Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Though I had before seen many instances of your courage, yet it now appears in a degree altogether new. So that my long acquaintance with your disposition does not hinder me from that astonishment which novelty produces.

NOTE XXXIII.

It will have blood, they say blood will have blood, Stones have been known to move, and trees to

speak,

Augurs, that understood relations, have

By magpies, and by choughs, and rooks brought forth

The secret'st man of blood.

In this passage the first line loses much of its force by the present punctuation. Macbeth having considered the prodigy which has just appeared, infers justly from it, that the death of Duncan cannot pass unpunished, It will have blood,

Then after a short pause, declares it as the general observation of mankind, that murderers cannot escape. -They say, blood will have blood.

Murderers, when they have practised all human means of security, are detected by supernatural directions.

Augurs, that understand relations, &c.

By the word relation is understood the connexion of effects with causes; to understand relations as an augur is to know how those things relate to each other which have no visible combination or dependence.

NOTE XXXIV.

SCENE VII.

Enter Lenox and another Lord.

As this tragedy like the rest of Shakespeare's is perhaps overstocked with personages, it is not easy to assign a reason, why a nameless character should be introduced here, since nothing is said that might not with equal propriety have been put into the mouth of any other disaffected man. I believe, therefore, that in the original copy, it was written with a very common form of contraction, Lenox and An. for which the transcriber instead of Lenox and Angus, set down Lenox and another Lord. The author had indeed been more indebted to the transcriber's fidelity and diligence, had he committed no errors of greater importance.

NOTE XXXV.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

As this is the chief scene of enchantment in the play, it is proper in this place to observe, with how much judgment Shakespeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions.

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

The usual form in which familiar spirits are reported to converse with witches, is that of a cat. A witch,

who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakespeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the spirit of one of those witches was Grimalkin; and when any mischief was to be done, she used to bid Rutterkin go and fly; but once when she would have sent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the countess of Rutland, instead of going or flying, he only cried men, from which she discovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not universal, but limited, as Shakespeare has taken care to inculcate.

Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest tost.

The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced were melancholy, fits, and loss of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakespeare's witches.

Weary sev❜nnights nine times nine

Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.

It was likewise their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Shakespeare has accordingly made one of his witches declare that she has been killing swine; and Dr. Harsenet observes, that about that time a son could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft.

Toad, that under the cold stone
Days and nights has forty-one

Swelter'd venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i' th' charmed pot.

Toads have likewise long lain under the reproach of being by some means accessary to witchcraft, for which reason Shakespeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits padocke or toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was seized at Thoulouse, there was found at his lodgings ingens bufo vitro inclusus, a great toad shut in a vial, upon which those that prosecuted him veneficium exprobrabant, charged him, I suppose, with witchcraft.

Fillet of a fenny snake

In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of neut, and toe of frog;-
For a charm, &c.

CA

The propriety of these ingredients may be known by consulting the books De Viribus Animalium and De Mirabilibus Mundi, ascribed to Albertus Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover very wonderful secrets.

Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab;-

It has been already mentioned in the law against witches, that they are supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom King James examined, and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable that

Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstances of horror. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth, the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer, and even the sow, whose blood is used, must have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius.

And now about the cauldron sing

Blue spirits and white,
Black spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.

And in a former part,

Weird sisters hand in hand-
Thus do go about, about;

Thrice to mine, and thrice to thine,
And thrice again to make up nine.

These two passages I have brought together, because they both seem subject to the objection of too much levity for the solemnity of enchantment, and may both be shown, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really observed by the uncivilized natives of that country. "When

[ocr errors]

any one gets a fall," says the informer of Camden, "he starts up, and turning three times to the right, digs "a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a "spirit in the ground; and if he falls sick in two or

« AnteriorContinuar »