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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

S >> Samuel Johnson >> The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes




You know your own degrees, sit down--_To_ first
And last the hearty welcome.

_All of whatever degree, from the highest to the lowest, may be assured
that their visit is well received_.


NOTE XXIX

_Macbeth._--There's blood upon thy face.
[--_To the murderer, aside at the door_.]
_Murderer_. 'Tis Banquo's then.
_Macbeth_. 'Tis better thee without, than _he_ within.

The sense apparently requires that this passage should be read thus:

'Tis better thee without, than _him_ within.

That is, _I am more pleased that the blood of Banquo should be on thy
face, than in his body_.


NOTE XXX.

_Lady Macbeth_. O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
[_Aside to Macbeth_.
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts,
_Impostures to true fear_, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.

As _starts_ can neither with propriety nor sense be called _impostures
to true fear_, something else was undoubtedly intended by the author,
who, perhaps, wrote,

--These flaws and starts,
_Impostures true to fear_, would well become
A woman's story.--

These symptoms of terrour and amazement might better become _impostors
true_ only _to fear, might become a coward at the recital of such
falsehoods, as no man could credit, whose understanding was not weakened
by his terrours; tales, told by a woman over a fire on the authority of
her grandam_.


NOTE XXXI.

_Macbeth_.--Love and health to all!
Then I'll sit down: give me some wine, fill full:--
I drink to the general joy of the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
_And all to all_.--

Though this passage is, as it now stands, capable of more meanings than
one, none of them are very satisfactory; and, therefore, I am inclined
to read it thus:

--to all, and him, we thirst,
_And hail to all_.

Macbeth, being about to salute his company with a bumper, declares that
he includes Banquo, though absent, in this act of kindness, and wishes
_health_ to all. _Hail_ or _heil_ for _health_ was in such continual use
among the good-fellows of ancient times, that a drinker was called a
_was-heiler_, or a _wisher of health_, and the liquor was termed
_was-heil_, because _health_ was so often _wished_ over it. Thus in the
lines of Hanvil the monk,

Jamque vagante scypho, discincto gutture _was-heil_
Ingeminant _was-heil_: labor est plus perdere vini
Quam sitis.--

These words were afterwards corrupted into _wassail_ and _wassailer_.


NOTE XXXII.

_Macbeth_.--Can such things be,
And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I _owe_,
When now I think, you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheek,
When mine is blanched with fear.

This passage, as it now stands, is unintelligible, but may be restored
to sense by a very slight alteration:

--You make me strange
Ev'n to the disposition that I _know_.

_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 understand 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 errours of
greater importance.


NOTE XXXV.

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 _mew_, from whence 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'n nights, 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 sow 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 hast thirty-one,
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the 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 Tholouse, 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 newt, and toe of frog;--For a charm, &c.

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
horrour. 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--

Black spirits and white,
Red 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 thine, and thrice to mine,
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 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 three days, they
send one of their women that is skilled in that way to the place, where
she says, I call thee from the east, west, north, and south, from the
groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the _fairies, red,
black, white_." There was, likewise, a book written before the time of
Shakespeare, describing, amongst other properties, the _colours_ of
spirits.

Many other circumstances might be particularized, in which Shakespeare
has shown his judgment and his knowledge[4].


NOTE XXXVI.

SCENE II.

_Macbeth_. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!
Thy crown does (a)sear mine eye-balls:--and thy (b)_hair_,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:--
A third is like the former.

(a) The expression of Macbeth, that the _crown sears_ his eye-balls, is
taken from the method formerly practised of destroying the sight of
captives or competitors, by holding a burning bason before the eye,
which dried up its humidity. Whence the Italian, _abacinare, to blind_.

(b) As Macbeth expected to see a train of kings, and was only inquiring
from what race they would proceed, he could not be surprised that the
_hair_ of the second was _bound with gold_, like that of the first; he
was offended only that the second resembled the first, as the first
resembled Banquo, and, therefore, said:

--and thy _air_,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.


NOTE XXXVII.

I will--give to the edge o' th' sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That _trace him in his line_.--No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do before my purpose cool.

Both the sense and measure of the third line, which, as it rhymes,
ought, according to the practice of this author, to be regular, are, at
present, injured by two superfluous syllables, which may easily be
removed by reading,

--souls
That trace his line:--No boasting like a fool.


NOTE XXXVIII.

SCENE III.

_Rosse_. My dearest cousin,
I pray you, school yourself: But for your husband,
He's noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o'th'time, I dare not speak much further,
But cruel are the times when we are traitors,
And do not know't ourselves, when we (a)_hold rumour
From what we fear_, yet know not what we fear;
But float upon a wild and violent sea,
Each way, and (b)_move_. I'll take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before: my pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!

