT ON, cp. note to II- 3- 1 39- IF 16 INDUSTRIOUS, 'able,' 'efficient,' an e.N.E. mean-
ing of the word that is now obsolete, see N.E.D. I. This 'obscurely worded sentence' is
obscure only in MN. E. Macduff, who has known what it is to be loyal to his king, rebukes
the somewhat harsh words of
Malcolm about "constrained
things" and Malcolm's im-
plication that those who sur-
M ACDUFFE round Macbeth have no affec-
Let our just censures t[ ° n for him by saying that
, J they must suspend judgement
Attend the true event, and put we on unt ii after the issue of the
Industrious souldiership. battle which wil1 decide the
matter, and must fight to
SEYWARD the best of their ability for
r-,. . what they think to be the
1 he time approaches ri ght. Seyward carries on
That will with due decision make us know the thought in the following
■VY/i 1 11 1 1 1 . lines. SFI8 SHALL, 'must.'
What we shall say we have and what we have and .. owe, f.e. true
owe. N hearts and rightful allegiance ;
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes \ the words are not 'pompous'
1 r 1 or 'sententious, but a natural
relate, /assent to Macduff's caution.
But certaine issue stroakes must arbitrate: / *i9 speculative was
rri 1 1 . 1 1 .1 / probably 'spee'lative' in EL.E.
Towards which advance the warre. / RE late, 'give utterance to,'
EXEUNT MARCHING cp. " I nill relate, action may
Conveniently the rest con-
vey" Per. III. Gower 55 ; cp. also III. 4. 124. *ff20 ARBITRATE, 'decide," determine,' a
meaning now archaic, N.E.D. 2 ; the object is "certaine issue." SF2I TOWARDS WHICH,
i.e. the "certaine issue." WARRE in EL.E. is often equivalent to 'contest,' 'quarrel,' a
meaning still preserved in modern phrases like 'war of words,' etc.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE V
Scene V continues the action of Scene I and in a few brief words closes the drama of Lady
Macbeth's life. Shakspere does not tell us the manner of her death — we merely know that
she dies amid the shrieking of women. Even when, at the end of the play, Malcolm refers
to her tragic end, it is in the doubtful words, "Who, as 'tis thought, by selfe and violent
hands Tooke off her life." Already we have had the physician warning the nurse against
a probable attempt by Lady Macbeth at self-destruction — "Remove from her the meanes
of all annoyance." But this fear of the doctor's, the "cry of women," and Malcolm's
suspicion are the only hints we get of the manner of her end. In Act III Shakspere be-
gins to draw our attention away from Lady Macbeth to her husband ; she does not appear
at all in Act IV ; and in the first scene of Act V she stalks through the action as a spirit
that has already gone to her doom. In this way he gives to the tragedy a unity of interest
211
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
which it would not otherwise possess. For a double interest is a divided interest, and
had Lady Macbeth remained as prominent in the last half of the play as she was in the
first half, the fatal end of the fury-driven, vision-haunted Macbeth would have lacked the
clearness and definiteness which, read back into his tragedy, gives to its long course in
time, its varied changes of place, and its multitudinous action, an aesthetic completeness
and singleness of purpose which far transcend the mechanical unities of classic drama.
SCENE V: DUNSINANE: WITHIN THE CASTLE
ENTER MACBETH SEYTON AND SOULDIERS WITH DRUM
AND COLOURS
1-8
on
the
MACBETH
ANG out our banners
outward walls;
The cry is still, ' They come r : our
castle's strength
Will laugh a siedge to scorne:
heere let them lye
Till famine and the ague eate them up:
Were they not forc'd with those that should
be ours,
We might have met them darefull, beard to
beard,
And beate them backward home.
A CRY WITHIN OF WOMEN
What is that noyse?
SEYTON
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macbeth's first words not
only express his defiance of
Malcolm's forces, but keep
before us the action of Scene
IV, with which this is con-
tinuous. *ff2 CRY in EL. E.
may mean 'report,' 'rumour,'
N.E.D. 7. STILL, 'always.'
SF 3 LYE is the regular word
in EL. E. for the encampment
of an army, cp. N.E.D. 5b
and the quotation from Halle's
Chronicle, "The kyng lay
before Bullein and was like
to have conquered the same."
^5 FORC'D is an e. N. E.
verb meaning 'reinforced,'
' strengthened,' N. E. D. 1 3, and
not an error for 'farced.'
OURS, 'belonging on our
side,' cp. the note to 1.7.26.
SF6 DAREFULL,cp."Notby
theprowesseof hisownedare- EXIT SEYTON
full hand" Sylvester (cited in
N.E.D.s.u.). 1F7 ACRY WITHIN OF WOMEN illustrates the word order noted in III. 6.48.
The word "cry" seems to be used in the sense of 'scream,' 'clamour,' 'outcry,' N.E.D. 6;
in this sense it is not illustrated in N.E.D. after 1440, but Phr. Gen. gives "they set up a
cry, clamor em sustulerunt 11 ; "to confuse all things with hideous noise and cry, omnia tu-
multu et vociferatione concutere 11 : this is exactly the sense the context requires. NOYSE
also refers to 'clamour,' 'outcries,' in EL. E., cp. "a lamentable noise or crie, flebilis fre-
mitus 11 Baret's Alvearie. *1F8 Seyton's words show that "cry" means 'shrieking.' He
probably leaves the stage to ascertain the cause of the outcries, but no EXIT here or at
v. 16 and no ENTRANCE at v. 15 are marked in the FO.
SF 10 MY SENCES WOULD HAVE COOL'D : the effect of fear is usually thought of as
chilling the blood, cp. "freeze thy young blood" Ham. 1. 5. 16, and "the bloud waxing colde
for feare " Baret's Alvearie. " Sences " : in EL. psychology the mind was thought of as con-
212
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT V
SCENE V
9-16
sisting of 'outer senses' (MN. 'sensations') and the 'inner senses' (common sense, judge-
ment, memory, imagination). Spirits in the blood, 'the spirits of sense,' ministered to
these. Shakspere often uses "senses" for the 'spirits of sense,' cp. L.L.L. II. 1.240,242,
and Temp. V. 1 . 66, and perhaps that is the notion here. " Cool " is a stronger word in EL. E.
than in MN. E. and translates
frigesco in the Latin diction-
aries of the time. CI. Pr. cites
" Least [i.e. lest] zeale . .
Coole and congeale againe to
what it was" John II. 1.477.
«ffll NIGHT-SHRIEKE,'the
hooting of the night owl,' cp.
"night-owl's shrike" Rich.2
III. 3. 183- FELL, 'a covering
of hair or wool,' N.E. D.3;
the phrase "fell of haire" is
used in EL. E. for 'scalp cov-
ered with hair.' *lrI2 DIS-
MALL, 'disastrous,' 'tragic,'
cp.notetol.2.53- TREATISE
is a common EL. word for
' story,' ' narration,' cp. " Your
treatise makes me like you
worse and worse" Ven.&Ad.
774. SF 13 AS, 'as if,' cp.
note to 1.4. 1 1. WITH means
' on ' and goes with SU PT, cp.
note to IV. 2. 32. Macbeth, in
the depths of his despair,
utters words like those of
Herculesin' Heracles Maino-
menos': 'my bark is full fraught with horrors.' *1r 14 SLAUGHTEROUS THOUGHTS,
'murderous impulses,' cp. "Such butchers as yourselves never want A colour to excuse
your slaughterous mind" Heywood's Edward IV (cited in Cent. Diet.) ; see also note
to 1.3. 139- *ff 15 START, 'make to tremble,' cp. note to V. 1.50. Macbeth's familiarity
with fear dates, of course, from the murder of Duncan ; before that he 'knew not the taste
of fears,' see 1.3-30 ff. Yet, as in these words of self-revelation he reviews the horror of
his reign, it reflects itself over the whole of his life, and the time when he would start at
the owl's shriek (cp. II. 2. 16), or be frightened at a woman's story at a winter's fire (cp.
1 1 1. 4. 65), seems long ago. *lr 1 6 Seyton's answer, brief, respectful, sounds like the an-
nouncement of an executed doom.
Macbeth's words that follow have given rise to much comment. Taken as they stand
and read as EL. E.,they mean : ' She must necessarily have died sometime ; there must have
come a time when I should have to hear this message of her doom. But we always think
of death as something that must happen to-morrow, never to-day.' SF 1 7 SHOULD, ' must
necessarily have,' cp. note to II. 3- 127 where the notion of fittingness is implied, and note
to IV. 3. 20 where the notion of something necessary is involved. HEEREAFTER: some-
what less definite than in MN.E., cp. Lady Macbeth's "the all-haile hereafter" 1.5-56.
9f 18 WOULD, 'must inevitably have been,' cp. note to III. 1. 51. Ignoring this notion of
necessity whichthe EL. auxiliaries convey, many have commented on the selfishness of Mac-
beth's words. But it is because Macbeth has supped full of horrors that death now be-
comes an insignificant fact in life ; he thinks life itself is meaningless delusion, and why
213
MACBETH
I have almost forgot the taste of feares:
The time has beene my sences would have
cool'd
To heare a night-shrieke; and my fell of
haire
Would at a dismall treatise rowze and stirre
As life were in't: I have supt full with horrors;
Direnesse, familiar to my slaughterous
thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
RE-ENTER SEYTON
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON
The queene, my lord, is dead.
EXIT SEYTON
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
should one bother about ending it sooner or later? A TIME, i.e. a fitting time,cp. "Though
you heare now, too late, yet nowe'sa time" Timon II. 2. 152. SF 19 The bitterness of Mac-
beth's words, with their iterating rhythm, " ' " || " ■ ' " || " * ' " ? may have been intensified
by a heart-sickness at his always deferred hope of cheating Banquo's line of the fulfilment
of the witches' prophecy. Now at last the to-morrows are ended and there is no hope
more. Banquo has triumphed, all the long fight has been for nothing, 'to be nothing/ a
mere cipher in time's annals — 'time's fool.' TO MORROW: Halliwell thought that an
engraving in Barclay's Ship of Fooles, 1570, representing a fool with crows sitting on
his cap and on each hand and the word eras written above each one, may have suggested
the notion of to-morrows lighting fools the way to dusty death. The passage which this
illustrates is :
They folowe the crowes crye to their great sorowe :
l CraSy 'eras, 1 ^cras^ to morowe we shall amende,
And if we mende not then, then shall we the next morowe ;
Or els shortly after we shall no more offende.
Amende, mad foole, when God this grace doth sende.
ACT V
SCENE V
17-28
It may be worth noting that in Old and Middle High German an r was heard in the caw
of the crow, giving the form craa for 'caw.' The word "craw" is also found in English
for the caw of a crow, see N.E. D.s.v. SF 20 PETTY in EL. E. has a wider range of use
than in MN.E. in the sense
which we still preserve in
'petty felony' and in 'petty
jury,' and does not necessa-
rily connote annoyance. Co-
menius calls a primary school
a "petty schoole" ; Coles
glosses the word by paruus,
exiguus ; cp. also "petty ar-
tire [artery] " Ham. I. 4. 82,
"petty present" Ant. & CI.
1.5.45- PACE: cp. "a pace
or manner of going, incessus "
Phr.Gen. <ff2I TO in EL.
expressions of time is often
used where MN.E. prefers
'until' ; cp." being two houres
to day" Merch. V. 1.303, and
" For since the birth of Caine,
the first male-childe, To him
that did but yesterday sus-
pire" John III. 4. 79. RE-
CORDED TIME: a similar
notion of the course of the
world as being a book of
record occurred in II. 4. 2.
SF 22 LIGHTED in EL. E. is
a common synonym of 'guided': one needs only to think of the London of Shakspere's
day, with its link-boys, to appreciate the association. IF 23 DUSTY is taken by Steevens
as a reference to the 'dust to dust' of the burial service. Collier cites Anthonie Copley's
A Fig for Fortune, 1596 (Sp. Soc, p. 49), "Time and the grave did first salute thy nature,
Inviting it to dustie death's defeature" ; the same notion is found in " Death is the drearie
214
MACBETH
She should have dy'de heereafter;
There would have beene a time for such a
word.
To morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow,
Creepes in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdayes have lighted fooles
The way to dusty death. Out, out, breefe
candle !
Life 's but a walking shadow, a poore player
That struts and frets his houre upon the
stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an ideot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
dad and dust the dame Of all f lesh-frailtie " Bodenham's Belvedere, p. 23 1 r citing a near-by
verse of Copley's. "Dust" in M.E. and e. N.E. connoted ' worthlessness,' 'emptiness/
N.E.D. sb. I, 3 d, and this association attached to "dusty " in EL. E. ; in Tro.&Cr. 1 1 1. 2. 195
we have the same notion, "mightie states characterlesse are grated To dustie nothing."
For the notion of THE WAY TO DEATH, cp. "This way to death my wretched sonnes
are gone" Titus III. 1.98. Shakspere may have had in mind the words in Florio's Mon-
taigne, I.xix, "All daies march toward death." As Macbeth reviews his own empty yes-
terdays of promises kept to his ear and broken to his hope, he bitterly says, 'All men are
fools and life an idiot's tale!' From the notion of light he passes to that of a candle;
much the same notions are linked in " Heere burnes my candle out ; I, heere it dies, Which
whiles it lasted gave King Henry light" 3Hen.6 11,6.1. SF 24 WALKING in EL.E. is
used of the stalking movements of spirits or spectres, — cp. note to V. 1 . 3 r — and SHADOW
is applied to any spectral illusion ; Guildenstern's words, Ham. II. 2. 262, that the substance
of ambition is the shadow of a dream, contain the same notion of haunting unreality. The
thought of this unreality of life leads Macbeth on to the notion of the stage-player, and
recalls that proud moment, years ago, when he heard himself hailed as king to be. Then
it was the happy prologue, the swelling act, the imperial theme : the play is over now,
with its hour of strut and fret, and the poor actor is to be heard no more. This last is
the bitter drop in the cup Macbeth is draining — 'no son of his succeeding,' the dynastic
hope now shattered and all that he has sacrificed his soul for gone for naught. SF 26 The
thought of the actor's strutting and fretting leads on to that of an idiot's tale full of sound
and fury; the association of life and a tale is found also in John III. 4. 108, "Life is as
tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull eare of a drowsie man" ; but here Macbeth's
bitterness intensifies the figure. The nineteenth chapter of the first book of Florio's
Montaigne is full of similar notions and may have suggested the verbiage of this passage :
"being faire and gently led on by her hand in a slow and as it were unperceived descent
by little and little, and step by step ['the petty pace'], she roules us into that miserable
state and day by day seeks to acquaint us with it." The player notion is also found here :
" He hath plaied his part. . . Make room for others, as others have done for you."
The rhythm of this passage shows the marvellous capabilities of English stress to re-
flect action : " have lighted fooles The way to dusty death," with its firm and regular for-
ward movement, pictures to the mind the action the words describe. "Out, out, breefe
candle," reflects the act that Macbeth intends. In " Life's but a walking shadow, a poore
player" the long waves in "life," "walking," "poore," add to the notion of stalking that
the rhythm expresses. In " struts and frets," with its short, explosive impulses, we have a
picture of the actor himself. " And then is heard no more" with the long secondary impulse
on "no" and the lingering stress on "more," is~FuTl of pathos. The reversals, short and
quick, in "it is a tale, Told by an ideot," suggesting inconsequence of thinking; "full of
sound and fury," with its swelling wave closing in an unstressed impulse ; " Signifying
nothing," with its bold start and its impotent conclusion recalling the inconclusive rhythms
of Hamlet — all these adaptations of the verse to the thought show Shakspere's marvellous
command over the resources of English rhythm.
Macbeth is evidently on the point of suicide. The double imperative "Out, out, breefe
candle!" clearly points to action (cp. V. 1.38) ; the words cannot mean that Lady Mac-
beth's candle is out, or that Macbeth wishes that life's candle might be extinguished. The
only construction that can be put upon them is tha t of an immediate purpose to take
his life. Like Hercules, when he-realizes-thre-TTtterTiopelessness of the future, when he
sees his life as behind him and no longer as in a vision before, he will destroy himself.
The impatient words he speaks upon the entrance of the messenger likewise point to
this action as that intended by Shakspere, — "Thou com'st to use thy tongue" meaning
that the messenger is dazed by the scene his eyes present to him and is helplessly staring
at what he sees. 'Thou com'st to use thy tongue, not thine eyes. Why stand'st thou
there staring like a fool? Thy story quickly!'
