MACB. Whence is that knocking! How is't with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous feas incarnardine,' "Cand. You have a filver beaker of my wife's? "Cand. Then you fay true: "And being gilt, the guilt lies more on you." Again, in Middleton's comedy of A mad World my Mafters, 1608: Though guilt condemns, 'tis gilt muft make us glad." And, laftly, from Shakspeare himself: England fhall double gild his treble guilt." Henry IV. P. II. Again, in King Henry V: "Have for the gilt of France, O guilt indeed!" STEEVENS. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood &c.] "Sufcipit, & Gelli, quantum non ultima Tethys, "Nec genitor nympharum abluit oceanus. Catullus in Gellium, 83. Οἶμαι γὰρ ἔτ ἀν Ιςρον ἔτε Φᾶσιν ἂν Νίψαι καθαρμῷ τηνδε τὴν στέγην. Sophoc. Oedip. Quis eluet me Tanais? aut quæ barbaris "Mæotis undis Pontico incumbens mari? "Non ipfe toto magnus oceano pater "Tantum expiarit fceleris !" Senec. Hippol. STEEVENS. "Non, fi Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des; "Non, mare fi totum velit eluere omnibus undis." Lucret. L. 6. v. 1074. HOLT WHITE, So, in The Infatiate Countefs, by Marston, 1613: MALONE. "The multitudinous feas incarnardine,] To incarnardine is to stain any thing of a flesh colour, or red. Carnardine is the old term for carnation. So, in a comedy called Any Thing for a quiet Life: Grograms, fattins, velvet fine, "The rofy-colour'd carnardine." STEEVENS. Making the green-one red." By the multitudinous feas, perhaps the poet meant, not the feas of every denomination, as the Cafpian, &c. (as fome have thought,) nor the many-coloured feas, (as others contend,) but the feas which fwarm with myriads of inhabitants. Thus Homer: σε Ποντον επ' ΙΧΘΥΟΕΝΤΑ φιλων απάνευθε φερεσιν.” The word is ufed by Ben Jonfon, and by Thomas Decker in The Wonderful Year, 1603, in which we find the multitudinous Spawn." It is objected by Mr. Kenrick, that Macbeth in his prefent difpofition of mind would hardly have adverted to a property of the fea, which has fo little relation to the object immediately before him; and if Macbeth had really fpoken this fpeech in his caftle of Inverness, the remark would be juft. But the critick fhould have remembered, that this fpeech is not the real effufion of a diftempered mind, but the compofition of Shakspeare; of that poet, who has put a circumftantial account of an apothecary's fhop into the mouth of Romeo, the moment after he has heard the fatal news of his beloved Juliet's death ;-and has made Othello, when in the anguish of his heart he determines to kill his wife, digrefs from the object which agitates his foul, to defcribe minutely the courfe of the Pontick fea. Mr. Steevens objects in the following note to this explanation, thinking it more probable that Shakspeare fhould refer to fome vifible quality in the ocean," than " to its concealed inhabitants ;" to the waters that might admit of difcoloration," than, "to the fishes whose hue could fuffer no change from the tinct of blood." But in what page of our author do we find his allufions thus curioufly rounded, and complete in all their parts? Or rather does not every page of these volumes furnish us with images crouded on each other, that are not naturally connected, and fometimes are even difcordant? Hamlet's propofing to take up arms against a sea of troubles is a well known example of this kind, and twenty others might be produced. Our author certainly alludes to the waters, which are capable of difcoloration, and not to the fishes. His allufion to the waters is expreffed by the word feas; to which, if he has added an epithet that has no very clofe connection with the fubject immediately before him, he has only followed his ufual practice. If however no allufion was intended to the myriads of inhabitants with which the deep is peopled, I believe by the multitudinous feas was meant, not the many-waved ocean, as is fuggested, but the countless maffes of waters wherever difperfed on the furface of the globe; the multitudes of feas, as Heywood has it in a paffage quoted below, that perhaps our author remembered: and indeed it must be owned that his having used the plural feas feems to counte Re-enter Lady MACBETH. LADY M. My hands are of your colour; but I fhame nance fuch an interpretation; for the fingular fea is equally fuited to the epithet multitudinous in the sense of xora, and would certainly have correfponded better with the fubfequent line. MALONE. I believe that Shakspeare referred to fome vifible quality in the ocean, rather than to its concealed inhabitants; to the waters that might admit of discoloration, and not to the fishes whofe hue could fuffer no change from the tinct of blood. Waves appearing over waves are no unapt fymbol of a crowd. "A fea of heads" is a phrafe employed by one of our legitimate poets, but by which of them I do not at prefent recollect. Blackmore in his Job has fwelled the fame idea to a ridiculous bulk : "A waving fea of heads was round me spread, "And ftill fresh ftreams the gazing deluge fed." He who beholds an audience from the stage or any other multitude gazing on any particular object, muft perceive that their heads are Faifed over each other, velut unda fupervenit undam. If therefore our author by the "multitudinous fea" does not mean the aggregate of feas, he must be understood to design the multitude of waves, or the waves that have the appearance of a multitude. STEEVENS. 