Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Thoughts fpeculative their unsure hopes relate;
But certain iffue ftrokes muft arbitrate: 2
Towards which, advance the war.'

[Exeunt, marching.

Had thefe lines been put into the mouth of any of the Scottish Peers, they might poffibly bear the meaning that Steevens contends for; but as they are fuppofed to be fpoken by Siward, who was not to be governed either by Malcolm or Macbeth, they can scarcely admit of that interpretation. Siward probably only means to fay in more pompous language, that the time approached which was to decide their fate. M. MASON.

Siward, having undertaken the caufe of Scotland, fpeaks, as a Scotfman would have fpoken; and especially as he is now in the prefence of Malcolm, Macduff, and others of the fame country. STEEVENS,

2-arbitrate:] i. e. determine. JOHNSON.

So, in the 18th Odyssey tranflated by Chapman :

-ftraight

"Can arbitrate a war of deadliest weight." STEEVENS. 3 Towards which, advance the war.] It has been understood that local rhymes were introduced in plays to afford an actor the advantage of a more pointed exit, or to close a fcene with additional force. Yet, whatever might be Shakspeare's motive for continaing fuch a practice, it may be obferved that he often feems immediately to repent of it; and, in the tragedy before us, has repeatedly counteracted it by hemiftichs which deftroy the effect and confequently defeat the fuppofed purpose of the antecedent couplets. See the following inftances, in addition to that which introduces the pre

fent note.

Leave all the reft to me.
So pr'ythee go with me.
We are yet but young in deed.
But no more fights &c.

I think, but dare not speak.

Make we our march towards Birnam. In Hamlet &c. we find fuch hemiftichs ends of acts, as well as fcenes. STEEVENS.

[blocks in formation]

A& III.

fc. iv.

A&t IV.

fc. i.

A&t V.

fc. i.

fc. ii,

A& V.

after the rhymes at the

i

SCENE V.

Dunfinane. Within the Castle.

Enter, with drums and colours, MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers.

MACB. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

The cry is ftill, They come: Our caftle's ftrength Will laugh a fiege to fcorn: here let them lie, Till famine, and the ague, eat them up:

Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. What is that noise? [A cry within, of women.

SEY. It is the cry of women, my good lord. MACB. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been,+ my fenfes would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair"

4 The time has been, &c.] May has imitated this paffage twice; once in The Heir, and again in The Old Couple. See Dodfley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. VIII. p. 150. Vol. X. p. 473. edit. 1780. REED.

5

my fenfes would have cool'd

To hear a night-fbriek ;] The blood is fometimes faid to be chilled; but I do not recollect any other inftance in which this phrase is applied to the fenfes. Perhaps our author wrote-'coil'd. My fenfes would have shrunk back; died within me. So, in the second fcene of the present act:

66 Who then shall blame

"His pefter'd fenfes to recoil and ftart?" MALONE.

I retain the old reading. Perhaps, no word fo forcible can be placed in its room. Thus, in the fifth Eneid:

[ocr errors]

Sanguis hebet, frigentque effœtæ in corpore vires."

Would at a difmal treatise rouse, and stir

As life were in't: I have fupp'd full with horrors; " Direnefs, familiar to my flaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once ftart me.-Wherefore was that cry? SEY. The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACB. She fhould have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for fuch a word.

The fame expreffion occurs alfo in The Merry Wives of Windfor: My humour fhall not cool."

Again, in K. Henry IV. P. II:

66

My lord Northumberland will foon be cool'd."

But what example is there of the verb recoiled clipped into 'coiled? Coiled can only afford the idea of wound in a ring, like a rope or a ferpent. STEEVENS.

6 fell of hair-] My hairy part, my capillitium. Fell is fkin. JOHNSON.

So, in Alphonfus, Emperor of Germany, by George Chapman, 1654:

[ocr errors]

- Where the lyon's hide is thin and scant,

"I'll firmly patch it with the fox's fell."