215
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
*ff30 The messenger excuses himself by the strangeness of his news. GRACIOUS MY
LORD: for the word order cp. III. 2. 27. SF 3 1 SHOULD, 'must/ 'am obliged to,' as in
v. 17. I SAY/ I declare'; the
words were objected to by AQT y SCENE V 29~46
Keightley as 'needless, and
stricken out to make 'good
metre.' SF 32 SAY is used
absolutely in its EL. connota-
tion of 'tell,' cp. "Cor. First
hearemespeake. Tribs. Well,
say" Cor. III. 3- 41. SF 34
ANON METHOUGHT,'pres-
ently it seemed to me that.'
«ff 36 ENDURE,'suffer,'cp.V.
4.9. «TF 37 MILE,like"hors,"
has no plural ending in O.E.,
and ine.N.E.retainsthis flex-
ionless form which in vulgar
English still survives,cp. note
to II. 4. 14. <IF 38 The rhythm
is itself a threat— " "". <ff 39
NEXT still retained its origi-
nal meaning of 'nearest' in
EL.E. SHALL is changed to
'shalt'in MN. editions ; but in
EL.E. the apparently third
personal ending -s is often
attached to the second, and
the forms "will" and "wilt,"
"shall" and " shall," appear
side by side. The FO. in Ant.
&Cl.V.2.208has "shall" for
"shalt." SF 40 CLING, 'shrivel
up,' cp. "That . . clings not
his guts with niggish fare"
Surrey,Eccl.V (citedinN.E.D.
3 c) ; the word had this sense
of 'shrivelling' in O. E. and
M.E., but was used intransi-
tively. SOOTH, 'truth,' still
in archaic use. SF 42 PULL
IN in EL. E., as in MN. E., has
two meanings, 'to check' or
' restrain,' and ' to draw back.'
Steevens took the former
meaning. But it is difficult
to think of Macbeth restrain-
ing resolution in this crisis,
and coupling the restrained
resolution with fear. Mason
ENTER A MESSENGER
Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story
quickly.
1 MESSENGER
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to doo T t.
MACBETH
Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Byrnane, and anon me
thought
The wood began to move.
MACBETH
Lyar and slave !
MESSENGER
Let me endure your wrath, if f t be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it com-
ming;
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH
If thou speak'st false
Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee : if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt th' equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth : ' Feare not, till Byrnane
wood
Do come to Dunsinane': and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.
took the latter meaning, and
cited Fletcher's Sea Voyage III. I, "All my spirits, as if they had heard my passing-bell
go for me, Pull in their powers and give me up to destiny." But "pull in" here reflects
216
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
the EL. psychology of life — the spirits drawing in their vital instruments preparatory to
death. This thought hardly suits the context, for Macbeth's "Arme, arme ! " are not the
words of one resigning himself to death. And that Macbeth pulls in his own resolution
leaves the same difficulty as before. u Pull" may be the independent verb used in a sense
not yet recorded for EL. E. Cent. Diet, quotes a passage from Fletcher where "pulled"
seems to mean 'reduce/ 'abate' : u His rank flesh shall be pulled with daily fasting." Or
it may be a misprint. Johnson suggested "pall" in the sense of 'languish/ and the word
makes even better sense than he dreamed : for "appale," "appall," have parallel meanings
in EL. E. : either can mean 'to wax faint in any quality' ; the words frequently, too, con-
note ' dismay/ see N. E. D. s.v. (One citation in N. E. D., dated 1 450, is : " Yf theise men ap-
pall and lacke when you do call " ; here the word, though a century earlier than Shakspere,
has the meaning 'lose heart or resolution.') Aphetic forms of "appall" are common in
EL. E., see N.E.D. Johnson's "pall," therefore, would suggest in EL. E. the same notion
that we have in Hamlet, III. 1.84, "the native hew of resolution Is sicklied o're with the
pale cast of thought [i.e. anxiety]." Or, again, the misprint may be for "dull" (a turned
d in the FO. type would scarcely be distinguishable from a p). "Dull" in EL. E. is com-
monly associated with 'spiritlessness' ; and a verb "to dull" in the sense of 'become
stupid' is cited in N.E.D. from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries (the MN. instances
seem to imply 'make leaden or dull in color'). The dictionary also records, s.v. 7, an
absolute meaning of 'become listless/ but "he dradde [i.e. feared] moche of the forseid
word and greatly dulled therewith" Gesta Romanorum, 1440, is its latest citation for this
sense. Here, however, we have the association of 'dazed will' and 'fear/ and it is quite
possible that this meaning survived in Shakspere's time. (The next meaning of the word,
i.e. to weary, is not illustrated in N.E.D. later than 1540, but was in current use in EL. E.,
see Baret's Alvearie and Sonn. CII. 14.) Cooper gives "obtorpesco, to be very slow or
dull : to faint for feare : to be benummed with fear." Baret and Holyoke have the same
gloss; cp., also, "to cause astonnedness or dullness of the members" and "a faint cour-
age, a dull spirit" Baret's Alvearie, and " Dull not device by coldnesse and delay" Oth. II.
3-394. The notion of 'dazed will' — for the "resolution" in EL. E. is the 'will power' — is
just the one which fits the words that follow : the sudden and strange news that Macbeth
hears dulls his will and shakes his faith in the witches. *ff43 DOUBT, 'fear," become afraid
of/ a common EL.E. meaning of the word. EQUIVOCATION : cp. note to II. 3- 12. Macbeth
must have already felt the fear he voices here, else he would not have been so ready to
call the prophecies "equivo-
ACT V SCENE V 4 6- 5 2 %gj£&£g2
, , . that he has been bargaining
Arme, arme, and out ! wit h Satan, a fact he has
If this which he avouches does appeare, never allowed himself to look
#t»i . pi . , 1 . . |_ squarely in the face before.
1 here is nor trying hence nor tarrying here. n J
I 'ginne to be a-weary of the sun, <ff47, 48, 49, 50 could hardly
And wish th ? estate o r th' world were now un- have been written by the same
, hand as that which wrote vv.
don. 20-28, nor do the padded
Rind the alarum bell! blow, winde! come, phrases, "does appeare,"
1 I "now undon," sound like
WracKe - Shakspere. <ff 47 APPEARE,
At least wee'ldyewithharnesse on our backe. 'become visible/ but the word
EXEUNT is almost as flat in EL.E. as
it is in MN.E. *ff48 NOR . .
NOR, the EL. form of the 'neither . . nor' idiom. <ff49 A-WEARY OF THE SUN is an
EL. phrase for tcedium vitas. SF 50 TH' ESTATE O'TH' WORLD WERE NOW UNDON,
217
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
after u Life . . is a tale Told by an ideot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing," sounds
like a row of accepted emendations. SF5I THE ALARUM BELL: cp. note to II. 3.85.
WRACK E, 'destruction': the word is still used in the phrase 'rack and ruin/ though its
e. N. E. w has been lost. Macbeth here invokes the impending storm in the same mad fury
that characterizes Lear's "Blow, windes and crack your cheeks; rage! blow!" III. 2. 1.
ALARU M was probably syncopated to ' alarm ' (both forms are common in EL. E.), for the
normal stress of imperative and noun is ' ". SF52 HARNESSE: the M. E. and e.N.E.
word for armour, still in archaic use.
SCENE VI: DUNSINANE BEFORE THE CASTLE
DRUMME AND COLOURS: ENTER MALCOLME SEYWARD MACDUFFE
AND THEIR ARMY WITH BOUGHES I -10
MALCOLME
OW neere enough : your leavy
skreenes throw downe,
And shew like those you are.
You, worthy unkle,
Shall with my cosin, your right
noble sonne,
Leade our first battell : worthy Macduffe and
wee
Shall take upon 's what else remaines to do,
According to our order.
SEYWARD
Fare you well.
Do we but finde the tyrant's power to night,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
MACDUFFE
Make all our trumpets speak; give them all
breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and
death. exeunt
ALARUMS CONTINUED
SF I LEAVY is the normal
form of M.E. "levi," and is
common in e.N.E. MN.E.
4 leafy ' is made from the noun
4 leaf/ SF2 SHEW, 'disclose
yourselves in your true form,'
cp. I. 3- 54. IF 4 BATTELL
from the fourteenth to the
eighteenth centuries means a
file or line of troops, acies,
N.E.D.8. <ff5 TO DO, 'to be
done/ cp. note to V. 8-30.
<lr 6 ORDER is probably * plan
of battle' rather than 'com-
mand/ cp. "we put our men
into order, legiones instruxi-
mus" Coles. SF7DO, 'if we
do,' the M. E. subjunctive still
current in EL. E. TO NIGHT
seems to be a time suggestion
placing the battle in the late
afternoon. SF 9 GIVE THEM
ALL BREATH, 'put breath
into them,' 'make them speak.'
SFlO HARBINGERS,cp. note
to 1.4.45 ; the word retains its
full form,CLAM'ROUS being
syncopated. The EL. stage
direction ALARUMS usually denotes the din and noise of battle. CONTINUED here seems
to mean 'continuous,' and the stage direction to represent the trumpet blasts challenging
the defenders of the castle. The battle immediately follows, though Shakspere represents
it as well under way when Scene VII opens. The action of Scene VII is closely joined
to that of Scene V : Macbeth was at first resolved to stand a siege ; but on hearing the
news of the moving wood he decided to put his fate at once to the test in an immediate
sally. Scene VI forms the connecting link.
218
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE VII: THE BATTLEFI
ENTER MACBETH
MACBETH
HEY have tied me to a stake; I
cannot flye,
But beare-like I must fight the
course. What T s he
That was not borne of woman?
Such a one
Am I to feare, or none.
ENTER YOUNG SEYWARD
YOUNG SEYWARD
What is thy name?
MACBETH
Thou T lt be affraid to heare it.
YOUNG SEYWARD
No; though thou call'st thy selfe a hoter
name
Then any is in hell.
MACBETH
My name f s Macbeth.
YOUNG SEYWARD
The divell himselfe could not pronounce a
title
More hatefull to mine eare.
MACBETH
No, nor more fearefull.
YOUNG SEYWARD
Thou lyest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I 'le prove the lye thou speak'st.
FIGHT AND YOUNG SEYWARD SLAINE
MACBETH
Thou wast borne of woman.
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to
scorne,
219
ELD
I-I2
SF2 COURSE in EL.E. was
the technical term for a round
of fightingin the sport of bear-
baiting. Gloucester uses the
same figure in Lear III. 7. 54.
Macbeth is pushed to the last
extremity with but one pro-
phecy to tie to, and is afraid
that will turn out to have
been equivocal. He repeats
this over to himself, and, impa-
tient to try its efficacy, glee-
fully welcomes young Sey-
ward as a test, finishing him
off with a satisfied 'Well, it
held for once ; thou wast born
of woman.' WHAT'S, 'who
is,' cp. note to II. 3. 21. *ff4
AM I TO FEARE, 'am I go-
ing to fear,'cp. note to 1 1. 1. 43*
*ff 5 TO HEARE, 'at hearing,'
the common EL. infinitive
idiom. SF7 THEN ANY IS,
'than any that is,' the EL.
omitted relative. SF 10 LY-
EST, 'ly'st,' as in IV. 2. 83,
with ABHORRED three sylla-
bles. SF I I Macbeth has now
tested the prophecy, and in
his words appears a fresh
confidence.
<IrI5 BEEST, monosyllabic
in EL.E., cp. "seest," II. 4. 5-
<ffl6 STILL, 'always.' «TF 1 7
KERNES was frequently used
in EL. E. for peasant soldiers,
cp. 1.2. 13. SF 18 STAVES,
'spears,' cp. note to V.3-48.
EITHER is frequently a mon-
osyllable in EL.E.; this loss
of intervocalic th occurs also
in "thither" and "whether"
('whither,'cp. note to IV. 2. 73),
which had forms "th'er" and
"wh'er"in EL.E.; cp. "which
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
hath thine honour reft from
thee and cither by force of
hand, "etc., Peele's Sir Clyo-
monand Sir Clamydes, III. 73
(the poem is in septenarius
verse), and "either well or yll
according to thy [see note to
IV. 1. 71] intent" Faire Em,
V. 1.25; cp., also, Cass. IV.
1.23, Rich.3 1. 2. 64, etc. The
THOU is probably not 'un-
grammatical,' but in Mac-
duff's mind the subject of
some verb like 'must meet
me.' *ff 19 UNBATTERED:
in an anticipation of the fierce-
ness of the combat between
him and Macbeth. SF 20 UN-
DEEDED : cp. "well educated
of the king and proving nobly
deeded" Albion's England,
377 (cited in N. E. D. s.v.).
SHOULD'ST,'must,'cp. note
to II. 3. 127: the stress is,
"There thou should'st be."
SF 21 CLATTER in EL. E. is
applied to anyclangingnoise ;
cp. 'with clattering of cym-
bals' Comenius's Janua, 643-
It also means the din of loud
voices, N.E. D. 2; hence the
"bruited" which follows. OF
GREATEST NOTE: cp. III.
2.44. *ff 22 SEEMES BRUIT-
ED, ' seems to be announced/
the EL. participle construc-
tion in indirect discourse.
«ff24 GENTLY here is usu-
ally interpreted as meaning
'without resistance,' 'with-
out reluctance' ; but no such
meaning is given in N.E. D.,
and Schmidt's citation from
Temp. 1.2.298, "doe my
spryting gently," is obviously
an instance of the common
EL. meaning of the word, viz.
'courteously.' It is possible
that 'tamely' is the meaning,
based upon the sense of " gen-
tle" as used in 1.6.3- REN-
DRED, 'surrendered,' a com-
mon meaning of the word
ACT V SCENE VII 13-29
Brandished by man that T s of a woman borne.
EXIT
ALARUMS: ENTER MACDUFFE
MACDUFFE
That way the noise is. Tyrant, shew thy
face!
If thou beest slaine and with no stroake of
mine,
My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me
still.
I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose
armes
Are hyr'd to beare their staves: either thou,
Macbeth,
Or else my sword with an unbattered edge
I sheath againe undeeded. There thou
should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seemes bruited. Let me finde him, Fortune,
And more I begge not.
EXIT: ALARUMS
ENTER MALCOLME AND SEYWARD
SEYWARD
This way, my lord; the castle's gently
rendred :
The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the warre;
The day almost it selfe professes yours,
And little is to do.
MALCOLME
We have met with foes
That strike beside us.
SEYWARD
Enter, sir, the castle.
EXEUNT: ALARUM
220
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
in EL. E. In the past tense of verbs ending in -en, like "happen," and in -er, like "render,"
the e of the verb stem was often dropped; whether this represents an actual EL. form of
these words or was merely a way of representing the vocalic character of the liquid or
nasal has not yet been made clear. SF25 means that the royal household is divided and
that their half-heartedness practically amounts to fighting upon Malcolm's side. *ff 26
DO BRAVELY is a common EL. phrase meaning to act in a highly creditable way; the
phrase is not found in N.E. D. but depends on DO in the sense of 'behaving,' cp. "to doe
or exercise: to beare, to behave, gero" Baret, "Do bravely, horse" Ant.&Cl. 1.5.22, and
"see you do it bravely" Titus IV. 3- 1 13- WARRE, 'battle,' as in V.4.2I. SF 27 DAY,
'battle,' cp. 1.3-38. ALMOST IT SELFE seems to go together, meaning 'of its own ac-
cord.' PROFESSES YOURS, 'declares for your party,' cp." by the saint whom I professe"
Meas. IV.2.I9I. SF 28 TO DO, 'to be done,' cp. V. 6.5 ; the passive and active infinitives
have the same form in 1. M. E., due to the loss of final -e in the former idiom ; some of these
appear in EL. E., and one, 'is to let,' still survives. *lr29 BESIDE US, 'so as to miss us,'
a meaning of the preposition now obsolete, cp. "oh, do him not the wrong to look beside
him, for if you see him not he comes by to no purpose" Gaule, 1629 (cited in N.E.D.4a),
and "to go besides or out of the right way," "the lot did fall besides the persons fit or
meet, i.e. the lot happen'd to
ACT V SCENE VII 30-35 ^emri»t were nothing meet"
At this point Dyce made a)
new scene division which the
Cambridge Text follows. But
the action is continuous with
Q y e Macduff's words "Let me
finde him." The actors
come on and off the stage as
the battle ebbs and flows, the
reader's interest now with
Malcolm's party, now with
Macbeth's ; but the main ac-
tion is continuous : Scene V
represents Macbeth's prepa-
ration for the struggle, Scene
VI Malcolm's, Scene VII the
battle itself. A necessary
change of scene from the bat-
tle-field to the court of the
castle occurs after Macbeth's
death in v. 34 (see the intro-
ductory note to Scene VIII).
