Did you say, all?-O, hell-kite!—All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, Mal. Dispute it like a man.* But I must also feel it as a man: I shall do so; -Did heaven look on, I cannot but remember such things were, Fell slaughter on their souls:5 Heaven rest them now! grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. It still therefore remains to be proved that " Macbeth bad a son then alive." Besides, we have been already assured, by himself, on the authority of the Witches, p. 150, that his sceptre would pass away into another family, “ no son of his succeeding.” Steevens. 3 At one fell swoop?] Swoop is the descent of a bird of prey on his quarry. So, in The White Devil, 1612: "That she may take away all at one swoop." Again, in The Beggar's Bush, by Beaumont and Fletcher: 66 no star prosperous! "All at a swoop." It is frequently, however, used by Drayton, in hís Polyolbion, to express the swift descent of rivers. Steevens. 4 Dispute it like a man.] i. e. contend with your present sorrow like a man. So, in Twelfth Night, Act IV, sc. iii: "For though my soul disputes well with my sense," &c. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: 5 "Let me dispute with thee of thy estate." Steevens. Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! &c.] See the prophet Isaiah, c. liii, v. 5. Harris. 6 Cut short all intermission;] i. e. all pause, all intervening time. So, in King Lear : "Deliver❜d letters, spite of intermission." Steevens. Mal. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the king; our power is ready; Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments.1 Receive what cheer you may; The night is long, that never finds the day. [Exeunt. ACT V.....SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physick, and a waiting Gentlewoman. Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can 7 if be'scape, Heaven forgive him too!] That is, if he escape my vengeance, let him escape that of Heaven also. An expression nearly similar occurs in The Chances, where Petruchio, speaking of the Duke, says: "He scap'd me yesternight; which if he dare "Again adventure for, heaven pardon him! "I shall, with all my heart." M. Mason. The meaning, I believe, is,-If heaven be so unjust as to let him escape my vengeance, I am content that it should proceed still further in its injustice, and to impunity in this world add forgiveness hereafter. Malone. 8 This tune-] The folio reads-This time. Tune is Rowe's emendation. Steevens. The emendation is supported by a former passage in this play, where the word is used in a similar manner: v. 15. "Mach. Went it not so? "Banq. To the self-same tune and words." Malone. Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, &c.] See St. John's Revelation, c. xiv, Harris. 1 Put on their instruments.] i. e. encourage, thrust forward us their instruments against the tyrant. So, in King Lear, Act I, sc. iv: "That you protect this course, and put it on "By your allowance." Again, in Chapman's version of the eleventh Iliad: "For Jove makes Trojans instruments, and virtually then "Wields arms himself." Steevens. perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watchingIn this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. ́ Doct. You may, to me: and 'tis most meet you should. Gent. Neither to you, nor any one: having no witness to confirm my speech. 2 Since his majesty went into the field,] This is one of Shakspeare's oversights. He forgot that he had shut up Macbeth in Dunsinane, and surrounded him with besiegers. That he could not go into the field, is observed by himself with splenetic impatience : 66 our castle's strength "Will laugh a siege to scorn. "Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, "And beat them backward home." It is clear also, from other passages, that Macbeth's motions had long been circumscribed by the walls of his fortress. The truth may be, that Shakspeare thought the spirit of lady Macbeth could not be so effectually subdued, and her peace of mind so speedily unsettled by reflection on her guilt, as during the absence of her husband: deserto jacuit dum frigida lecto, Dum queritur tardos ire relicta dies. For the present change in her disposition, therefore, our poet (though in the haste of finishing his play he forgot his plan) might mean to have provided, by allotting her such an interval of solitude as would subject her mind to perturbation, and dispose her thoughts to repentance. It does not appear, from any circumstance within the compass of this drama, that she had once been separated from her husband, after his return from the victory over Macdonwald, and the king of Norway. Steevens. Enter Lady MACBETH, with a Taper. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close. Doct. How came she by that light? Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command. Doct. You see, her eyes are open.3 Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.4 Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady M. Yet here's a spot.5 Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One ; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do 't:Hell is mur 3 ber eyes are open.] So, in The Tempest: "This is a strange repose, to be asleep "With eyes wide open," &c. Steevens. Ay, but their sense is shut.] The old copy has-are shut; and so the author certainly wrote, though it sounds very harshly to our ears. So again, in his 112th Sonnet: "In so profound abysm I throw all care Malone. In the Sonnet our author was compelled to sacrifice grammar to the convenience of rhyme. In the passage before us, he was free from such constraint. What, therefore, should forbid us to read, with the present text? Ay, but their sense is shut. Steevens. 5 Yet here's a spot.] A passage somewhat similar occurs in Webster's Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: 6 Here's a white hand! “ Can blood so soon be wash'd out ?” Webster's play was published in 1612. Shakspeare's in 1623. Steevens. One; Two;] Macbeth does not, previously to the murder, mention the hour at which lady Macbeth is to strike upon the bell, which was to be the signal for his going into Duncan's chamber to execute his wicked purpose; but it seems that lady Macbeth is now thinking of the moment when she rang ky!"-Fy, my lord, fy! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?8 Doct. Do you mark that? Lady. M. The thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now?- -What, will these hands ne'er be clean?No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.9 Doct. Goto, go to; you have known what you should not. Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. the bell; and that two o'clock was the hour when the deed was perpetrated. This agrees with the scene that immediately precedes the murder, but not with that which follows it. See p. 104, n. 7. Malone. 7 Hell is murky!] Murky is dark. So, in The Tempest Act IV, sc. i: 66 the murkiest den "The most opportune place," &c. Lady Macbeth is acting over, in a dream, the business of the murder of Duncan, and encouraging her husband as when awake. She, therefore, would not have even hinted the terrors of hell to one whose conscience she saw was too much alarmed already for her purpose. She certainly imagines herself here talking to Macbeth, who, (she supposes) had just said, Hell is murky, (i. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice. Hell is murky!-Fy, my lord, fy! a soldier, and afear'd? This explanation, I think, gives a spirit to the passage, which has hitherto appeared languid, being perhaps misapprehended by those who placed a full point at the conclusion of it. 8 Steevens. who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?] Statius, in a passage already quoted, speaking of the sword by which an old man was slain, calls it egentem sanguinis ensem; and Ovid, [Met. L. VII,] describing a wound inflicted on a superannuated ram, has the same circum stance : 9 guttura cultro "Fodit, et exiguo maculavit sanguine ferrum." Steevens, you mar all with this starting.] Alluding to the terrors of Macbeth, when the Ghost broke in on the festivity of the banquet. Steevens. |