Enter MACBETH. Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! To cry, Hold, hold!] The thought is taken from the old military laws which inflicted capital punishment upon, "whosoever shall strike stroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight a combat in a place enclosed: and then no man shall be so hardy as to bid hold, but the general." P. 264 of Mr. Bellay's Instructions for the Wars, translated in 1589. TOLlet. Mr. Tollet's note will likewise illustrate the last line of Macbeth's concluding speech: "And damn'd be him who first cries, hold, enough!" STEEVENS. Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!] Shakspeare has supported the character of Lady Macbeth by repeated efforts, and never omits any opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monster of his own creation. The softer passions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his arrival from an expedition of danger, with such a salutation as would have become one of his friends or vassals; a salutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes, than to testify her joy at his return, or manifest an attachment to his person: nor does any sentiment expressive of love or softness fall from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself, amidst the horrors of his guilt, still retains a character less fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tenderness, and pours his complaints and fears into her bosom, accompanied with terms of endearment. STEEVENS. 7 This ignorant present,] Ignorant has here the signification of unknowing; that is, I feel by anticipation those future honours, of which, according to the process of nature, the present time would be ignorant. JOHNSON. MACB. My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night. LADY M. And when goes hence? O, never MACB. To-morrow,-as he purposes. LADY M. Shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters :-To beguile the time, STEEVENS. This ignorant present,] Thus the old copy. Some of our modern editors read: " — present time:" but the phraseology in the text is frequent in our author, as well as other ancient writers. So, in the first scene of The Tempest : "If you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more." The sense does not require the word time, and it is too much for the measure. Again, in Coriolanus: "And that you not delay the present; but" &c. Again, in Corinthians I. ch. xv. v. 6: "—of whom the greater part remain unto this present." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Be pleas'd to tell us (For this is from the present) how you take "The offer I have sent you." STEEVENS. • Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read &c.] That is, thy looks are such as will awaken 'men's curiosity, excite their attention, and make room for suspicion. HEATH. So, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: "Her face the book of praises, where is read Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : "Poor women's faces are their own faults' books." MALONE. Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, you But be the serpent under it.' He that's coming LADY M. To alter favour ever is to fear: 2 Leave all the rest to me. 9 To beguile the time, Only look up clear; [Exeunt. Look like the time;] The same expression occurs in the 8th Book of Daniel's Civil Wars: "He draws a traverse 'twixt his grievances; STEEVENS. "Wore a clear face upon a cloudy heart." The seventh and eighth Books of Daniel's Civil Wars were not published till the year 1609; [see the Epistle Dedicatorie to that edition:] so that, if either poet copied the other, Daniel must have been indebted to Shakspeare; for there can be little doubt that Macbeth had been exhibited before that year. 1 look like the innocent flower, MALONE. But be the serpent under it.] Thus, in Chaucer's Squiere's Tale, 10,827: "So depe in greyne he died his coloures, 66 Right as a serpent hideth him under floures, "Til he may see his time for to bite." STEEVENS. To alter favour ever is to fear:] So, in Love's Labour's Lost: "For blushing cheeks by faults are bred, "And fears by pale white shown." Favour is-look, countenance. So, in Troilus and Cressida : "I know your favour, lord Ulysses, well." STEEVENS. SCENE VI. The same. Before the Castle. Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attend ants. DUN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air This castle hath a pleasant seat;] Seat here means situation. Lord Bacon says, "He that builds a faire house upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison. Neither doe I reckon it an ill seat, only where the aire is unwholsome, but likewise where the aire is unequal; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of ground invironed with higher hills round about it, whereby the heat of the sunne is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; so as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversitie of heat and cold, as if you dwelt in several places." Essays, 2d edit. 4to. 1632, p. 257. REED. This castle hath a pleasant scat ;] This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakspeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who, from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestick life. SIR J. REYNOlds. Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself BAN. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath, Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress, Nor coigne of vantage,' but this bird hath made 6 * Unto our gentle senses.] Senses are nothing more than each man's sense. Gentle sense is very elegant, as it means placid, calm, composed, and intimates the peaceable delight of a fine day. JOHNSON. martlet,] This bird is in the old edition called barlet. JOHNSON. The correction was made by Mr. Rowe. MALOne. It is supported by the following passage in The Merchant of Venice: 6 "Builds in the weather on the outward wall." STEEVENS. no jutty, frieze,] A comma should be placed after jutty. A jutty, or jetty, (for so it ought rather to be written) is not here, as has been supposed, an epithet to frieze, but a substantive; signifying that part of a building which shoots forward beyond the rest. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Barbacane. An outnooke or corner standing out of a house; a jettie."-" Sporto. A porch, a portal, a bay-window, or out-butting, or jettie, of a house, that jetties out farther than anie other part of the house."-See also Surpendue, in Cotgrave's French Dict. 1611: "A jettie; an out-jetting room." MALONE. Shakspeare uses the verb to jutty, in King Henry V: as fearfully as doth a galled rock 66 "O'erhang and jutty his confounded base.” The substantive also occurs in an agreement between Philip Henslowe, &c. &c. for building a new theatre, in the year 1599. See Vol. II: " besides a juttey forwards in eyther of the saide two upper stories &c." STEEVENS. 7 — coigne of vantage,] Convenient corner. JOHNSON. So, in Pericles: "By the four opposing coignes, "Which the world together joins." STEEVENS. |