To make a new scene here
with the place direction 'Another part of the plain' or 'Another part of the field' awkwardly
interrupts the continuity of the battle with a gap in the action which the imagination finds it
hard to fill. *ff 30 PLAY THE ROMAN FOOLE: Macbeth contemptuously puts aside the
temptation to take his own life when overwhelmed by disaster ; the allusion is to the example
of Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and Cato, familiar to Shakspere's audience from the pages of
Plutarch; Shakspere calls suicide "a Roman's part" in Cass. V-3-89- The fine strength
of Macbeth comes out so clearly in these words that they go far to redeem him in his last
appearance before us. *ff 3 1 WHILES, 'while,' cp. note to 1.5-6. LIVES: in M.E. "life"
often corresponds to MN.E. 'person' and sometimes to 'body,' a usage still retained in
such MN. idioms as 'twenty lives were lost' and in 'life-guard,' i.e. body-guard. Shak-
221
ENTER MACBETH
MACBETH
Why should I play the Roman foole, and
dye viii. i*
On mine owne sword? Whiles I see lives, the
gashes
Do better upon them.
r ENTER MACDUFFE
MACDUFFE
Turne, hell-hound, turne!
MACBETH
Of all men else I have avoyded thee:
But get thee backe; my soule is too much
charg'd
With blood of thine already. vm. 6
* These figures indicate the Globe numeration.
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
spere seems to have used the word in this concrete sense here. Scholars have been wont
to assume for Shakspere a peculiar proneness to use abstract words in concrete senses,
but the N.E. D. shows that Shakspere's English is not unusual in this respect, being in
most cases the reflection of the idiom of his time ; most of the abstract significations
of MN. E. words have developed out of earlier concrete significations. A good illustra-
tion of this is " gaze," v. 53 (see note). THE: 'its,' i.e. the gashes made by his sword. SF32
DO BETTER, 'look better': the stress is " Do better upon them." HELL-HOUND: cp. note
to II. 3- 2, and ' Down, hell-hound, down' Massinger's Virgin Martyr, V. 2. SF 33 OF ALL
MEN ELSE, 'more than any one else,' cp. "he of all the rest hath never mov'd me [i.e. hath
failed to move me]" Two Gent. 1.2.27, and "To see my friends in Padua, but of all . .
Hortensio" Tam.ofShr. 1.2.2 ; in these idioms "of" expresses an adverbial notion of
eminence equivalent to MN.E. 'more than,' 'above.' But it seems strange that Macbeth
should say that he has avoided any one after his desperate resolution in v. 31 ; he is evi-
dently plunging into the thick of the fight, not running away, when Macduff calls to him
to turn: one would therefore expect him to face Macduff with the words "Of all men
least have I avoided thee!" True, he has been told to "beware Macduff," but he would
naturally suppose that Macduff had already done the evil the witches warned him against,
and would feel that Macduff, of all others, was the man now to be revenged upon. The
compunction which comes over him when he stands face to face with the father of the
murdered babes seems to be a sudden rush of feeling rather than a settled conviction of
guilt — " But get thee backe!" — and can hardly be the reason for any past avoidance of
Macduff; yet as the text stands we shall have to consider it as such. SF 34 GET THEE
BACKE: Macduff has evi-
dently rushed forward from
a group of Malcolm's men.
CHARG'D, 'burdened,' cp. V.
I. 61. *Tf 35 THINE, 'thy
family,' 'thy house,' cp. V.
1. 61.
*ff 37 TEARMES, 'names,'
'epithets,' cp. 'stand under
the adoption of abhominable
termes : . . termes ! names!
Amaimon sounds well, Lu-
cifer, well" Merry W. II. 2.
308. GIVE . . OUT, 'describe,'
N.E. D. 62 a; for the word
order, cp. note to III. 6.48.
TO LOOSE LABOUR is an
EL. phrase for'towaste time,'
cp. "This is but lost labor,
verba fiunt mortuo" Cooper
s.v.morior. SF 38 INTRENCH-
ANT, 'not to be cut,' cp. note to
ACT V
SCENE VII
35-42
MACDUFFE
I have no words: vm. 6
My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier
villaine
Then tearmes can s*ive thee out!
FIGHT: ALARUM
MACBETH
Thou loosest labour;
As easie may'st thou the intrenchant ayre
With thy keene sword impresse as make me
bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I beare a charmed life, which must not yeeld
To one of woman borne. vm. 13
III. 4. 27 ; Shakspere'spassive
use of the adjective is somewhat anomalous. < ff39 IMPRESSE, 'make a mark or inci-
sion in,' cp. "Albe the wound were nothing deep imprest" Spenser's Faerie Queene,
III.xii.33 (cited inN.E.D.). *lr4I MUST in EL. E. expresses a fatal necessity as well as
a moral obligation; this shade of meaning is involved in Macduff's "must" in IV. 3. 2 1 2.
*ff42 DISPAIRE, 'cease to trust in,' a meaning common in EL.E., cp. N.E.D. 3- SF 43
ANGELL, i.e. Satan. STILL, 'always': an intimation that Macbeth has sold his soul to
222
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
ACT V
SCENE VII
42-63
MACDUFFE
Dispaire thy cbarme; vm. 13
And let the angell whom thou still hast
serv'd
Tell thee Macduffe was from his mother's
womb
Untimely ript.
MACBETH
Accursed be that tongue that tels mee so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man !
And be these jugling fiends no more beleev'd,
That palter with us in a double sence;
That keepe the word of promise to our eare,
And breake it to our hope. I 'le not fight
with thee.
MACDUFFE
Then yeeld thee, coward,
And live to be the shew and gaze o' th' time:
Wee '1 have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and under-writ,
* Heere may you see the tyrant.'
MACBETH
I will not yeeld
To kisse the ground before young Malcolmes
feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Byrnanewoodbecometo Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman borne,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduffe,
And damn'd be him that first cries ' Hold,
enough ! ' vm. 34
EXEUNT FIGHTING: ALARUMS
ENTER FIGHTING AND MACBETH SLAINE
223
theevilone. <lr45 UNTIMELY
RIPT and so not "borne" in
the literal sense of the word.
*ff 47 MY BETTER PART OF,
'the stronger part of my/ cp.
V.2. II. MAN, 'manhood/
1 manliness/ cp. note toV.2.5.
f 49 To PALTER in EL.E.
is to "dodge off and on" as
Comenius glosses it; cp.,
also, "Whereas they [i.e. the
devils] could not tell what
should fall out, they framed
the oracle in such sort as
it was doubtfull, and might
be taken both waies" Gil-
ford's Dialogue, p. 48. <ff5I
I 'LE NOT FIGHT WITH
THEE: the stress necessary
to make the verse normal
does not give good sense in
MN.E. If "Tie "and "fight"
and "thee" are stressed we
have a verse like III. 6. 14.
Walker would read "I will"
and join the half verse to the
next. < lr53 GAZE, 'object
to gaze at'; like "lives" in
v. 3I r this use of the word
has been assumed to be pe-
culiar to Shakspere, but in
N.E.D.s.l). I it is shown that
'that which is gazed or stared
at' is the original meaning of
the noun, and that during the
sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries it was in common
use with this sense. SF 55
PAINTED UPON A POLE,
i.e. depicted upon a banner
hung upon a pole as an ad-
vertisement of the show with-
in the booth. Such exhibi-
tions are referred to in Ado
1. 1.267 and in Temp. II. 2. 28
ff. "Paint "in EL.E. is used
of advertising wares for sale,
cp. "to paint or counterfait
and set out things for the
better sale" Baret's Alvearie.
*1F 56 The verse has the extra
syllable before the caesura.
SF60 OPPOS'D, i.e. my ad-
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
versary, in EL. E. a more or less technical term, cp. u Bear 't that th' opposed may beware
of thee" Ham. 1.3-67. BEING, monosyllabic, as usually in EL.E. A participial idiom often
occurs in EL. E. where MN. E. prefers the relative clause, cp. " heare answere of the shippes
set foorth [i.e. listen to the report from the ships which set forth] " Sidney's Arcadia, p. 9.
SF6I TRY THE LAST: the words are usually taken to mean something like 'run the
hazard to the end' : but they may mean 'test the last of these conditions,' i.e. Macduff's
statement. SF 62 WARLIKE in MN. E. sounds weak from the prominence which attaches
to '-like' ; but in EL.E. it was evidently a much stronger word, as Baret's entries show:
u warrelike, like a warrier" ; "a great fighter, warrelike, contentious" ; " valiantlie warre-
like." "Warlike shield" here has the meaning 'warrior's shield,' cp. "my warlike word
[i.e. the word of a soldier]" lHen.6 IV. 3-31, and "Thy warlike sword" ibid. IV. 6. 8.
SF 63 Cp."To cry hold is the word of yielding" Carew's Survey of Cornwall (cited by
Toilet). The rhythm, with its tense monosyllabic impulses, its continuous flow, and its
sharp rise at the verse end, " ' x ' || x ' " ' x ' " ' x ', carries out to the very last the no-
tion of strength that Shakspere has associated with Macbeth. It is interesting to com-
pare the rhythm of these words with that of Hamlet's "the rest is silence."
The stage direction ENTER [i.e. 're-enter'] FIGHTING AND MACBETH SLAINE is usu-
ally omitted by modern editors. But just such action is frequently indicated as a part of
battle scenes in EL. drama, e.g. " Here alarum, they are beaten back by the English with great
losse" I Hen. 6 1.2. 21, FO. I, p. 97, and "Alarum. Exeunt. Here alarum againe, and Tal-
bot pursueth the Dolphin and driveth him. Then enter," etc., ibid. 1.4. 1 1 1, FO. I, p. 100.
It is quite likely, therefore, that the FO. represents Shakspere's conception of Macbeth's
end. The long and bitter fight he makes for life when all has turned against him is quite in
keeping with the rest of the play. It must be remembered, too, that this part of the scene
describes a battle, not a duel — the ALARUMS, 'onsets,' 'rushes,' 'attacks,' cp. N.E.D. 1 1,
show that clearly ; while the two furious protagonists are the centre of interest, they are
not alone, nor when they go out do they leave the stage empty. It is better, therefore, to
leave such a usual Elizabethan stage direction stand, and not to try to botch Shakspere's
text to suit modern notions of dramatic art.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO SCENE VIII
The scene direction 'Another part of the field,' which has been prefixed by the Cambridge
editors to what has been assumed for the beginning of Scene VII, certainly cannot apply
to the verses which follow. For Malcolm enters the castle in V. 7.29 and it is hardly
likely that he comes forth again ; the body of young Seyward has been "brought off the
field" in v. 10 ; and Macduff does not make his appearance until v. 20. The action, there-
fore, must take place inside the castle court and not on the field. Moreover, the long stage
direction, with its detailed entrances, its retreat and flourish, and its drums and colours,
can hardly be other than a stage direction for the opening of a new and final scene. It is
likely, therefore, that the scene division which modern editors insert at v. 30 really belongs
here, and that the Scena Octava has been accidentally omitted in the FO. text, probably
to make the columns finish at the bottom of the page. We had the prelude to the battle
in Scene VI, and all of Scene VII up to this point has depicted the struggle itself, with its
fights and alarums. What follows is not a part of the battle, but the nobles' acclamation
of Malcolm as king, and naturally belongs by itself. The "Scene VIII " which modern
editors insert after v. 29 is therefore placed here, where it more naturally belongs.
The real end of the tragedy comes with Macbeth's death. This last scene, like the
verses which finish Hamlet, is only a sort of dramatic epilogue, rounding out the action
and bringing it to a conclusion.
224
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
SCENE VIII: THE COURT OF THE CASTLE
RETREAT AND FLOURISH: ENTER WITH DRUMME AND COLOURS
MALCOLM SEYWARD ROSSE THANES AND SOLDIERS
I — I 6
RETREAT, a set of notes as
a signal for giving up the
pursuit, cp. " Here sound re-
treat and cease our hot pur-
suit" lHen.6lI. 2. 3- FLOUR-
ISH, the usual prelude to a
king's entry. <ff I MISSE
seems to have the sense
'long for in absence' as in
III. 4. 90. «IF2 GOOFF as a
euphemism for 'die' is 1 6th-
and 17th-century English, see
N.E.D.83d. BY THESE, i.e.
to judge from these. *1F6
BUT in the sense of 'only'
was in EL. E. often strength-
ened by "only" itself, N.E.D.
6 c. <ff 7 PROWESSE is one
of the words which, like
"coward," lose their intervo-
calic w in EL. E. and become
monosyllables, cp. " Nor do I
scorne, thou goddess, for to
staine My prowes with thee"
Greene's Alphonsus, v. I749 r
and "Whose prowesse alone
hath bene the onely cause"
ibid. v. 754. *ff 8 IN . .
FOUGHT seems like a loca-
tive qualifier either of DY'DE
or of CONFIRM'D. UN-
SHRINKING is an awkward
adjective if STATION means
'position' as in III. I.I02; but
"station" in EL. E. also means
'bearing'; IN may mean 'by,'
and WHERE may be the rela-
tively used adverb. The fact
that there is no comma after
"confirm'd" in FO. I points
to this latter interpretation —
'confirmed by the fearless manner in which he fought.' *f 10 CAUSE OF SORROW,
'ground for sorrowing': "cause" has frequently in EL. E. this sense of 'ground," occasion,'
'reason for'; the verbiage is not 'pleonastic,' as it seemed to the editors of CI. Pr., nor
is there any occasion for the emendation 'course' for "cause." SF 12 BEFORE is used
225
MALCOLME
WOULD the friends we misse
were safe arriv'd. vm. 35
SEYWARD
Some must go off: and yet, by
these I see,
So great a day as this is cheapely bought.
MALCOLME
Macduffe is missing, and your noble sonne.
ROSSE
Your son, my lord, has paid a souldier's debt;
He onely liv'd but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowesse
confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he dy'de.
SEYWARD
Then he is dead?
ROSSE
I, and brought off the field: your cause of
sorrow
Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
SEYWARD
Had he his hurts before?
ROSSE
I, on the front.
SEYWARD
then, God's soldier be he!
Had I as many sonnes as I have haires,
I would not wish them to a fairer death :
And so his knell is knoll'd. vm. 50
Why
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
both as adverb and preposition in M. E. and e. N. E. for ' in the front part/ cp. " The life of
Mahomet is at large described by divers authors, but I find it nowhere so fully as before
the Alcaron" Purchas's Pilgrimage V.iii.243- SF 13 GOD'S SOLDIER BE HE! a euphem-
ism for Met him be God's soldier,' probably a stereotyped phrase, as is "he is made God's
saint" in Cooper. SF 15 WISH THEM TO A FAIRER DEATH is not 'wish a fairer death
forthem,'asit is usually trans-
ACT V SCENE VIII
lated, but WISH is used in the
sense of 'commend,' cp. "I
will wish him to her father"
Tam.ofShr. 1. 1. 1 1 3.
*ff 18 PARTED is here used
in its EL. sense of 'departed,'
a euphemism still current in
the phrase 'the dear departed';
cp. also "a' parted . . at the
turning o' th' tyde" Hen. 5 II.
3.12. WELL,'nobly.' SCORE,
'reckoning,' 'scot' : the asso-
ciation between settling one's
account at an inn and death
occurs frequently in English
speech ; a kindred figure is
that embodied in the Western
phrase, 'to pass in one's
checks.' Young Seyward's
euthanasia and his father's
stoical reception of the news
are told in Holinshed. SF2I
TIME, 'the world,' cp. note to
1.5-64. SF 22 THY KING-
DOMES PEARLE, 'flower of
the nobility,' EL.E. "pearle"
being a collective plural form;
cp. " Decking with liquid
pearle the bladed grasse"
Mids. I. I. 211, and "pearle
and gold" Tam.ofShr. V.I. 77,
16-25
MALCOLME
Hee f s worth more sorrow, vm. 50
And that I ? le spend for him.
SEYWARD
He's worth no more:
They say he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him! Here comes
newer comfort.
ENTER MACDUFFE WITH MACBETH'S HEAD
MACDUFFE
Haile, king! for so thou art: behold, where
stands
Th' usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compastwith thy kingdomes pearle,
That speake my salutation in their minds,
Whose voyces I desire alowd with mine:
Haile, King of Scotland!