(a)--When we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.

The present reading seems to afford no sense; and, therefore, some
critical experiments may be properly tried upon it, though, the verses
being without any connexion, there is room for suspicion, that some
intermediate lines are lost, and that the passage is, therefore,
irretrievable. If it be supposed that the fault arises only from the
corruption of some words, and that the traces of the true reading are
still to be found, the passage may be changed thus:

--when we _bode ruin_
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear.

Or, in a sense very applicable to the occasion of the conference:

--when the _bold, running_
From what they fear, yet know not what they fear.

(b) But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way, and move.

That he who _floats_ upon a _rough sea_ must move, is evident, too
evident for Shakespeare so emphatically to assert. The line, therefore,
is to be written thus:

Each way, and move--I'll take my leave of you.

Rosse is about to proceed, but, finding himself overpowered by his
tenderness, breaks off abruptly, for which he makes a short apology, and
retires.


NOTE XXXIX.

SCENE IV.

_Malcolm_. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
_Macduff_. Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men,
Bestride our _downfal birth-doom_: each new morn,
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllables of dolour.

He who can discover what is meant by him that earnestly exhorts him to
_bestride_ his _downfal birth-doom_, is at liberty to adhere to the
present text; but those who are willing to confess that such counsel
would to them be unintelligible, must endeavour to discover some reading
less obscure. It is probable that Shakespeare wrote:

--like good men,
Bestride our _downfall'n birthdom_--

The allusion is to a man from whom something valuable is about to be
taken by violence, and who, that he may defend it without encumbrance,
lays it on the ground, and stands over it with his weapon in his hand.
Our birthdom, or birthright, says he, lies on the ground, let us, like
men who are to fight for what is dearest to them, not abandon it, but
stand over it and defend it. This is a strong picture of obstinate
resolution.

_Birthdom_ for _birthright_ is formed by the same analogy with
_masterdom_ in this play, signifying the _privileges_ or _rights of a
master_.

Perhaps it might be _birth-dame_ for _mother_; let us stand over our
mother that lies bleeding on the ground.


NOTE XL.

_Malcolm_. Now we'll together; and the _chance of goodness_
Be like our warranted quarrel!

The _chance of goodness_, as it is commonly read, conveys no sense. If
there be not some more important errour in the passage, it should, at
least, be pointed thus:

--And the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, [_pro justicia
divina_,] answerable to the cause.

But I am inclined to believe that Shakespeare wrote,

--and the chance, O goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel!

This some of his transcribers wrote with a small _o_, which another
imagined to mean _of_. If we adopt this reading, the sense will be, _and
O! thou sovereign goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune
answer to our cause._


NOTE XLI.

ACT V. SCENE III.

_Macbeth_. Bring me no more reports, let them fly all,
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman?--
--fly false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures.

In the first line of this speech, the proper pauses are not observed in
the present editions.

Bring me no more reports--let them fly all--

_Tell me not any more of desertions--Let all my subjects leave me--I am
safe till, &c._

The reproach of epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is
nothing more than a natural invective, uttered by an inhabitant of a
barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury.


NOTE XLII.

_Macbeth_. I have liv'd long enough: my _way_ of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.

As there is no relation between the _way of life_, and _fallen into the
sear_, I am inclined to think, that the _W_ is only an _M_ inverted, and
that it was originally written, my _May_ of life.

_I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days, but I am
without those comforts that should succeed the sprightliness of bloom,
and support me in this melancholy season._


NOTE XLIII.

SCENE IV.

_Malcolm_. 'Tis his main hope:
For where there is _advantage to be given_,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

The impropriety of the expression _advantage to be given_, instead of
_advantage given_, and the disagreeable repetition of the word _given_
in the next line incline me to read,

--where there is _a'vantage_ to be _gone_,
Both more and less have given him the revolt.

_Advantage_ or _'vantage_, in the time of Shakespeare, signified
_opportunity_.

_More and less_ is the same with _greater and less_. So in the
interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India
the more and the less.


NOTE XLIV.

SCENE V.

_Macbeth_.--Wherefore was that cry?
_Seyton_. The queen, my lord, is dead.
_Macbeth_. She should (a)have, died hereafter:
There would have been a time for such a _word_.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of (b)recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow.--

(a) She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for such a _word_.

This passage has very justly been suspected of being corrupt. It is not
apparent for what _word_ there would have been a _time_, and that there
would or would not be a _time_ for any _word_, seems not a consideration
of importance sufficient to transport Macbeth into the following
exclamation. I read, therefore:

She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for--such a _world!_--
To-morrow, &c.