Again in K. Lear:

"The goujeres fhall devour them, flesh and fell."”

A dealer in hides is ftill called a fell-monger. STEEVENS.

7

I have fupp'd full with horrors;] Statius has a fimilar thought in the fecond book of his Thebais:

[ocr errors]

attollit membra, toroque

"Erigitur, plenus monftris, vanumque cruorem

"Excutiens."

The conclufion of this paffage may remind the reader of lady Macbeth's behaviour in her fleep. STEEVENS.

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for fuch a word. &c.] This paffage has very jufly been fufpected 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, feems not a confideration of importance fufficient to tranfport Macbeth into the following exclamation. I read therefore:

She fhould have died hereafter,

There would have been a time for-fuch a world!—

To-morrow, &c.

It is a broken fpeech, in which only part of the thought is expreffed, and may be paraphrafed thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last fyllable of recorded time; *

Her death bould have been deferred to fome more peaceful hour; had fhe lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that refpect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world-fuch is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day, but to-morrow and to-morrow fteals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we ftill linger in the fame expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these days, which have thus paffed away, have fent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engroffed by the fame dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to-morrow.

Such was once my conjecture, but I am now lefs confident. Macbeth might mean, that there would have been a more convenient time for fuch a word, for fuch intelligence, and fo fall into the following reflection. We fay we fend word when we give intelligence. JOHNSON.

By-a word Shakspeare certainly means more than a single one. Thus, in King Richard II:

"The hopeless word of-ne

-never to return

"Breathe I against thee." STEEVENS.

9 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,] This repetition, as Dr. Farmer obferved to me, occurs in Barclay's Ship of Fooles, 1570:

" Cras, cras, cras, to-morrow we shall amende."

STEEVENS.

To the last fyllable of recorded time;] Recorded time feems to fignify the time fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expreffion; but, as we only know tranfactions paft or prefent, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prefcience in which future events may be fuppofed to be written. JOHNSON.

So, in All's well that ends well:

"To the utmost fyllable of your worthiness."

Recorded is probably here ufed for recording or recordable; one participle for the other, of which there are many inftances both in Shakspeare and other English writers. Virgil ufes penetrabile frigus for penetrans frigus, and penetrabile telum for telum penetrans.

STEEVENS.

By recorded time, Shakspeare means not only the time that has been, but also that which shall be recorded. M. MASON.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dufty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking fhadow; a poor player,
That ftruts and frets his hour upon the ftage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of found and fury,
Signifying nothing.—

Enter a Meffenger.

Thou com'ft to use thy tongue; thy ftory quickly. MES. Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

The way to dufty death.] We

from the figurative term lighted.

fhould read dusky, as appears WARBURTON.

Dufty is a very natural epithet. The fecond folio has:

The way to ftudy death.

which Mr. Upton prefers; but it is only an errour by an accidental tranfpofition of the types. JOHNSON.

The duft of death is an expreffion ufed in the 22d Pfalm. Dufty death alludes to the expreffion of duft to duft in the burial service, and to the fentence pronounced against Adam: " Duft thou art, "and to dust thou fhalt return." In Troilus and Creffida alfo the fame epithet occurs:

[ocr errors]

are grated

"To dufty nothing."

Shak fpeare, however, in the first act of this play, fpeaks of the thane of Cawdor, as of one " who had been fudied in his

death." STEEVENS.

Dr. Johnfon juftly obferves that duty is a very natural epithet. Our author again alludes to the duft of death, in The Winter's Tale: "Some hangman muft put on my fhroud, and lay me "Where no priest shovels in duft." MALONE.

In Sydney's Arcadia, 1598, p. 445, we have the following stanza of a fong on death:

Our owly eyes, which dimm'd with paffions be,
And fearce difcerne the dawne of comming day;
"Let them be clearde, and now begin to fee
"Our life is but a step in duftie way." REED.

« AnteriorContinuar »