ALL
Haile, King of Scotland! vm. 59
FLOURISH
so Rich.3 IV. 4. 322; there is
thus no occasion for emending the word to 'peares' (which, by the way, does not spell
' peers 'in EL. E.), nor to 'pearls,' nor to 'pale.' But it maybe that Macduff is thinking
of the word in its heraldic sense, cp. "pearl, in heraldry; the silver or white colour in the
coats of barons and other noblemen" Kersey. SF 24 WHOSE is the EL. connective rela-
tive corresponding to MN.E. 'but their.' VOYCE in EL.E. is the regular word for 'assent,'
and frequently means 'vote,' 'suffrage'; cp. "I meane your voice for crowning of the
king" Rich.3 III. 4. 29.
*ff26 EXPENCE in the sense of 'expenditure' is now obsolete, N.E. D. lb, but was com-
mon in the 1 6th and 1 7th centuries, so that emendations like 'expanse,' 'excess,' etc., are
idle. SPEND .. EXPENCE: cp. note to V. 3. 44. *ff 27 RECKON WITH, 'render account
for.' LOVES, the usual EL. abstract plural. *ff 29 EARLES: the historical note about
the- appointment of the earls is from Holinshed: "These were the first earles that have
beene heard of amongst the Scotishmen"ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 45- *ff 30 MORE, 'further,'
226
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
WOULD: cp. notes to 1.7.34
in one . . howre To plant and
cp. note to III. 4. 137. TO DO: cp. note to V. 7. 28. *IF 3 1
and V.2.4. PLANTED in EL.E. means 'established/ cp.
orewhelmecustome" Wint. T.I V.I. 8, and 1.4.28 of this play. NEWLY, 'anew,' cp. "I will
have that subject newly writ
ACT V SCENE VIII
ore" L. L. L. 1.2. 120, and
"newly, . . in a new sort or
maner: contrare to the old
fashion, nove" Baret's Al-
vearie. WITH, 'in accordance
with.' SF32 AS in EL.E. and
still in colloquial MN.E. means
'to wit.' *ff 34 PRODUCING
FORTH, 'bringing forth into
the light,' a meaning still cur-
rent in ' produce the prisoner.'
MINISTERS, 'agents.' SF 36
SELFE is usedas an adjective,
cp.thenoteto III.4. 142. <ff 37
OFF in this idiom has its EL.
sense of 'away,' cp. "it takes
one off from business" Phr.
Gen., and "your command is
takenoff"Oth.V.2.33I. The
idiom is similar to that of III.
1. 1 05 and the notion parallels
that of 1.7.20. WHAT NEED-
FULL ELSE, 'what is needful
besides,' a usage common in
e.N.E., cp. "At what time
Sylla was made lord of all
he would have had Cassar
put away his wife Cornelia"
North's Plutarch, p. 758. SF 38
CALLS UPON US, 'demands
our attention,' cp. note to
III. 1.37. THE GRACE OF
G R AC E, ' the favour of divine
guidance': such plays on
word meanings are com-
mon in Shakspere's time, as
Theobald pointed out : " Doe
curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them" Two. Gent. III. I. 146 ; "The greatest
grace lending grace" All's W. II. 1. 163; "spight of spight" 3Hen.6 II. 3. 5; "for the love of
love" Ant.&Cl. 1. 1.44. SF40 ONE and SCONE rhyme in EL.E., see note to IV. 1.7. SF4I
According to Holinshed, ed. Boswell-Stone, p. 44, Malcolm "was crowned at Scone the
25th day of Aprill in the yeere of our Lord 1057."
26-41
MALCOLME [vm. 60
We shall not spend a large expence of time
Before we reckon with your severall loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and
kinsmen,
Henceforth be earles, the first that ever
Scotland
In such an honor nam'd. What T s more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchfull tyranny;
Producing forth the cruell ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like
queene,
Who, as 't is thought, by selfe and violent
hands
Tooke off her life; this, and what needfull
else
That calls upon us, by the grace of grace,
We will perf orme in measure, time and place :
So, thankes to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
FLOURISH [VIH - 75
EXEUNT OMNES
Act V is, as it were, a grand finale to this Faust symphony, and the aesthetic analogy is
more than mere accident. For Macbeth is a group of themes wrought together into an
esthetic unity, and this closing act reviews them all, like the closing movement of a great
musical symphony. The play opened with a brief introductory motive of supernatural in-
227
THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH
terests, which reappears from time to time during its course. Act I was what might be
called the soldier theme, Macbeth triumphant; Act II had for its theme Lady Macbeth
and the murder of Duncan; Act III gave us the Banquo theme with the Duncan and
Lady Macbeth interests woven into it, all three uniting in the punishment of Macbeth, the
internal Nemesis of the tragedy; Act IV presents the Macduff- Malcolm theme. Act V
begins in Scene I with the Lady Macbeth theme — recalling, too, the Duncan and Banquo
themes that have preceded; Scene II develops the Macduff- Malcolm theme; Scene III
recurs to the soldier theme — Macbeth in action; Scene IV carries further the Macduff-
Malcolm theme; Scene V returns to the horrors of Act III, weaves in the Lady Macbeth
interest, and suggests again the Macbeth in action of Act I more sharply and strongly;
Scenes VI and VII bring them all into a swirling finale, with the soldier theme struck hard
and tense in "Lay on, Macduffe, and damn'd be him that first cries 'Hold, enough!'"
while Scene VIII adds the finishing cadence to the whole, tHe strong C major of Macduff's
"the time is free" and Scotland herself again.
There is no play of Shakspere that has such a marvellous aesthetic unity as this of the
fury-driven Macbeth. There is an incompleteness about Hamlet, the long wailing minor
of "the rest is silence." There is no redemption for his failure: one closes the book,
saddened by a yearning pathos and wondering if, after all, there is another life for the
lessons this life should learn. But it is not so with Macbeth. His is, as it were, a tri-
umphant failure : tricked and cheated by the powers of evil, he would be on his guard
against them if he were given another chance. In the last action he is himself again and
dies bravely fighting. He has sold his soul, but with his mighty human strength he wins
back his manliness. And damned though he be, — damned with the deep desert of sin, —
he pays the price like a man.
228
INDEX TO THE NOTES
ON MACBETH
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
The first number refers to the page, the second to the note; where but one
reference is given it is the page number that is indicated.
a, sound of, in EL. E., 134.2,
1 48.30 ; before / and conso-
nant, 86.12
Abound, moral connotation
of, 176.95
About, by a circuitous way,
1 1 3-1 1
Absolute, positive, 142.40;
downright, 172.38
Abstract nouns : plural of
jealousies, 1 7 1 .29 ; loves,
101.122,226.27; revenges,
198.3; seedes, 96.70
Abstract words concrete in
EL.E., 221.31
Abuse, deceive, 60.50
Accompt, account, 193-42
Accus'd, revealed in true
character, 177.107
Accustom'd, customary,
192.31
Acheron, Acherusia, 135.15
Act, action, activity, 85-5 ;
execute, 1 3 1. 1 40, 176.97
Act in safetie, mature plans
in security, 94-54
Actuall performances, ac-
tive functions, mechanical
acts, 191. 13
Addition, title, 23. 106; mark
of distinction, 99.100
Addrest to sleepe, 66.25
Adhere, suit, agree, be fit-
ting, 50.52
Adjectives in -ed corre-
sponding to MN.E. parti-
ciples, 75.63 ; to adjec-
tives in -able, 53.73 ; ab-
solute use of superlative
of, 76.72
Admir'd, amazing, aston-
ishing, I27.IIO
Advantage, opportunity,
chance, 2 1 0.1 1
Adverbs without suffix, 41.
72,47.17,84.143; from ad-
jectives ending in -ly, 68.46,
188.235 ; position of, 3 1.20,
172.46
Advise . . to, recommend
course of action, 143-44
Afeard, frightened, 22.96,
49-39
Affear'd (used of a title),
confirmed, 172.34
Affect ion, disposition, 175. 77
Agitation, activity, 1 9 1. 1 2
ai, unstressed in words of
French origin, 4.4
A larum, onset, 198.4, 5 ; din
of battle, 218.10
Alexandrine. See Versifica-
tion, six-wave series
All, any, 105. 1 1, 196.84;
everything, 78.99, 162.12;
as a whole, 203.1
All-haile, to salute, to greet,
35.7
All thing, quite, altogether,
91.13
All to all, 124.92
Almost at oddes,on the point
of quarrelling, 129.127
Almost it selfe, of its own
accord, 221.27
Alwayes thought, 1 03.132
Amaz'd, dazed, bewildered,
79.114, 196.86
Amazedly, in consterna-
tion, 158.126
Amend, recover, 180.145
Amisse, at a loss, 79.102
Am to, am going to, 219-4 ;
have to, must, 60.43
Anacolutha, punctuation of,
48.28
And, if, 140.19; post-posi-
. tive, 163-22
231
Angell, applied to Satan,
222.43
Angerly, 1 34. 1
Annoyance, injury, 196.84
Anon, coming, 72.24; in a
moment, 1 1 6. 1 1
/7noi/r?fec?,consecrated,76.73
Anticipate, prevent, fore-
stall, 159-144
Antidote, 207.43
Antique, a dance, 158.130
dnb kolvov. See Zeugmatic
constructions
Apostrophes in Folio : ha's,
20.79
Appall, make pale, 121.60
Appeare, become visible,
217.47
Apply, attend assiduously,
108.30
Approve, prove, show, 42.4
Arbitrate, decide, deter-
mine, 211.20
Are, with verbs of motion,
20.80 ; rhymes with care,
154.91
Arm' d, protected by armor,
I26.IOI, 152.68
Aroynt, begone, 14.6
Art, professional skill,
179.143
Article, definite, correspond-
ing to a MN.E. possessive
pronoun, 6.6, 26.137, 35-
13,51-58,60.48, 1 12.4, 127.
109, 141.25, 172.34, 39;
demonstrative force of,
102.130 ; enclitic, 14.7;
loss of vowel of, 4.5 ; mark-
ing formality, 1 15-2 ; omit-
ted before the superlative,
31-17, 1 14.21
Article, indefinite, before ab-
stract nouns, 53-68
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Article, instrumental case
of, 92.26
Artificially cunning, 136.27
As, as being, because it is,
43-12, 47.13; as if, 31. II,
66.28, 213.13; in propor-
tion as, 90.7 ; such as, 176.
92; to wit, 227.32; when,
53.78 ; as who should say,
1 43-42 ; as you are, that you
are, 134.2
Ask'd for, inquired about,
missed, 49-30
Assay, effort, attempt, 179.
143
Assisted, supported, 12.52
Astrology, 86.8
At, 'apud/ in the presence
of, II5.I
At first and last, once for
all, 1 1 5. 1
At more time, with better
opportunity, 29-153
At once, without more ado,
I28.II8
At quiet, 72.21
./?ff e/r?pf,attack,64. 1 1,142.39
Attend, await, 104.3 ; wait
for, expect, 21 1. 1 5
Augur e hole, 82.128
Augur es, divination,
129-124
Authorized, vouched for as
true, 121.66
Auxiliary verbs. See under
separate entries
Avouch, warrant, stand
sponsor for, I0I.I20
Aweary of the sun, 217.49
Ayme, mark, 84.149
Ayre, climate, 42.1
Ayre-drawne, pictured in
air, 121.62
'Baby, doll, 127.106
'Bad, EL. adverb, 1 1 1.55
'Balles, orbs, emblem of
sovereignty, 1 57.121
'Banke and schoole, 46.6
'Barefaced, open, avowed,
I0I.II9
'Battell, division of troops,
218.4
Batter' d at, laid siege to,
183.178
'Be, 3d pers.plu. indie, 1 65-48
Bear-baiting, 126.100, 219.2
Beare, exalt, maintain,
136.30
Beares, possesses, 23-110
'Beast, not man, connoting
stupidity and cowardice as
well as vulgarity, 50.47
'Beest, monosyllabic, 219-15
'Before, in the front part of,
226.12
Behold, transitive uses of,
204.20
'Being, monosyllabic, 223.60
'Beldams, hags, 134.2
<Bell-man, 63-3
'Beside us, so as to miss us,
221.29
'Bestowe, lodge, 92.30,
140.24
Bestride, defend, 169-4
Bible, reference to, 76.74,
83-136, I77.III
©id, ask, 43.13, 59.31
'Bidding, command, 130.129
'Bill, catalogue, 99.100
Birnam Wood, 154.93
'Birthdome, land of our
birth, 1 69.4
'Black, sinister, 1 1 1.53,
149-43, 150.48
'Bladed, in the green ear,
150.55
blames, charges, accusa-
tions, 178.124
'Blaspheme, slander, speak
evil of, 148.26, 177.108
'Blessings, evidences of
divine favour, 1 8 1. 1 58
Blind-worms, 1 47. 1 6
'Blood-bolter 7 d, 157.123
'Bloody, murderous, blood-
guilty, 92.30, I0I.II6, 173.
57
'Blow, blow upon, 15.14;
proclaim, 48.24
'Boadments, predictions,
154.96
'Bond, deed, 1 10.49 j pledge,
153-84
'Borne, managed, 138.3
232
Borne in hand, charged or
deceived, 98.81
'Bosome, intimate, 13-64
'Bosomes, hearts, 168.2
'Botches, patches, 103-134
'Both, either of two, 72.13
<Both the worlds, 1 06. 1 6
'Bought, obtained, 49-32
'Bound in to, confined with,
117.24
Bounty, generosity, 176.93
'Bove, superior to, 136.30
'Braine- sickly, insanely,
68.46
'Breake, disclose, 50.48
'Breath, flattery, 205-27 ;
life, spirit, 155-99; respite,
62.61 ; give them breath,
make them speak, 218.9
'Breech' d with gore, 80.122
'Breed, breeding, 177.108
'Brief ely, without delay,
83-139
'Brinded, brindled, 1 45. 1
<Broad, free, 117.23
'Broad words, frank speech,
140.21
'Broke, broken up, 127.109
'Brought forth, discovered,
brought to light, 129.125
'Brows, face, appearance,
170.23
'Bruited, announced, pro-
claimed, 220.22
'Buckle in, limit, enclose,
200.15
'Businesse, care, attention,
44.16; commotion, tumult,
77.86, 135.22; task or pur-
pose, 60.48 ; topic or mat-
ter, 58.23
'But, only, 46.4, 46.6, 52.60 ;
strengthened by only, 225.