It is a broken speech, in which only part of the thought is expressed,
and may be paraphrased thus: The queen is dead. _Macbeth_. Her death
should have been deferred to some more peaceful hour; had she lived
longer, _there would at length have been a time for_ the honours due to
her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and
love. Such is the _world_--such is the condition of human life, that we
always think _to-morrow_ will be happier than to-day; but to-morrow and
to-morrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still linger
in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these
days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the
grave, who were engrossed by the same dream of future felicity, and,
when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to-
morrow.

(b) To the last syllable of recorded time.

_Recorded time_ seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of heaven
for the period of life. The _record_ of _futurity_ is, indeed, no
accurate expression, but as we only know transactions past or present,
the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience, in
which future events may be supposed to be written.


NOTE XLV.

_Macbeth_. If thou speak'st false.
Upon the next tree shalt 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: "Fear not till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane," and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.

I _pull_ in resolution.--

Though this is the reading of all the editions, yet as it is a phrase
without either example, elegance, or propriety, it is surely better to
read:

I _pall_ in resolution.--

_I languish in my constancy, my confidence begins to forsake me._ It is
scarcely necessary to observe how easily _pall_ might be changed into
_pull_ by a negligent writer, or mistaken for it by an unskilful
printer.


NOTE XLVI.

SCENE VIII.

_Siward_ Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so his knell is knoll'd.

This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon, by Camden, in
his Remains, from which our author probably copied it.

When Siward, the martial Earl of Northumberland, understood that his
son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he
demanded whether his wound were in the fore part or hinder part of his
body. When it was answered in the fore part, he replied, "I am right
glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine."

* * * * *

After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of Shakespeare,
ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, fell into my hands; and it was,
therefore, convenient for me to delay the publication of my remarks,
till I had examined whether they were not anticipated by similar
observations, or precluded by better. I, therefore, read over this
tragedy, but found that the editor's apprehension is of a cast so
different from mine, that he appears to find no difficulty in most of
those passages which I have represented as unintelligible, and has,
therefore, passed smoothly over them, without any attempt to alter or
explain them.

Some of the lines with which I had been perplexed, have been, indeed, so
fortunate as to attract his regard; and it is not without all the
satisfaction which it is usual to express on such occasions, that I find
an entire agreement between us in substituting [see Note II.] _quarrel_
for _quarry_, and in explaining the adage of the cat, [Note XVII.] But
this pleasure is, like most others, known only to be regretted; for I
have the unhappiness to find no such conformity with regard to any other
passage.

The line which I have endeavoured to amend, Note XI. is, likewise,
attempted by the new editor, and is, perhaps, the only passage in the
play in which he has not submissively admitted the emendations of
foregoing criticks. Instead of the common reading,

--Doing every thing
_Safe_ towards your love and honour,

he has published,

--Doing every thing
_Shap'd_ towards your love and honour.

This alteration, which, like all the rest attempted by him, the reader
is expected to admit, without any reason alleged in its defence, is, in
my opinion, more plausible than that of Mr. Theobald: whether it is
right, I am not to determine.

In the passage which I have altered in Note XL. an emendation is,
likewise, attempted in the late edition, where, for,

--and the chance _of_ goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel,

is substituted--and the chance _in_ goodness--whether with more or less
elegance, dignity, and propriety, than the reading which I have offered,
I must again decline the province of deciding.

Most of the other emendations which he has endeavoured, whether with
good or bad fortune, are too trivial to deserve mention. For surely the
weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor, who can
imagine that he is restoring poetry, while he is amusing himself with
alterations like these: for,

--This is the sergeant,
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought;
--This is the sergeant, who
Like a _right_ good and hardy soldier fought.

For,

--Dismay'd not this
Our captains Macbeth and Banquo?--Yes;

--Dismay'd not this
Our captains _brave_ Macbeth and Banquo?--Yes.

Such harmless industry may, surely, be forgiven, if it cannot be
praised: may he, therefore, never want a monosyllable, who can use it
with such wonderful dexterity.

Rumpatur quisquis rumpitur invidia!

The rest of this edition I have not read, but, from the little that I
have seen, think it not dangerous to declare that, in my opinion, its
pomp recommends it more than its accuracy. There is no distinction made
between the ancient reading, and the innovations of the editor; there is
no reason given for any of the alterations which are made; the
emendations of former criticks are adopted without any acknowledgment,
and few of the difficulties are removed which have hitherto embarrassed
the readers of Shakespeare.