9 Making the green-one red,] The fame thought occurs in The Downfal of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: Again: "He made the green fea red with Turkish blood." "The multitudes of feas died red with blood." Another not unlike it is found in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. c. x. ft. 48: "The whiles with blood they all the shore did stain, Again, in the 19th fong of Drayton's Polyolbion: "And the vaft greenish fea difcolour'd like to blood." STEEVENS. The fame thought is alfo found in The Two Noble Kinfmen, by Fletcher, 1634: "Thou mighty one, that with thy power haft turn'd The prefent paffage is one of thofe alluded to in a note on As you like it, Vol. VI. p. 175, in which, I apprehend, our author's To wear a heart fo white. [Knock.] I hear a knock ing words have been refined into a sense that he never thought of. The other is in Othello: "Put out the light, and then put out the light." The line before us, on the fuggeftion of the ingenious author of The Gray's-Inn Journal, has been printed in fome late editions in the following manner: Making the green-one red. Every part of this line, as thus regulated, appears to me exceptionable. One red does not found to my ear as the phrafeology of the age of Elizabeth; and the green, for the green one, or for the green fea, is, I am perfuaded, unexampled. The quaintnefs introduced by fuch a regulation feems of an entirely different colour from the quaintneffes of Shakspeare. He would have written, I have no doubt, "Making the green fea, red," (So, in The Tempest: "And 'twixt the green fea and the azure vault if he had not used the word feas in the preceding line, which forced him to employ another word here. As to prevent the ear being offended, we have in the paffage before us," the green one," inftead of the green fea," fo we have in K. Henry VIII, A&t I. fc. ii: "lame ones,' to avoid a fimilar repetition : 66 They have all new legs, and lame ones." Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "A ftage where every man must play a part, And mine a fad one." Though the punctuation of the old copy is very often faulty, yet in all doubtful cafes, it ought, when fupported by more decifive circumftances, to have fome little weight. In the present instance, the line is pointed as in my text: Making the green one, red. MALONE. If the new punctuation be difmiffed, we muft correct the foregoing line, and read-" the multitudinous fea; for how will the plural feas, accord with the green one?" Befides, the fenfe conveyed by the arrangement which Mr. Malone would reject, is countenanced by a paffage in Hamlet: "Hath now his dread and black complexion fmear'd i. e. one red. The expreffion-" one red," may also be justified by language yet more ancient than that of Shakspeare. In Genefis, ii. 24. (and feveral other places in fcripture) we have-“ one flesh.” At the fouth entry :-retire we to our chamber: Hath left you unattended.-[Knocking.] Hark! more knocking: Get on your nightgown, left occafion call us, So poorly in your thoughts. MACB. To know my deed,-'twere beft not know myself.3 could'ft! Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay,'would thou [Knock. [Exeunt. Again, in our Liturgy: " -be made one fold under one shepherd." But, fetting afide examples, are there not many unique phrases in our author? STEEVENS. 2 My hands are of your colour; but I fhame To wear a heart fo white.] A fimilar antithefis is found in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, written before 1593: "Your cheeks are black, let not your foul look white." MALONE. 3 To know my deed,-'twere beft not know myself.] i. e. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were beft not know, or be left to, myself. This is an answer to the lady's reproof: be not loft So poorly in your thoughts. WARBURTON. 4 Wake Duncan with thy knocking !] Macbeth is addressing the perfon who knocks at the outward gate.-Sir William D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, reads-(and intended probably to point) "Wake, Duncan, with this knocking!" conceiving that Macbeth called upon Duncan to awake. From the fame mifapprehenfion, I once thought his emendation right; but there is certainly no need of change. MALONE. See Mr. Malone's extract from Mr. Whately's Remarks on fome of the characters of Shakspeare, at the conclufion of this tragedy. STEEVENS. 5 Ay, 'would thou could'ft!] The old copy has-1; but as ay, the affirmative particle, was thus written, I conceive it to have been defigned here. Had Shakspeare meant to exprefs" I would," he might perhaps only have given us-'Would, as on many other occafions. The repentant exclamation of Macbeth, in my judge. |