6 ; than, 9-29 J unless,
without being, 93-48, 49 J
until, 163-23
<Byrnan, 155-98
'By the way, incidentally,
131. 130
By your leave, permit me,
45.31
Cabin, prison cell, 117.24
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Call upon, make demand
upon, 103-140, 227.38
Capitaine, trisyllabic,
10.33
Care, loving regard, 34.57
Carelesse, uncared for,
31. II
Carry, to take to a place,
68.49
Cases, confusion of,
102.123, 1 16.14, 120.42
Cast, to throw in wrestling,
73.47 ; to diagnose, 208.51
Caf a/o j g'ue,muster-roll, 99-92
Catch, take, 36.19
Cause, because, 140.21 ;
business, 92.34; matter of
dispute, interest, 131 136;
disease, 198.4,5, 200.15
Cause of, ground for, 225.10
Caution, precaution, 143-44
Celebrate, perform with
ritual, 60.51
Cenny, senna, 208.55
Censure, judgement, 21 1. 1 4
Certaine, infallible, 87.14;
for certaine, I am sure,
200.14
Cesterne, a pool, 174.63
Chair, throne, 204.21
Challenge, find fault with,
120.42
Chambers, private rooms or
residence of a king, 209-2
Chance, misfortune, calam-
ity, 78.96
Charge, commission, 170.20
Charg'd, burdened, 195-61,
222.34
Chastise, to put down re-
bellion, 37.28
Chawdron, entrails, 148.33
Cheere, toast of welcome,
119-33- See Chair
Chiastic construction,
76.69
Chief est, greatest, best,
most important, 136.33
Children, three syllables,
183-177
Choake, obstruct, 6.9
Choppie, fissured with
wrinkles, 18.44
Chops, jaws, 8.22
Chuck, epithet of endear-
ment, 1 10.45
Clatter, noise of voices,
220.21
Clearenesse, freedom from
blame, 103-133
Cleere, faultless, 47.18;
frankly, 41.72
Cling, shrivel up, 216.39
Clipt, called, 99-94
Clogge, hamper, embar-
rass, 143-43
Close, secret, 135-7
Close, to come together,
105-14
Clos'd, enclosed, 99-99
Closset, writing-desk or
cabinet, 1 90.6
Clowdy, sullen, 143-41
Cloyster'd, cloister-haunt-
ing, 109-41
Cold, dispiriting, 62.61
Colmekill, Iona, 88.33
Combin'd, in league with,
23.1 1 1
Combustion, political con-
fusion, tumult, 75.63
Come in time, 72.8
Come on, 107.26
Coming on of time, 35-9
Comfort, aid, support, 9-27
Commend, offer, present,
47.11 ; commit, 93-39
Common, public, 102.125
Composition, terms of sur-
render, 13-59
Compt, account, 44.26
Compunctious, 39.46
Confident, overbold, 210.8
Confinelesse, limitless,
173.55
Confound, ruin, bring to
naught, 150.54, 176.99
Confusion, ruin, 76. 71, 136.29
Conjure, adjure, 150.50
Connective relative, 37.37,
IOI.I22, 138.2
Consent, 58.25
Consequence, sequel,
24.126, 46.3, 203.5
Considered of, thought care-
fully over, 97.76
233
Consfrucf i*on,interpretation,
31.12
Construction according to
sense, 173-54
Contented, agreed, 83.140
Continent, restraining,
174.64
Continued, continuous,
218.10
Contractions. See Stress,
lack of
Convert to, change its na-
ture and become, 187.229
Convey, carry on (with no-
tion of secrecy), 174.71
Convince, overpower, 52.64,
179-142
Cool, to chill, 212.10
Coppie, holding by copy,
108.38
Corner of the moone, horn
of the moon, 135-23
Corporall, material, 21.81
Corporall agents, 53-80
Cosin, kinsman, 209-1
To be counsail'd, to take
advice, 59-29
Countenance, 77.85
Counterfeit, portrait, 77.81
Couplet at close of scene,
13-64
Course, technical term in
bear-baiting, 219.2
Courst, chased, pursued,
44.21
Court, immediate surround-
ings of the king, 104. 1 ;
V th' court, at the palace,
Ii3.II
Cracke, loud noise, blare of
trumpet, 157. 1 17
Cracks, shots, 10.37
Craving, demanding, 92.34
Craw, caw, 214.19
Crew, company of people,
179-141
Crib, hovel, 117.24
Crost, thwarted, opposed,
98.81
Crow, rook, 1 1 1. 5 1
Cruell, wild, fierce, savage,
78.93
Cry, report, rumour, 212.2 ;
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
scream, clamour, outcry,
212.6
Cure, assuage, 186.215;
treat medicinally, 207.39
Curres, watch-dogs and
sheep-dogs, 99-93
Of custome, habitual, 126.97
(Damme, mother, 187.218
(Damn, to doom, 7.14
(Damned, damning or dam-
nable, 139-10, 193.38
(Dare, subjunctive, 126.99,
171.33
Date of Macbeth, 71.6, 72.
12, 94.56, 180.146
Dative, ethical, 55-5, 1 18.32,
143.41, 203-5
Davenant, 34, 103.140, 137,
149.43
(Day, battle, 221.27
(Deadly, death-dealing,
186.215
(Deddmdn, 182.170
(Deaftly, ea shortened in MN.
E., 152.68
'Death, bloodshed, murder,
75.61 ; in imprecations,
204.16
(Deed, action, 67.33, 132.
143; execution (of pur-
pose), I59-I46; thing to
be done, 70.73
(Deepe, weighty, important,
24.126, 44.17; wide ap-
plication of, in EL. E., 30.7
(Deere, used of what stands
in intimate relation to a
person's interest or affec-
tion, 198.3
(Defect, faultiness, 57.18
Defiance, Romantic forms
of, 126.104
(Degrees, rank, order of pre-
cedence, 1 1 5. 1
(Delicate, pleasant, delight-
ful, ,43-10
(Delinquent, criminal, 139-12
(Deliver, tell, 35-12; de-
scribe, 1 12.2
Demonology, academic,
132, 151.63; Bacon's re-
lation to, 54 ; charms, 66.29,
146.5, 6, 147.15, 22, 148.
30, 152.66; devils hover in
the air, 4. 1 1 ; devil, names
of, 72.1 1 ; work, in storms,
75.59; hedge-pig, 145-2;
magic mirror, 1 57. 1 19;
numberthree, 16.33, 145.2;
popular, 1 1 1.56; spirits of
evil, 39-50; witches: their
dame, 134.2; their dances,
1 58. 1 30; familiars of
witches, 4.8 ; fly in the air,
136.33; habits of, 1 4. 1,
15-8, 16.23, 18.46, 136.33;
their ' little Martins,' 1 36.
34 ; names of these spirits,
145-3; powers of, 14.2,
15-11,16.24,24.123,150.46
(Demy-wolves, 99-93
(Denies his person, refuses
his presence, 130.128
(Deny, refuse, 206.28
(Destroy, used of persons,
104.6
(Devil, monosyllabic in EL.
E., 23-107, 173-56
(Devotion, earnest applica-
tion, 176.94
(Dignity, worth, value, 1 95.63
(Directly, without more ado,
196.78
Disaster, bad luck, I00.II2
Discharge, unburden, 1 96.8 1
Discomfort, undoing, 9.28,
164.29
Discovery, reconnaissance,
209.6
Disjoynt, fall to pieces,
106.16
Dismall, disastrous, 12.53,
135.21, 213.12
Dispaire, cease to trust in,
222.42
Dispatch, management,
41.69
Displac'd, banished, 127.109
Disposition, character,
128. 1 13
Dispute, oppose, strive
against, 187.220
Dis-seate, unseat, 204.21
Distance, discord, enmity,
I0I.II6
234
Distemper' 'd, a medical
term, 200.15
Distinguish, single out, 99. 96
Distracted, mad, crazed,
insane, 79.110
Divell, EL. form of devil,
173.56
Division, a musical term,
176.96
Do, behave, 221.26; work
mischief, 15.10
Do better, look better, 222.32
Do bravely, act in a highly
creditable way, 221.26
Doffe (do off), put away,
184.188
Dollar, 13-62
-dom, 169.4
Domestique, at home, 107.25
Done, over, 3-3, 46.1
(Double, doubly, 153-83
Double meaning implied :
cast,73A7 ; chambers, 209.
2; come down, 1 14-16;
consent, 58.25 ; cries, 36.
22 ; dress, 49-36 ; duties,
31-24; encounter, 1 1 6.9;
foule, 17.38; frailties, 83.
132; free, 29-155; grace,
227.38 ; guilt, 69.57 ; honor,
58.26 ; lye, 73.44 ; morrow,
41.63; open, 173.52; owe,
31.22; quenched, 63-2;
safe, 32.25; step, 33-48;
time, 41-64, 65; unnatu-
ral, 86.10; vault, 78.101;
well, 88.37
Double negative,20.74,32.30
Double question, 185.195
Doubt, fear, 166.67, 217.43 ;
ground of distrust, 171.25
Doubtfull, apprehensive,
104.7
Downfall, down-fallen, 1 69.4
Drenched, drowned, 53.68
Dress, to address one's
self to, 49.36
Drops, tears, 32.35
Dudgeon, haft of dagger,
60.46
Dull, lose will power, 2 1 6.42
Duncan, his relationship to
Macbeth, 8.24
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
tDunnest, murkiest, 40.52
Dunsinane, 154.93
(Dusty, worthless, empty,
214.23
ea represents a long, close
e in EL. E., 4.6, 34.49, 88.37,
119-36, 136.31, 152.64, 186.
209, 204.10
Each, every, 202.29 ; each
wag, in every direction,
163.22
Earnest, pledge, 26.132
Easie, easily, 84.143
Eate, form of past tense :
feed upon, gnaw at, 87.18
Eat on, eat of, 21.84
-ed, full of, 148.24; charac-
terized by, 53-73; equiva-
lent to particip. adj. in -ing,
43-5 ; with causative force,
127. no
Effect, accomplishment,
39.48
Effects of, actions asso-
ciated with, 1 9 1. 1 1
Egge, term of opprobrium,
167.83
Eight, e.N. E. form of eighth,
157. 119
Either, a monosyllable,
219-18
Elision, 24.1 19,45.30, 152.71
Emendations: accust, 177.
107; advantage to be given,
210. II; and wisedome,
I69-I5; at first and last,
1 1 5- 1 ; beast, 50.50 ; cause,
200.15, 225.10 ; cheere
and dis-eate, 204.21 ;
cold stone, 146.6; consent,
58.25; death, 67.38; dis-
cerne, 1 69. 1 5 ; expence, 226.
26; forc'd, 212.5; gentle,
123-76 ; greene one red, 69.
63 ; haire, 1 56. 1 13 ; inhabit
then, 127.105; / say, 2 1 6.
31 ; lookes, 107.27; maine,
210.10; makes . . wood,
1 10.49 ; move, 163.22 ; one,
131. 131 ; our, 155-98;
peace, 106.20; pearle, 226.
22 ; pull in, 216.42 ; rookie,
1 1 1.5 1; sanctity, 179.
144 ; shagge-eared, 167.83 ;
shut up, 56.16; sleep . .
celebrates, 60.51 ; sowre,
62.56 ; stuff e, 207 A4; sum-
mer-seeming, 175.86 ; taint,
203-3; the, 50.50 ; time,
188.235; times has, 123-
78; unsafe the while, 108.
32; upr'ore, 176.99; vault-
ing ambition, etc., 48.28;
way of life, 205-22 ; who
cannot want, 139-8
Eminence, deference, 108.3 1
Enow, plu. of enough, 72.8,
165.57
Enterance, three syllables,
38.40
Entreat, get, induce (or)
pass the time, 57.22
Envernes, I7th-cent. form
of Inverness, 33-42
Epicure, sensualist, 203-8
Equivocation, doctrine of,
72.12, 217.43
Ermites, hermits, beadsmen,
44.20
Establish estate, fix suc-
cession, 32.37
Eternal, immortal, 96.68
Eterne, eternal, 108.38
Euripides, referred to,
III.52
Even like, M.E. even lik:
'just like,' 86.11
Even so, is it possible, 1 95-73
Ever, forever, 204.21
Evill, disease, malady,
180.146
Evils, ills, 173.57; sins,
vices, 1 77.1 12
Exasperate, a past parti-
ciple, 141.38
Except, unless, 10.39
Execution, wielding, 8.18
Expectat ion, prospect, prom-
ise, 71.7; of expectation,
of those expected, 1 13-10
Expedition, haste, swiftness,
79-116
£xpense,expenditure,226.26
Expire, 182.172
Exploit, act, 159-144
235
Extasie, madness, 106.22,
182.170
Extend, aggravate, 121.57
Eye, presence, 184.186
Eyld, reward, 43-13
Fact, crime, 1 39. 10
Faculties, authority, 47.17
Faile, miss, 92.28 ; deny, re-
fuse, withhold from, 140.21
Faire, contrasted with foule,
4.10
Faith, fealty, 201.18
Falconry, 1 10.46
Fall, cause of ruin, 174.69
False, treacherous, 84.143
Fantasticall, imaginary,
19.53, 27.139
Farrow, litters, 152.65
Fast, sound, 1 9 1. 9
Fatall, death-boding, pro-
phetic, 59.36, 63.3
Fate, death, ruin, 82.127,
96.72, 103.137, 153-84
Father, a term of respect,
85.4
Favor, face, countenance,
42.73
Feare, to give cause for
alarm, 42.73 ; to fear for,
36.17; to fear is true,
162.20
Feares, objects of fear,
26.137
Fed, fatted, 14.6
Feede, eat, 119-35
Fee-grief e, 185-196
Fell, savage, murderous,
1 66.7 1 ; covering of hair,
213- II
Fenny, fen-inhabiting,
146.12
Fevorous, characterized by
shaking, 76.66
Fie, interjection of indignant
reproach, 193-40
Fiend, monster, 188.233
Fife, 88.36
Fight, fighting, 22.91
Figures of speech, homely,
etc., 40.54
File, to defile, 95-65; list,
199-8
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Fillet, lobe of lung or liver,
146.12
Fill up, satisfy, 175.88
Filthie, murky, 4. 1 1
Fire, dissyllabic, 1 46. 1 1
.Frr/7?e,close in texture, 149-38
Firstlings, the first of their
kind, 159-147
Fit full fever, 107.23
Flawes, outbursts or ac-
cesses of passion, 121.63
Flighty, fleet, swift, 159-145
Floate, move to and fro,
163-21
Florid style, 78.96
Flowt, insult, 1 1.49
Fly, any winged insect,
164.32
Folk-lore. See Demonology
Fool, laughing-stock, 60.44
For, as for, 1 62. 1 5 J notwith-
standing, 172.44; on ac-
count of, because of, 10 1.
121, 187.225
Forbid, banned (homo inter-
dictus), 16.21
Forc'd, reinforced, 212.5
Forge, invent, 175-82
Forke, serpent's tongue,
147.16
Forman's Diary, 122
Former, immediately pre-
ceding, 1 5 7.1 15
Forraine, abroad, 107.25
Forres, 17.39
Forth, abroad, 179-140 '
Fortune, misfortunes, perils,
97.78
Foysons, resources, 175.88
Frailties, unprotected weak-
ness, 83.132
Frame of things, the uni-
verse, 106.16
Franchis'd, made free, 58.28
Free, faultlessly, 57.19; to
banish, 141.35
Free hearts, unrestrained
thoughts, 29.155
Free honors, guiltless hon-
ours, 141.36
From him, by his authority,
23.105
Fry, offspring, 168.84
Fumes, medical meaning of,
52.66
Function, activity of intel-
lectual powers, 27.140
Gall, poison, venom, 39«49
Gaze, object to gaze at,
223.53
Gender, change of, 172.41 ;
snake, fern., 105.14
Generall, unrestricted, un-
limited, 117.23; common,
public, 13-62
Genitive, objective, 22.93,
202.28 ; prepositional form
of, equivalent to posses-
sive pronoun, 186.207;
without -s, 30.6, 45.27
Genius, daimon, 94.56
Gentle, courteous, I8I.I6I ;
tame, subdued, 42.3, 123-
76 ; gentle my lord, 107.27 ;
gentle weale, 123.76
Gently, tamely, 220.24
Gentry, nobility, 199-9
Germaine, a collective
plural, 151.59
Gerund construction, 218.5,
221.28
Give me, omission of object,
14.5
Give me your favour, 28.149
Given, forced to accept,
210.12
Give out, report, 184.192;
describe, 222.37
Gives way to, gives rein to,
56.9
Give . . to, declare to be,
24.119
Glasse, magic mirror,
157. 119
Go, start, 159.146
Go off, euphemism for die,
225.2
Go too, strong expression
of disapproval, 194.52
God be with you, good-bye,
93.44
God bless us, a charm
against devils, 66.29
God eyld us, God bless us,
43.13
236
God's soldier be he, 226.13
Golden, red, 80.118
Good, advantage, 87.24, 1 3 1.
135; brave, 6.4, 1 68.3, 182.
1 7 1 , 1 97.2 ; tending to well-
being, 26.134
Good morrow, 74.49
Goodnesse, right and justice,
171.33; success, 179.136
Goose, associated with
cowardice, 204.12
Gorgon, 77.77
Gospell'd, 98.88
Gouts, drops, 60.46
Grace, good fortune, 19-55 ;
favour, 136.31
Grace of grace, 227.38
Grac'd, accomplished,
120.41
Graces, good qualities, 1 76.90
Grafted, moral meaning of,
173.51
Grave, carefully considered,
authoritative, 91-22
Great, noble, pertaining to
persons of high rank or
office, 130.129; mighty,
powerful, 179.143
Greaze, any fat-like sub-
stance, 152.65
Greene, sickly, 49-37
Greene one red, 69-63
Grim alarm, 198.4, 5
Grow, become fixed, 32.32
Growing, fruitage, 32.29
Guild, to make red, 68.56
Had the speed of, 37.36
Hah, exclamation of sur-
prise, 69.59
Halfe-world, hemisphere,
60.49
Hangman, executioner,
66.28
Happinesse, good fortune,
13-58
Happy, felicitously written,
25-128; fortunate, 19-62
Harmes, injuries, 173-55
Harnesse, armour, 218.52
Harp'd, guessed, 153-74
Harrold, herald, 23-102
Haunt, resort habitually,43-9
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Have in compt, to hold on
account, 44.26
Having, property, estate,
19-56
Hawking terms, 86.12
Hawkt at, 'attacked,'
pounced upon, 87.13
Head, f ountainhead, 79. 1 03 ;
summit of eminence, cap-
stone, 151.58; body of
people gathered together,
154.97; in head, in mind,
131. 139
Heare, listen to, 62.57, 66.24
Heart alive, 139-15
Heavens, collective noun,
85-5 ; stage canopy, 85.5
Heavie, overpowering, 56.6
Heccat, 60.52, 109-41, 134. 1
Heere, as adjective, 1 78.1 33 T
180.148
Heereafter, 213-17
Hell gate, the gates of hell,
71.2
Hell-hound, 222.32
Hell is murky, 193-39
Helpe, allies, 184.186
Hemlocke, 148.25
Hendiadys: banke and
schoole, 46.6
Herbenger, purveyor, 33*45,
218.10
Hid, shielded, protected,
83.132
High, earnest, 36.21
Highly, earnestly, intensely,
36.21, 45.29
High or low, great or lesser,
152.67
Himselfe, used as subject,
162.8, 181. 150
Hircan, Hyrcanian, 1 26.101
His, his descendants, 158.
