Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

SCENE VII.

The fame. A Room in the Castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter, and pass over the flage, a fewer, and divers fervants with dishes and fervice. Then enter MACBETH.

MACB. If it were done,+ when'tis done, then 'twere

well

It were done quickly: If the affaffination"

3 Enter

[ocr errors]

a fewer,] I have reftored this ftage-direction from the old copy. The office of a fewer was to place the dishes in order at a feaft. His chief mark of diftinction was a towel round his arm. So, in Ben Jonfon's Silent Woman; - clap me a clean towel about you, like a fewer." Again: "See, fir Amorous has his towel on already. [He enters like a fewer."] STEEVENS. 4 If it were done, &c.] A fentiment parallel to this occurs in The Proceedings against Garnet in the Powder Plot. "It would have been commendable, when it had been done, though not before." FARMER.

5 If the affaffination &c.] Of this foliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus:

"If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and executed, were done and ended without any following effects, it would then be beft to do it quickly: if the murder could terminate in itself, and refrain the regular courfe of confequences, if its fuccefs could fecure its furceafe, if, being once done fuccessfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance and enquiry, fo that this blow might be all that I have to do, and this anxiety all that I have to fuffer; if this could be my condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of temporal exiftence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed without care of any future ftate. But this is one of thofe cafes in which judgement is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon us here in our prefent life. We teach others to do as we have done, and are punished by our own example."

JOHNSON.

Could trammel up the confequence, and catch,
With his furceafe, fuccefs; that but this blow

[ocr errors]

We are told by Dryden, that " Ben Jonfon in reading fome bombaft fpeeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to fay that it was horrour."-Perhaps the prefent paffage was one of thofe thus depretiated. Any perfon but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the tranfcendent beauties of this fublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's greatest work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into strong fhudders" and blood-freezing" agues," by its interefting and highwrought fcenes, than to have been offended by any imaginary hardness of its language; for fuch, it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour. That there are difficult paffages in this tragedy, cannot be denied; but that there are "fome bombaft fpeeches in it, which are not to be understood," as Dryden afferts, will not very readily be granted to him. From this affertion however, and the verbal alterations made by him and Sir W. D'Avenant in fome of our author's plays, I think it clearly appears that Dryden and the other poets of the time of Charles II. were not very deeply killed in the language of their predeceffors, and that Shakspeare was not fo well understood fifty years after his death, as he is at this day. MALONE.

6 Could trammel up the confequence, and catch,

With his furceafe, fuccefs;] I think the reafoning requires that we fhould read:

[blocks in formation]

A trammel is a net in which either birds or fifhes are caught. So, in The Ifle of Gulls, 1633:

"Each tree and fhrub wears trammels of thy hair." Surceafe is ceffation, ftop. So, in The Valiant Welchman, 1615: "Surceafe brave brother: Fortune hath crown'd our brows."

His is used instead of its, in many places. STEEVENS.

The perfonal pronouns are fo frequently ufed by Shakspeare, inftead of the imperfonal, that no amendment would be neceifary in this paffage, even if it were certain that the pronoun his refers to affaffination, which feems to be the opinion of Johníon and Steevens; but I think it more probable that it refers to Duncan; and that by his furceafe Macbeth means Duncan's death, which was the object of his contemplation. M. MASON.

His certainly may refer to affeffination, (as Dr. Johnfon by his propofed alteration feems to have thought it did,) for Shak fpeare very frequently uses his for its. But in this place perhaps his refers to Duncan; and the meaning may be, If the affaffination, at the

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and fhoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come.-But, in these cases,
We still have judgement here; that we but teach
Bloody inftructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice *

fame time that it puts an end to the life of Duncan, could procure me unalloyed happiness, promotion to the crown unmolefted by the compunctious vifitings of confcience, &c. To ceafe often fignifies in these plays, to die. So, in All's Well that ends Well:

[ocr errors]

Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, ceafe."

I think, however, it is more probable that his is used for its, and that it relates to affaffination. MALONE.

7fboal of time,] This is Theobald's emendation, undoubtedly right. The old edition has school, and Dr. Warburton shelve. JOHNSON.

By the foal of time our author means the fhallow ford of life, between us and the abyss of eternity. STEEVENS.