124 ; possessive case of it,
13.56, 46.4, 76.71, 107.24;
objective genitive, 34.55
Hisse, 183.175
Hit, M. E. form of it, 39-48 ;
fallen in with, 1 38. 1
Hoa, 1 13-9
Hold, withhold, 141.25; cry
of surrender, 224.63
Hold from, restrain, 162.19
Hold rumor, 162.19
Hold thee still, have pa-
tience, 1 1 1.54
Holily, scrupulously, 36.22 ;
after the administration of
the sacrament, 195-68
Holinshed, Shakspere's use
of, 5 (intro. note); refer-
ence to, 6.5, 6.9, 8.22, 8.24,
16.32, 17.39, 19.48, 20.71,
24.120, 24.126, 25.127, 32.
37, 34 (intro. note), 45 (in-
tro. note), 88.33, 89 (intro.
note), 103.133, 1 14.18, 130,
131. 131, 153.80, 156, 1 68.1,
174.71, 175.87, 175.89, 177.
104, 178. 134, 181. 157, 190.
4, 197.2, 203.8,226.18, 226.
29, 227.41
Holp, past participle of help,
44.23
Home, thoroughly, 24.120
Homely, simple, plain,
humble, 166.68
Honest, seeming true, 24. 1 25
Honor, reputation or rank,
58.26; nobility, 120.40
Hoodwinke, blindfold, 1 74.72
Hope, ground of confidence,
49-35, 136.30, 171.25
Horse, plural form, 87.14,
159.140
Hose, breeches, 72.19
Houre, appointed hour,
28.147
Houre accursed, 159.133
Housekeeper, watch-dog,
99.97
How, what, 130.128
How goes the world, 87.21
How is 't with, 69.58
How sayst thou that,
130.128
Howie, wail, 1 69-5
Howlet, owlet, 147.17
Hum, to express doubt,
143-42
Humane, human, 123.76
Humh, interjection of de-
spair, 185-203
Hurley-burley, tumult, 3-3
Husbandry, careful manage-
ment, 55.4
' 237
1, not shortened in winde,
15- II
/, aye, yes, 65-17, 104.2
/ cannot tell, I do not know
what to say, 10.39
Ignorant, keeping in igno-
rance, 40.58
///, dangerous, 25.131
/// composed, badly com-
pounded, 175.77
lllnesse, unscrupulousness,
36.21
Image, realization by im-
agination, 26.135; repre-
sentation, 77.83 ; type,
form, 22.97
Impersonal idioms : it will
be raine, 1 1 3- 1 6 ; it needes
(is necessary), 202.29
Impresse, make mark or in-
cision in, 222.39
In, by, 225.8; into, 24.126,
73.43 ; used to express the
occasion of an action,
100.107, 170.20; used to
express the end of an ac-
tion, 173.56
In best time, 1 1 6.5
In commission, authorized
to hold trial, 30.2
In fulnesse, by reason of
satiety, 32.34
In the instant, at this mo-
ment, 40.58
Indure, hold out against,
withstand, 210.9
Industrious, able, efficient,
211. 16
Infinitive construction equi-
valent to MN.E. participial
phrase, 3 1. 1 1, 44.22, 50.
50, 68.45, 131- 134, 143-44,
166.70, 167.79,201.23,219.
5; without to, 1 3 1. 1 38;
passive, 221.28
Inform, to give directions,
37.34 ; take visible shape,
60.48
Ingredience, collective
plural, 47.11, 148.34
Inhabit then, 126.105
Initiate feare, fear of a
novice, 132.143
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Innocent, harmless, 41.66
Insane, making mad, 21.84
Insanity, phenomena of,
200.13
Instrumental case, 84.146
Instruments, means, 98.81
Interdiction, 177.107
Interim, usedas noun, 29- 1 54
Intermission, respite,
188.232
Interpolations in Macbeth,
5, 13, 62.62, 132, 133, 134,
149, 151.63, 158.124, 160,
164.38 to 41, 197, 217.47
to 50
Interpret, say explicitly,
18.46, 138.2
Intrenchant, not to be cut,
222.38
Inventer, contriver, 47.10
Invention, collective plural,
92.33
Is, has to, must, 2 1 0.1 1;
auxiliary with verbs of mo-
tion, 205.23
Is instead of has with verbs
of motion, 20.80, 1 04. 1
It, as expression of affec-
tion, 34.58
Itching thumbes, 149-43
Jealousies, expressions of
distrust, 171.29
Jews, 148.26
Jocund, well pleased, joy-
ful, 109.40
Jumpe, risk, hazard, 47.7
Just, post-positive, 1 1 2.4;
faithful in personal obliga-
tion, 171.30
Jutty, part of a building that
leans over the rest, 43.6
Kernes, peasant soldiers,
7.13, 219-17
Knit, to bind, 67.37
Knot, bond, tie, 171.27
Know, acknowledge,
182.165, 194.52
Knowings, experiences, 85.4
Lac V,ornamentedwith inter-
laced bars or cords, 80. 1 1 8
Lacke you, notice your ab-
sence, 124.84; our lacke,
188.237
Lampe, applied to sun, 86.7
Large, unrestrained, 1 1 6. 1 1
Largesse, gif ts ( plural), 56. 1 4
Last, rearmost, 1 56
Latch, catch, 184.195
Lated, made late, 1 1 3-6
Lavish, general application
of, 13.57
Law terms: affear'd, 172.
34 ; allegeance cleare, 58.
28 ; in commission, 30.2 ;
copy, 108.38; due, 141.25;
establish estate upon, 32.
37; exploit, 159-144; in-
terdiction, 177.107; trans-
pose, 170.21; unsupported
testimony in cases of trea-
son, 191. 19
Lay, lodged, 75-59
Lease of nature, 155-99
Least, EL. spelling of, 88.37
Leave, royal permission or
final audience, 188.237
Leavy, leafy, 218. 1
Lees, collective noun,
78.100
Lesser, used as adverb,
200. 1 3
Letter-writing: folding the
paper, 190.7
Levie, act of levying troops,
107.25
Like, an adverb, 28.144
Limited, appointed, 74.56
Listning, listening to, 66.29
Lives, persons, bodies, 22 1 .3 1
Lizards, 147.17
Loone, Scottish term of
abuse, 204.11
Loose, lose, 35-13
Loose labour, 22237
Lord, husband, 120.53
Lost, bewildered, 70.71
Lo you, 192.21
Luxurious, lecherous, 1 74.58
Lye, sleep, 65-20 ; a term in
wrestling, 73-47 ; encamp,
212.3
Lyest, monosyllabic, 167.83,
219.10
238 '
Lymbeck, an alembic, still,
53-67
Z,j/ne,furnish,support,23.1 12
Macbeth tradition, Slatyer's
Palasalbion, 1 1 4. 1 8
Made, uttered, 182.169
Maggot pye, magpie, 1 29. 1 25
Maine, chief, 210.10
Majesty plural, 1 3-64, 32.37,
1 1 5-3, 1 1 8.32, 124.90, 179.
137
Make, represent to be, 1 61.4
Man, manhood, manliness,
198.4, 5, 223.47
Mansionry, 43.5
Marlet, swift or swallow, 42.4
Marre all, to spoil every-
thing, 194.51
Marrow, seat of nerve force,
125-94
Marry, to be sure, 138.4
Mated, dazed, 1 96.86
May, denoting possibility,
1 01. 1 22, 167.82; denoting
obligation, 120.42
Meale, a singular noun,
106.17
Meanes (sing.), medium, in-
strument, agent, etc., 88.
29, 181. 163
Medical terms : perturba-
tion, 1 9 1. 10; distempered,
200.15, 202.30,207.45
Meere, absolute, 175.89,
181. 152
Melt, fade away, 21.82
Memory. See Psychology
Metal, material, constituent
elements, 53-73
Metaphysical, supernatural,
37.30
Methinks, it seems to me,
166.70, 216.34
Milke of concord, 176.98
Mind, in EL. psychology,
94.52, 95-65
Mine, usual form before
vowel, 206.36 ; in my
power, 31.20
Minions, darlings, 87.15
Minister, to prescribe,
207.40
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Ministers, instruments of
darkness, 39-49 ; agents,
227.34
Minutely, every minute,
201.18
Mischance, misfortune,
120.43
Misprints in the First Folio
edition of Macbeth : barlet
for marlet, 42A ; cyme for
cenny, 208.55 ; dead for
head, 154.97; her omitted,
207.39; indeed for in
deed, 132.143; incarnar-
dine for incarnadine, 69-
62 ; mansonry for mansion-
ry or masionry, 43-5 ; must
for most, 43-9; ? Now for
How, 9? '.75 ; no for c/o, 50.
47; prey's for preys, III.
53 5 ? pull for c?u// or pa//,
216.42; can for ran or
cam, 22.98 ; sides for slides,
61.55; sonnes for sonne,
141.24; Son's for Forz's, 17.
39 ; •? sowre for sowrd, 62.
56; fa/e for Aai/e, 22.97;
?fnen for fnere, 126.105;
they ior thy, 178.133; they
may for tuai/ they, 62.57 ;
misplaced line possible,
56.16, 163-22
Misse, long for in absence,
225.1
Missives, messengers, 35-7
Moderne, commonplace,
182.170
Modest, sober, 1 78. 1 19
Moe, form of comparative
when used as noun with
partitive genitive, 206.35
Monkie, term of endear-
ment, 166.59
Monstrous, trisyllabic in
EL. E., 139-8
Monuments, tombs, burying-
vaults, 122.72
More, greater, better, strong-
er, etc., 29-153; farther,
further, 131. 137, 226.30
More and lesse, great ones
(nobles) and those of lesser
rank, 210.12
Morrow, retains its sense of
morning, 41.63
Mortall, deadly, death-deal-
ing, 38.42, 168.3
Mortall custome, I55-IOO
Mortified, benumbed,
198.4, 5
Most, best, 82.126; form-
ing superlative of mono-
syllabic adj., I9I-9
Motion, expression, 82.129
Motives, moving causes for
action, 171.27
Mounch,to chew with closed
lips, 14.5
Move, toss, 163.22
Moves, angers, 120.46
Multiplying, prolific, 7.12
Mummy, 147.23
Mungrels, sheep-dogs, 99-93
Muse, wonder, 124.85
Must, expresses fatal neces-
sity as well as moral obli-
gation, 222.41 ; had to be
(originally past tense), 186.
212
My better part of, the
stronger part of my, 223-47
Napkins, handkerchiefs, 72.8
Nature, character, disposi-
tion, 26.137, 36.17, 174.67,
178.125; essential charac-
teristics, 87. 1 6 ; life, vitality,
53-68, 64-7,80.119, 108.38,
118.28, 131- HI; natural
feeling, sympathy, 39-46
Naught, wicked, 187.225
Nave, (?) navel, 8.22
Navigation, shipping, 150.54
Needs, it is necessary, 1 12.2
Neere, a comparative form,
84.146
Nerves, sinews, 126.102
Neutrall, indifferent, 79.115
Newest, latest, 6.3, 183.174
Newly, anew, 226.31
Newts, 147.14
Next, nearest, 216.39
Nice, used of figurative lan-
guage, 183-174
Night gowne, dressing-
gown, 70.70, 190.5
239
Night shrieke, hooting of
night-owl, 2 1 3- 1 1
No lesse, as much, 32.30;
no other, nothing else, 126.
97 ; no other but, no one
besides (or) not otherwise
than, 210.8
None, not one (man), 50.47
Non-pareill, the star of one's
profession, 1 17.17
Nor, and not, 8.21, 39.47
Nor . . nor, 107.24, 217.48
Norwayes, Norwegians,
13.59
Note, importance," 109.44,
220.21 ; list, 1 13-10 ; to pay
attention to, 121.56
Nothing, used as an adverb,
22.96, 201.20, 209.2
Notion, understanding, 98.83
Noyse, applied to musical
sounds, 155-106; clamour,
outcries, 212.7
Oblivious, causing forgetful-
ness, 207.43
Obscure, haunting the dark-
ness, 75.64
Occasion, necessity, 70.70
Of, by, 7.13, 138.4, 141.27;
from, 153-82; away from,
37.36 ; with, 1 75-89 ; before
direct object after present
active participles, 75-63
Of all men else, more than
any one else, 222.33
Of old, formerly, 44.18
Off, away, 227.37
Offend, injure, 121.57
Office, performance of duty,
83-142; part, 1 12.3
Offices, apartments of
domestics, 56.14
Oh! ah! 194.59
Old, expletive word in EL.
E., 71.3; senior, 178.134
Omission of subject and
predicate, 108.32, 118.31,
160.153, I84.I9I, 185-197
Omission of verb of
motion, 179-136
Omitted relative, 219.7
On,of,73.46, 100.114,195.71
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
One, not yet wdn, 146.7,
227.40; person, 1 3 I.I 31
Onely, position of, 31-20,
1 26.98 ; onely to, merely in
order to, 23-102
Open, disclose, 173-52
Oppos'd, an adversary,
223.60
Or ere, even before, 183-173
Order, plan of battle, 218.6
Oreleape, 48.27
Other, plural, 15-14; other-
wise^^ ; second, 1 57. 1 14
Ours, belonging to our side,
212.5
Out, away from home (and
hence) under arms, 184.183
Overcome, come over, pass
over, I27.III
Owe, possess, 20.76, 30.10,
I28.II3
'Paint, advertise, 223-55
'Pall, lose will power, 2 1 6.42
'Palter, dodge off and on,
223.49
'Paralell, bring into com-
parison with, 76.67
'Parted, departed, 226.18
Participial construction for
relative clause, 223-60 ;
with indirect-discourse
verbs, 173-50, 220.22
'Particulars, peculiar char-
acteristics, 173-51
Partitive genitive, 20.80
'Partner, companion, 19-54,
28.142
'Passion, paroxysm, 121.57
Past participles, strong in
EL. E., 30.3, 1 52.65 ; mono-
syllabic, 38.39 ; without suf-
fix, 127.109, 141.38; used
as adjectives, 97.80
Past tense : suffix -ed mak-
ing separate syllable, 177.
Ill
'Patch, fool, 204.15
'Pawser, loiterer, 79.117
'Pay, reward, 158.132
'Peake, grow sickly, 16.23
'Pearle, collective plural in
EL.E., 226.22
'Pent-house, curtain, 15.20
'Perfect, familiar with, in-
formed, 35.3, 166.66; in
sound mental health, sane,
1 17.21
'Perfect spy, 102.130
Personal ending of third at-
tached to second person,
216.39
'Perturbation, anxiety,
191. 10
'Pester' 'd, hampered, cum-
bered (applied to over-
loaded stomach), 201.23
'Petty, wide range of use in
EL.E., 214.20
'Physick, heal, 74.55
'Pitfall, 164.35
'Pit of Acheron, 135-15
<Pittiful, feeling pity, 1 10.47
'Place, hawking term, 86.12
'Planted, established, 226.31
'Pleas 't, retaining subjunc-
tive idiom, 120.44
'Pluckes, holds back, 1 78. 1 1 9
Plural, inflectionless : busi-
nesse, 135-22; mile, 2 1 6.
37; sense, 192.28
'Point, reason, 98.86 ; at a
point, ready, 178.135
'Poorely, spiritlessly, 70.72
'Portable, endurable, 175-89
Portents of Duncan's mur-
der, 87.18
Possessive case. See
Genitive
'Posters, couriers, 16.33
'Poure, pour out, 202.28
'Power, troops, 184.185,
188.236
'Beyond my practice, out-
side my experience, 195-66
'Prayers, dissyllabic, 66.25
Predicate, omission of, 9.26,
29.152, 30.1, 60.46, 131.
132; singular with plural
subject, 28.147, 62.61, 84.
146, 85.6, 108.37, 123.78
'Predominance, astrological
influence, 86.8
Preposition, repetition of,
131. 137
'Present, to show, 1 08.3 1 ;
240
attendant, 62.59', present
before one, 26.137 ; imme-
diate, 13.64
'Presently, immediately,
180.145
Present participle of mono-
syllabic verbs ending in
long vowel, 43-6
'Pretend, aim at, 87.24
'Pretense, intention, pur-
pose, 83.137
'Preys, distributive plural,
1 1 1.53
'Primrose way, 72.24
Prince of Cumberland, 29,
32.37
Printing, peculiarities of
Elizabethan, 20.79
'Prithee, 78.94, 1 1 1. 56
'Probation, proving, 97.80
'Produce forth, bring forth
into light, 227.34
'Professe, claim to know,
1 50.50 ; declare adherence
to, 221.27
'Profound, of deep signifi-
cance, 136.24
Prolepsis, 42.3
'Pronounc' d, proclaimed,
203.5
Pronouns, personal, used
reflexively, 186.214, 202.
29 ; used indefinitely, 55.
5, 1 75. 80; possessive, de-
notingfamily, retinue, prop-
erty, etc., 44.26, 2 1 2.5, 222.
35 ; reflexive, used as sub-
jects without strengthening
pronouns, 90.5 ; relative
used as connective, 8.21,
37.37, IOI.I22; standing
for word to be supplied
from context, 128. 1 16
'Proper, fine, 121.60
'Proportion, portion, allot-
ment, 31.19
Prosody. See Rhythm,
Versification, Stress
'Prosperous, turning out
well (or) favourable, 91-22
'Protest, proclaim, make
public declaration of, 126.
105 ; put in evidence, 1 99. 1 1
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Proverbs and proverbial ex-
pressions : blood will have
blood, 128.122 ; death can-
cels all bonds, 110.49;
from the top to the toe, 38.
43 ; the farmer that hanged
himself, 71.6; naught 's
had . . without content,
104.4; neere in blood, etc.,
84.146; the night is long
that never finds the day,
188.240; cat that would eat
fish, 49.45; things at the
worst, 164.24; time and
the houre, 28.147
Psychology of Shakspere's
time: anxiety, 15.18; cor-
poral agents, 53-80, 70.68;
ego, 26 ; gall, 39-49 j genius,
94.56; hallucinations, 122,
124, 125 ; heart the seat
of will, 159-147; heat-op-
pressed braine, 59-39 ;
marrow, 125-94; melan-
choly, 38.44, 67.35, 105.8;
memorie, 52.65 ; motion,
82.129; phantasy, 56.9;
senses, 212.10 ; spirits, 13-
56,39-50; suggestion, 19 1,
195-74; will, 26, 39-47
Pull in, 216.42
Punctuation, alterations of,
which confuse the sense,
23-102, 88.27, 88.37, 90.7,
93-48, 96.71, 128.122, 130.
128, 134.2, 146.10, 154.97,
169-15, 198-4,5, 204.21,
205-27 ; of anacolutha,
102.127, 148.31, 204.19;
of clauses, 13-56, 97.80,
100.102, 108.32; close,
145-2; colon a light point
in EL. printing, 146.7;
of exclamations, 11.45,
51-59, 69-59, I57.II6; hy-
phens: more-having, 175.
8 1 ; sainted-king, 177.109;
misprints in, 24.120, 146.5 ;
quotation-marks, 67.35,
145-3
Puns. See Double meaning
Purge, remedy, 123.76; to
cure, 208.52
Purveyor, caterer, 44.22
Push, test, issue, 204.21
Put in your bosomes, confide
to you, 100.104
Put on, set to work, 188.239
Put to, confide in, 178.122
Put upon, address with,
95.58; accuse of, 53-70
Pyramid, steeple, spire,
150.57
Quarrell, cause, claim,
179-137
Quarry, heap of slain, 7.14 ;
heap of slaughtered game,
186.206
Quell, murder, 53-72
Quench, smother vital en-
ergy, 63-2
Question, talk with, 18.43;
inquire into, 83.134; dis-
cussion, 128. 1 18
r, vowel sound developed
out of, 38.40, 1 08.30, 139-8
Rancours, 95-67
Rapt, 28.142
The rather . . for that, the
more strongly because, 184.
184
Ravel'd, entangled, 67.37
'Raven up, devour, 88.28
Ravin 7 d, gorged with prey,
148.24
Ravishing, rapid, swift,
61.55
Rawnesse, rashness,
cruelty, 171.26
Reades in, infers from, 22.9 I
Readinesse, associated with
dress in EL.E., 83.139
Rebellious head, 154.97
Rebuked, checked, re-
strained, 94.56
Receit, treasury, 52.66
Receiv'd, believed, 53-74
Reckon with, render ac-
count for, 226.27
Recorded time, 214.21
Recoyle, break, 201.23 ; give
way, break down, 170.19
Reflection, direct shining,
9-25
241
Relate, give utterance to,
211. 19
Relation, report, 183-173
Relations, utterances,
129.124
Rellish of, trace of, 176.95
Remembrance, considera-
tion, 108. 30; has four sylla-
bles, 108.30
Remembrancer, prompter,
monitor, 119-37
Remorse, compassion, 38.45
Rendred, surrendered,
220.24
Rent, rend, tear, 182.168
Repeat, reiterate charges,
I77.II2
Repetition, utterance, 78.90
Repetitions, 207.44, 226.26,
227.38
Report, statement of facts,
35-3 ; with objective modi-
fier, 141.38, 209.7
Require, ask for, 1 1 6.6
/ require, it is necessary for
me to have, 103.133
Resolve your selves, come
to your decision, 103-137
Rest, remain, 44-20 ; sleep,
207.39; ease, idleness, 33.
44
Restlesse, that gives no
rest, 106.22
Retreat, signal for giving up
the pursuit, 225
Revolt, desertion, 210.12
Rhythm: adapted to thought,
3.1, 4.7, 13, 19-48, 19-62,
21.81, 41.60, 42.3, 44.20,
53-72, 63-1, 65-17, 68.43,
107.23, 128.122, 133,138.7,
140.17,149-38,151-59,152.
71, 169.12, 196.79, 197.87,
204.10,214.19,215,216.38,
224.62 ; cadence-rhythm,
16.33 ; fallingrhythm suited
to supernatural interests,
133; prose rhythms, 72.28,
192.24 to 30; reversal of,
31.16, 97.77, 120.50
Ride, peculiar use of, 91-19
Right, claim to the throne,
172.42
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
(Rightly, really, perfectly,
171.30
^ise, to break up a meeting,
120.52
The Roman fool, 221.30
Ronsard's description of
James V, 157
(Ronyon, scurvy person, 14.6
(Rookie, full of rooks, or (?)
misty, 1 1 1.5 1
(Roote, progenitor, 90.5
(Rore, more dignified than in
MN.E., 53.78
Rosse, personal character-
istics, 183.174
(Round, circlet, crown, 37.29,
154.88
(Royalty of nature, fitness
for kingship, 94.50
(Rubs, rough places on bowl-
ing-green, 103-134
(Rugged, wrinkled, 107.27;
shaggy, fierce, 126.100
(Rule, regimen, to control,
201.16
(Rumpe-fed, 14.6
(Run, past tense of to run,
79-117
Outrun, 79.117
(Russian beare, I26.IOO
Safeties, safeguards, 171.30
Safety, trisyllabic, 94.54,
171.30
Sagge, 204.10
Sainted, saint-like, holy,
177.109
Sanctity, miraculous power,
179.144
Satis fie, assure, 155-104,
192.36
Sauce, a provocative of
appetite, 175-81
Savage, brutal, 166.70
Say, tell, 6.6, 104.3, 216.32;
absolute use of, 186.213
Scan'd, judged, 1 31- 1 40
Scene directions in Macbeth
are modern additions, 144,
190
Scene division, alteration of
FO.'S, 62, 221.30
Schoole, reprove, 1 62. 1 5
Schreemes of death, 75-61
Scone, 88.31, 227.40
Scorched, hacked, lacerated,
105.13
Scruples, doubts, 83.135,
I78.II6
Seare, withered, dry, 205.23
Season, a preservative from
decay, I3I.I4I
Seat, site, 42.1
Seated, fixed, 26.136
Second cock, 72.30
Second course, 68.39
Secret, occult, 150.48
Security, confidence, 1 36.32
Seedes, descendants, 96.70
Seeling, term of falconry,
110.46
Seem to, to be on the point
of, 9-25, 11-47, 37.30
Seeming, belonging to, suit-
able to, appearing, 175-86
Seest, a monosyllable, 85-5
Selfe, as an adjective, 227.
36 ; as first element of
compound words, 12.55,
132.142
Sell, deceive, betray, 1 65.4 1
Send, send a messenger,
130.129, 142.39, 208.49
Senit, set of notes on the
trumpet, 90.10
Sense, plural without suffix,
192.28
Sensible, perceptible, 59-36
Sergeant, a trisyllable, 6.3
Service, course, 45
Set forth, declare publicly,
30.6
Setons of Touch, 206.33
Setting downe before, be-
sieging, 210.10
Settled, determined, 53-79
Sev' night, week, 16.22
Sewer, chief butler, 45
Shadow, spectral illusion,
215.24; to conceal, 209-5
Shagge-ear'd, 167.83
Shall, ought to, must, 43-13,
170.20, 21 1. 18; may, am
going to, 1 7 1.3 1 ; shall be,
will be, will come to be,
122.73
242
Shall and will, use of, in EL.
E., 102.126
Shame, to avoid with sense
of shame, 70.64
Shame it selfe, 1 2 1 .66
Shard, scaly wing-case,
109.42
Sharks, 148.24
Shew, pageant or proces-
sion, 156 ; toappear, 19-54 ;
let one know, 1 56. 1 07 ; dis-
close oneself, 218.2
Shew J d, disclosed, told, 57.
21 ; appeared, looked, 8.15
Shift, to practise knavery,
84.151
Shine, reflect glory and
honor, 90.7
Ship of Fooles, the, referred
to, 214.19
Shipman, mariner, 15.17
Shipman's card, compass,
15.17
Shooke hands, 8.21
Should, 18.45, 82.127, 166.
73, 172.49, 213-17, 216.31,
220.20. See Shall
Showgh, shock, rough,
shaggy dog, 99-93 (
Shut up in, restricted to,
56.16
Sight, perception by sight,
77.76, 196.86; portent or
pageant, 160.155
Sightlesse, invisible, 39-50,
48.23
Signes, marks of distinction,
33-41
Silenc'd, at a non plus, 22.93
Silver, connoting whiteness,
80.118
Single, simple, united, har-
monious, 27.139; trivial,
44.16
-sion, dissyllabic, 8.18
Sir, address to majesty,
130.129, 181. 163
Sirrha, use of, 93-45, 164-30
Skarfe up, blindfold, 1 10.47
Skirre, to flit, to pass hur-
riedly over, 206.35
Slab, miry, sticky, pasty,
148.32
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Slaughterous thoughts, mur-
derous impulses, 213.14
Sleave, unspun silk, 67.37
Sleeke, to smooth out, 107.27
Sleep, 77.79, 154.86
Sleepie, plunged in sleep,
68.50
Slides, glides, 61.55
Slights, arts, contrivances,
136.26
Slip, let slip, 74.52
Slippes, small branches,
148.27
Slivered, lopped off, clipped,
148.28
Slope, incline, 150.57
Slumbry, occurring in sleep,
191. 12
Smells, breathes upon, 43.6
So, used to represent pre-
ceding notion, 60.47, 171.
24 ; without as, 74.56
So as, as . . as, 10.43
Society, social intercourse,
93.42; company, 1 15-3
Sodaine, sudden, 174.59
Sole, mere, 169-12
Solemne, ceremonial, 91.14
Solicites, wins the favour of,
180.149
Soliciting, advocacy of one's
interests, 25-130
Something, somewhat,
103.132
Sometime, sometimes, 43.1 1
Sore, grievous, 85-3
Sorrow, monosyllabic,
82.129
Sorryest, most gloomy, 1 05-9
Sorts, classes, 49-33
Soule, person, 98.83
Soundly, heartily, 52.63
Soveraigne, used of potency
for healing, 202.30
Sowre, saturnine, 62.56
Spacious plenty, unrestrict-
ed license, 174.71
Spaniels, 99-93
Speake, confer, 41.72, 97.74 ;
prove, 1 8 1. 1 59
Speaker, reporter, 183-175
Speculation, power of vision,
126.95
Speeches, statements, 90.7,
97.76, I38.I
Spelling: anomalous in bol-
ter' d, 157.123 ; a for ea in
heart, 1 55- 100; M.E. ai re-
tained in unstressed syl-
lables, 4.4, 86.7, 107.25,
174.59; ay for MN.E. ey,
204.16; c corresponding
to MN.E. s, 61.53, 208.
55 ; e for i in cistern, 174.
63; ea representing M.E.
long open e in lest, 88.
37; in seaventh, 1 57.1 18;
ea and ee confused, 67.37 ;
ea and ee before or after
nandr, 75.61, 1 72.34; pos-
sible mistake of ee for ai,
204.21 ; ei representing i,
37.29; M. B.gh retained in
high, 37.26; unhistoric gh
in spite, 1 00. 1 1 1 ; gu before
palatal vowels, 181. 157;
loss of h, 44.20 ; long open
o in oh, 183-173 ; 00 before
r and consonant, 178.135 ;
00 ( = u) representing ou,
162.14; past tense of verbs
in -en, -er, 220.24; phonetic:
hoboyes, 42 ',skirre, 206.35 ;
unruffe, 1 99- I ; -que, suffix
corresponding to MN.E. c,
20.78, 107.25; sch and sc
confused, 75-61 ; sh and sch
confused, 46.6 ; -f in past
participles, 19-57, 177.107 ;
t h a Latin form of f, 1 2 1 .66 ;
u before / and consonant,
86.12 ; u corresponding to
MN. E. ou, 48.23 ; u written
w before a consonant, 152.
64; miscellaneous: humane
for human, 36. 18;/ for aye,
65. 1 7 ; ingredience, 47. 1 1 ;
kalender, 159-134; metal
and mettle not distin-
guished, 53-73; schoole,
46.6 ; too and to not dis-
tinguished, 73-42
Spirit, monosyllabic, 38-41,
102.128
Spirits, vigour, energy,
13-56, 37.27
243
Spoke, spoken, 1 69. 1 1
Spoken, currently reported,
181. 154
Sprights, spirits, 77.84,
136.27, 158.127
Spring, sunrise, 9-25
Spy o' th' time, 102.130
Staffe, baton, 208.48
Stage direction, altered by
modern editors, 10.43, 64-9,
119-39, 125.93, 149-39;
"enter" means takes part
in action, 56.9; "enter"
means re-enter, 78.95, 97.
73 ; intruded from margin
of MS., 77.85, 115- 1 ; mean-
ing of torches in, 42 ; omit-
ted in FO., 55.5, 65-20, 212.
8, 122.73; pantomimic,
224.63
Stampe, coin, 1 8 1. 1 53
Stand, stand still, 66.24,
158.126
Stand close, keep hidden,
192.23
Stand not, attach no impor-
tance to, 128. 1 19
Starres, all heavenly bodies,
34.50
Start, to tremble, 194.51,
213-15
State, throne, chair of state,
1 16.5
State of honor, rank,
166.66
State of man, 27.140
Station, bearing, 225.8
Staunchlesse, normal com-
pound from staunch, that
which quenches, 175.78
Staves, spears, 219- 18
Stay, wait for, 179.142
Step, round of ladder, pro-
motion, 33-48
Stept in, advanced in,
131- 137
Stern'st, grimmest, 63-4
Stick deep, take deep root,
94-49, 175.85
Sticking on his hands,
201.17
S ticking-place of crossbow,
52.60
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Still, always, 43-12, 45.28,
47.8, 58.27
Stirre, action, activity,
28.144
Stoole, chair, 122.68
Stout, proud, 22.95
Straight, immediately,
103.140
Strange, unfamiliar, 28.145,
41.64, 128. 1 12
Stress, in general: 49-30,
90.2, 92.29, 1 16.9, 164.36,
167.76, 171.30,220.20,222.