8 We'd jump the life to come.] So, in Cymbeline, A&t V. fc. iv: or jump the after-enquiry on your own peril."

66

STEEVENS.

"We'd jump the life to come," certainly means, We'd hazard or run the risk of what might happen in a future ftate of being. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

66

Our fortune lies

"Upon this jump.

Again, in Coriolanus:

- and wish

"To jump a body with a dangerous phyfick,
"That's fure of death without it."

See note on this paffage, Act III. fc. i. MALONE.
we but teach

Bloody inftructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor:] So, in Bellenden's tranflation of Hector Boethius: "He [Macbeth] was led be wod furyis, as ye nature of all tyrannis is, quhilks conqueffis landis or kingdomes be wrangus titil, ay full of hevy thocht and dredour, and traifling ilk man to do ficlik crueltes to hym, as he did afore to othir." MALONE. This even-handed juftice] Mr. M. Mafon obferves that we might more advantageously read

2

[ocr errors]

Thus even-handed juftice, &c. STEEVENS.

The old reading I believe to be the true one, because Shakspeare has very frequently ufed this mode of expreffion. So, a little

Commends the ingredients of our poifon'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double truft:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his hoft,
Who fhould against his murderer fhut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties fo meek,' hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:

lower:-"Befides, this Duncan," &c. Again, in K. Henry IV. P. I: That this fame child of honour and renown, "This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight—.”

MALONE.

3 Commends the ingredients-] Thus in a subsequent scene of this play:

"I wish your horfes fwift, and fure of foot,

"And fo I do commend you to their backs."

This verb has many fhades of meaning. It seems here to fignify-offers, or recommends. STEEVENS.

— our poifon'd chalice

To our own lips.] Our poet, apis Matine more modoque, would ftoop to borrow a fweet from any flower, however humble in its fituation.

"The pricke of confcience (fays Holinfhed) caufed him ever to feare, left he should be ferved of the fame cup as he had minister'd to his predeceffor." STEEVENS.

5 Hath borne his faculties fo meck,] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARBURTON.

"Duncan (fays Holinfhed) was foft and gentle of nature." And again: Macbeth fpoke much againft the king's foftnefs, and overmuch flackness in punishing offenders." STEEVENS.

6 The deep damnation] So, in A dolfull Difcourfe of a Lord and a Ladie, by Churchyard, 1593:

[ocr errors]

in ftate

"Of deepe damnation stood.”

I fhould not have thought this little coincidence worth noting, had I not found it in a poem which it should feem, from other paffages, that Shakspeare had read and remembered. STEEVENS,

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blaft, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the fightlefs couriers of the air,"
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears fhall drown the wind."—I have no fpur

6 or heaven's cherubin, hors'd

Upon the fightless couriers of the air,] Courier is only runner. Couriers of air are winds, air in motion. Sightlefs is invifible.

Again, in this play:

"Wherever in your fightless fubftances," &c.

Again, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

Again:

"The flames of hell and Pluto's fighilefs fires."

"Hath any fightless and infernal fire

"Laid hold upon my flesh ?"

JOHNSON.

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II. c. xi: "The fcouring winds that fightless in the founding air do fly." STEEVENS.

So, in K. Henry V:

"Borne with the invisible and creeping wind."

Again, in our author's 51ft Sonnet:

"Then should I fpur, though mounted on the wind.”

Again, in the Prologue to K. Henry IV. P. II:

"I, from the orient to the drooping west,
"Making the wind my poft-borfe-"

The thought of the cherubin (as has been fomewhere observed) feems to have been borrowed from the eighteenth Pfalm: "He rode upon the cherubins and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind." Again, in the Book of Job, ch. xxx. v. 22: "Thou caufeft me to ride upon the wind." MALONE.

7 That tears fall drown the wind.] Alluding to the remiffion of the wind in a fhower. JOHNSON.

So, in King Henry VI. P. III:

"For raging wind blows up inceffant showers;
"And, when the rage allays, the rain begins."

Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis:

"Even as the wind is hufh'd before it raineth.”

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

STEEVENS.

"This windy tempeft, till it blow up rain
"Held back his forrow's tide, to make it more;
"At laft it rains, and bufy winds give o'er."

« FöregåendeFortsätt »