32, 223-51 } lack of, pro-
ducing contractions — pro-
nouns: it reduced to 't,
6.7, 58.25, 140.16, 154.89,
160.149, 174.67; them re-
duced to 'em, 64.13, 151.
63 ; us reduced to ' s,
24.125, his reduced to ' s,
44.24,81.124; definite arti-
cle : the reduced to th' , 4. 5,
21.88, 38.43, 56.16, 90.2,
I3I.I33,andcp. 14.7, 15.17,
36. 18; substantive verb:
am reduced to 'm, 26.133,
53.79, 100.108, 167.74; is
reduced to 's, 8.15, 94.54,
1 83. 1 74 ; are reduced to 'r,
1 1 6.8; was reduced to 's,
8.15, 66.23; were reduced
to 'r, 8.15; other verbs:
have reduced to 'v, 1 14.20,
167.74, 180.149; has re-
duced to ; s, 196.86; would
reduced to 'd, 58.23 ; prep-
ositions : in reduced to i',
14.7, 15.17; 0/ reduced to
o', 14.7, 36.18; to reduced
to t', 44.24, 1 30. 1 29 1 do an
unstressed word : / shall
do so, 187.220; *t is done,
46.1 ; must do, 36.24 ; well
done, 149-39 J mine stressed
in mine owne, 1 31 -1 35, 171.
30 ; it is one, 74.54 ; in repe-
titions : speak, speak, 78.
88; God, God, 196.83; in
simple words : accesse, 38.
45 ; authorized, 1 2 1 .66 ;
baboon, 148.37; chastise,
37.28; Heccat, 60.52, 109.
41; minutely, 201.18; 6b-
scure, 75.64 ; perseverance,
176.93; purveyor, 44.22;
thereby, 209-5 ; instrument,
98.81 ; incompoundwords :
hdlfe-world, 60.49 ; leave-
taking, 84.150, 171.28;
mdnkinde, 87.18
Strike, smite with mysteri-
ous power, 187.225
Strong, violent, 82.129
Strooke, e.N. E. past partici-
ple and past tense of strike,
187.225
Studied, trained, practised,
30.9
Stuff e, rant, 121.60
Style, 73.47, 78.96
Subborned, instigated to
crime, 87.24
Subject, object, 1 1 3-8
Subject, omission of, 163.23,
210.9; repeated by pro-
noun, i64.36
Subjunctive forms. See
<Dare, Pleas' t
Subjunctive idioms: do,
218.7; rise, \54S7
Successe, issue, 26.132
Suffer, perish, 1 06. 1 6
Suffixes. See under sepa-
rate suffixes
Suggestion, temptation,
26.134
Suicide intended by Mac-
beth, 215
Summer, pleasant, 175.86
Sundry, distinct, diverse,
172.48
Superlative, formed by -st:
kindst, 58.24; neerst, 101.
118; perfectst, 35.3; se-
cret st, 129.126; sternst,
63.4 ; used substantively,
I0I.II8
Superstitions : croaking of
ravens, 38.39 ; venomous
beasts, 146.8
Supply' d, reinforced, 7.13
Surcease, cessation, 46.4
Surmise, accuse, charge,
27.141
Survey, discern, 9. 3 1
244
Swarme, used of mobs, 7.12
Sway by, govern by, hold
prestige by, 204.9
Sweares, swears allegiance,
165.47
Sweat for 't, pay the pen-
alty, 72.9
Swelling, proud, magnifi-
cent, 25.128
Swelter, exude, 146.8
Sworne to, sworn to do,
51.58
Syncopations (loss of medial
unstressed syllable) : abso-
lute, 31.14, 172.38; alarum,
218.10; ceremony, 1 1 9-36;
confident, 210.8; confer-
ence, 37.79 ; credulous,
178.120; dangerous, 167.
77; desolate, 1 68. 1 ; en-
emy, 100.105, 115; gentle-
men, 25.129; heavily, 184.
182; herbenger, 33-45; in-
nocent, 41.66, 67.36, 97.79,
110.45, 170.16; intemper-
ance, 1 74.66 ; invisible, 1 10.
48; laudable, 167.76; ma j-
estie, 44.18 ; medicine, 202.
27; minister, 39-49, 207.
40, 46 ; mockery (so print-
ed), 127.107; myraculous,
1 80. 1 47 ; nourisher, 68.40 ;
perilous, 207 AA ', perse-
verance, 176.93; pittifull,
110.47, 181. 151 ; purga-
tive, 208. 55 ; ravishing, 61.
55 ; resolute, 1 53-79 ; specu-
lative, 2 1 1 . 1 9 ; sur feted,
64.5; terrible, 1 1.5 1, 1 06.
18,123.78; treachery, 114.
1 7 ; treacherous, 1 70. 1 8 ;
treasonous, 83-138; unfor-
tunate, 160.152 ; unnatural,
86.10, 1 96.80; verity, 176.
92; visited, 1 8 1. 1 50
Taint, wither, 203-3
Take off, discourage, 73.41
Taking off, death, 47.20,
100.105
Tautology, 10.38
Teach, implying teaching by
example, 43.12, 47.8
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Teare, mangle, 139-12
Tearmes, names, epithets,
222.37
Teemes, gives birth to,
183-176
Tender, exciting commisera-
tion, 51-55
Tending, attention, 37.38
Tense, historical present
and past tenses in same
narrative, 8.15; past cor-
responding to MN. E. per-
fect, 11.48; present as fu-
ture, 4.8
Thy loss of intervocalic,
219. 18; Latin f, 121.66
Than and then, same word,
20.75
That (pron.), corresponding
to MN. E. such, such a, 171.
26, 175-74; to that, to that
end, 7.10; that their fit-
nesse, 50.53
That (conj.), because, 47.8 ;
particles strengthened by,
12.54, 108.32, 177.106; re-
peats connective, 23.113,
46.4; so that, 13-58, 19-57,
66.23, 169-6, 175.82
The. See Article, definite
Theame, used of action as
well as of discourse, 25.129
Their, corresponding to MN.
his, 1 1 3. 1 4 ; misprinted for
the, and vice versa, 141.38
Theirs, their property, 44.26
There is, with plural com-
plement, 204.13
Therewithall, besides that,
92.34
These, such as these, 67.33,
I78.II8
The time, the moment, 41.
65; the world, 41.64, 174.
72, 226.21
Thickens, becomes obscure,
1 1 1.50
Thine, thy family, thy house,
222.35
Things, applied to persons
to connote absence of voli-
tion, 210.13
Thinke, to pay heed to, 57.
21 ; thinke on, bring to mind,
105. II
Think' st, hast in mind, 172.35
Thirst, long for, 124.91
Thought, purpose, design,
hope, expectation, etc., 27.
139,38.42, 1 78.1 16; looked
at, considered, regarded,
67.33 ; thoughts, anxieties,
105.10, I38.I, 170.21
Thriftlesse, greedy, 88.28
Thrusts, hampers, besets,
I0I.II7
Tidings, singular, 37.31
-tience, dissyllabic, 8.18
Time, appointment, 92-37
fitting time, 28. 1 47, 2 1 3. 1 8
tune, measure, 188.235
wide range of association
of the word, 19-58
Time analysis, 89
Time of helpe, opportunity
for military aid to be sent,
184.186
Timely, early, 74-51 ; oppor-
tune, welcome, 1 1 3.7
Times, manners, customs,
123.78; times has, 123-78
-Hon, dissyllabic, 8.18, 37.34
Title, claim, 172.34, 201.20
Titles, title-deeds, 1 6 1. 7
To, according to, 109-41,
1 1 2.4; besides, 7.10; com-
pared to, 121.64; in addi-
tion to, 44.19, 94.52 ; until,
214.21 ; to friend, 169-10
Top, pitch of attainment,
154-89; to surpass, 173-57
Torch, bearer of a torch,
42, 55
Torture, the rack, 106.21
Touch, to injure, 107.26,
169.14; sympathy, 162.9
Toward, monosyllable,
29-152
Towring, hawking term,
86.12
Toues, trifles, 78.99
Trace, follow, 160.153
Traines, tricks, 178. 118
Trammell up, net up, 46.3
Transport, used of carrying
news, etc., I83-I8I
245
Transpose, change, alter the
nature of, 170.21
Travail, not distinguished
from travel in EL. E., 86.7
Treatise, story, narration,
213.12
Trenched, deep-cut, 118.27
Trifled, made a jest of, 85.4
Trifles, tricks, 24.125
Trouble, physical annoy-
ance, 147.18, 1 96.80
True, applied to things as
well as persons, 21 I.I 5;
rightful, legitimate, 177.106
Truly, really, according to
nature, 1 78.1 3 1
Try the last, 224.61
Tune, rhythm, 21.87
Turke and Tartar, 148.29
Twaine, originally masc.
form of two, 92.28
Twenty, indefinite numeral,
123.81
Tyranny, usurpation,
171.32, 174.67
Tyrant, usurper, 140.22
ii not shortened and de-
veloped into a in blood,
1 3 1. 1 36; in strooke, 187.
225 ; development of u be-
fore I and consonant, 86. 1 2
un-, wide use of, to express
negation, 37.26, 73-36,
199.10
Uncle, use of term in EL. E.,
197.2
Undaunted, undauntable,
fearless, 53.73
Undeeded, 220.20
Under fortune, exposed to
danger, 97.78
Under his key, in his power,
140.18
Unfixe, loosen, 26.135
Universal peace, 1 76.99
Unlineal, 95-63
Unmake, mar, 50.54
Unmannerly breech' d with
gore, 80.122
Unnaturall, violating natural
instincts, I96.8O; unusual,
1 96.80
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Unruffe, beardless, 199-10
Unsafe, insecure, 108.32
Unsafe the while, 108.32
Unsanctified, without sanc-
tuary, 167.81
Unspeake, to speak the con-
trary of, 178.123
Untitled, having no claim,
177.104
Upbraid, to cast in one's
teeth, 201.18
Upon, concerning, 91-16 ;
denoting the thing affected
by the action, 177. 1 12; in
temporal phrases, 121.55;
over, 203-7 ; upon his ayd,
with his support, 141.30;
upon the foot of, ready to
start upon, 82.129
Uprore, break up in revolu-
tion, 176.99
Use, custom, 13-62, 26.137 ;
to familiarize with, 105. 10
Utterance, uttermost, 96.72
v, intervocalic, loss of : devil,
23.107; even like, 86.11 ;
ever, 155.102; given, 1 1 9-
35
Valued file, price-list,
99-95
Vantage, opportunity, 9-3 I ,
23-113
Vaulting, an EL. sport,
48.28
Verbs ending in -en, -er, past
tense and participles of,
220.24
Verity, truthfulness, 90.8 ;
faithfulness, 176.92
Verses wrongly divided in
FO. I : 14.7, 21.81, 28.149,
30.1, 32.25, 42.1, 44.18,
55.4, 56.13, 58.25, 72.28,
82.129, 87.18,93-43,97.75,
98.85,108.32,110.49,113-9,
158.133
Versification : alexandrine,
203-5 ; couplet at end of
scene, 54-81, 82; extra-
metrical words and phrases,
93-40, 100.108, 1 13.9; ex-
tra unstressed impulse at
beginning, 8.20, 11.46; ex-
tra impulse before cae-
sura, 18.43, 29.150, 31-
16, 95-57, 98-83, 100.108,
124.84, 164.36, 174.59,203-
7, 223.56 ; four- wave verses
6.7, 9-26, 21.88, 100.103,
158.124, 170.18; loss of
unstressed impulse after
caesura, 4.7, 6.5, 38.41, 60.
51, 64.13, 170.18, 172.34;
loss of unstressed impulse
at beginning of verse, 1 3 1.
133; in middle of verse,
146.6; six-wave verses, 10.
38, 23.1 1 1, 78.88, 103.139,
170.20, 176.97, 1 78. 1 16
Vertue, power, 1 8 1. 1 56
Very, intensifies the noun,
giving sense of exactly,
192.22
Vile, wicked, malicious,
100.109
Visited, afflicted, 1 8 1. 1 50
Vizards, masks, 108.34
w, intervocalic, lost, 29-152,
225.7 ; written form of u
before consonant, 152.64
Waile, bewail, 169-8
ZVake, rouse, 1 4 1. 3 1
Walke, be abroad, 138.7
ZValk'd, of unconscious lo-
comotion, 190.3
Wanton, capricious, 32.34
Warlike, stronger word in
EL. E., 224.62
Warranted, justii ied, author-
ized, guaranteed, 1 79. 1 37
ZVarre, contest, quarrel,
21 1.2 1 ; battle, 221.26
Wassell, carousing, 52.64
Wast full, devastating,
80.120
£(LWc/j,anyinstrumenttotell
time, 61.54; to sit up at
night, I90.I, I9I- 12; cp.
70.71
Water-rugs, 99-93
Way of life, 205-22
Way to death, 214-23
Wee stay upon your leysure,
28.148
246
Weare, display, 172.46;
proclaim, maintain, 171.
33
Wearie, disgusted, sick,
I00.II2
Wee' I heare ourselves
againe, 118.32
Wei at peace, 183.179
Welcome, pledge of wel-
come, 1 1 6.6
Weyward, form of the word,
17
Weyward sisters, 1 4.1,
16.32
What, what kind of, 17.39,
69-59, 155. 106, 172.49
What used for who, 72.21,
219.2
What, why, 193-41
What, that which is, 227.37
What is the night, 129-126
When 'tis, when the time
comes, 58.25
Where, relatively used adv.,
167.82, 182.166, 225-8
Whereabout, whereabouts,
62.58
Whereto, to which, 52.62
Whether, form of whither,
166.73
Which, for what, 135.10;
referring to persons, 91-16
While, until, 93-44 J the
while, so long as, 108.32
Whiles, whilst, while, 35-6,
62.60, 221.31
Whisper, whisper to,
186.210
Whisp'rings, insinuations,
slanders, 196.79
Who, he who, 23.109
Wholsome, prosperous,
healthy, 177.105
Wilde, strange, fantastic,
18.40
Will, pleasure, appetite,
I0I.I20, 174.65, 175.88
Will to hand, 1 31- 1 39
Wing, flight, 31-17
Winke, keep the eyes closed,
34.52
Wise, prudent, 79-114
Wish, to commend, 226.15
INDEX TO THE NOTES ON MACBETH
Witchcraft. SeeDemonology
Witches. Sec Demonology
Withy by, 22.93,95-63, 100.
112, 177.104; by means
of, 164.32, 213.13; in ac-
cordance with, 227.31 ; in
addition to, 175-76, 181. 1 56
Withall, with, 37.31; with
it, etc., 19.57,56.15,68.56;
in addition to this, more-
over, 172.41
Wither' d, colorless, ghastly,
60.52
Without, outside of, on the
outside, 93.47, 1 1 6. 1 4
Witnesse, evidence, 68.47
Witnest, attested, 184.184
Womanly, weak, unmanly,
167.78
Word order, 9-29, 65.17, 75.
62, 91.19, 107.27, 143-49,
152.64, 165-58,200.11,202.
25, 212.7, 216.30
Worme, snake, 118.29
Worthy, brave, 1 1.45 ; able,
strong, possessing power
or wealth, 184.183
Would, are ready for, must
have, 198.4,5,227.31 ; must
inevitably have been, 213.
1 8 ; would be, is to be, must
be, 94.51 ; would not, do
not want to, 56.7
Wouldst, desirest, 36.19
Wrack, destruction, 218.51
Wrestling, 73.47
Writes, enrolls, 99-101
Wrought, past tense of work,
28.149 ; had its due effect,
57.19
y, adjectives in, III.5I,
191. 12
Yawning, drowsy, 109-43
Yell, cry aloud, 1 69.5
Yet, still, I55.IOO, 172.46,
192.34; notwithstanding,
174.69
Your owne, to your advan-
tage, 32.33
Yours, your families, 99-91
z, intervocalic, 152.65
Zeugmatic construction, 28.
144, 36.22, I0I.I22, 169.
15, 174.68, 182.166, 198.
4,5
247
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED I
IOAM nCDT
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT
TO— ^ 202 Main Library
-
LOAN PERIOD 1
HOME USE
2
3
4
5
6
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
1-month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405
.-year loans may be recharged by br,ng,ng the books to the Ore
Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days pr.or to due date
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
JAN 31985
/
RECEIVL.D d
DEC 3
CIRCULATION DE
PT*
M
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1 /83 BERKELEY, CA 94720
©$
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY