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an army to oppose him, and gave the command of two divisions of it to Macbeth and Banquo, putting himself at the head of a third. Sueno was successful in one battle, but in a second was routed; and, after a great slaughter of his troops, he escaped with ten persons only, and fled back to Norway. Though there was an interval of time between the rebellion of Macdonwald and the invasion of Sueno, Shakspeare has woven these two actions together, and immediately after Sueno's defeat the present play commences.

It is remarkable that Buchanan has pointed out Macbeth's history as a subject for the stage. 'Multa hic fabulose quidam nostrorum affingunt; sed quia theatris aut Milesiis fabulis sunt aptiora quam historiæ, ea omitto.'-Rerum Scot. Hist. Lib. vii.

Milton also enumerates the subject among those he considered well suited for tragedy, but it appears that he would have attempted to preserve the unity of time by placing the relation of the murder of Duncan in the mouth of his ghost.

Macbeth is one of the latest, and unquestionably one of the noblest efforts of Shakspeare's genius. Equally impressive in the closet and on the stage, where to witness its representation has been justly pronounced the first of all dramatic enjoyments.' Malone places the date of its composition in 1606, and it has been supposed to convey a dexterous and delicate compliment to James the First, who derived his lineage from Banquo, and first united the threefold sceptre of England, Scotland, and Ireland. At the same time the monarch's prejudices on the subject of demonology were flattered by the choice of the story.

It was once thought that Shakspeare derived some hints for his scenes of incantation from The Witch, a tragicomedy, by John Middleton, which, after lying long in manuscript, was published about thirty years since by Isaac Reed; but Malone* has with considerable ingenuity shown that Middleton's drama was most probably written subsequently to Macbeth.

See the chronological order of the plays in the late Variorum Edition, by Mr. Boswell, vol. ii. p. 420.

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FLEANCE, Son to Banquo.

SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, General of the

English Forces.

YOUNG SIWARD, his Son.

SEYTON, an Officer attending on Macbeth.

Son to Macduff.

An English Doctor.

A Soldier.

A Scotch Doctor.

A Porter. An old Man.

LADY MACBETH

LADY MACDuff.

Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.

Hecate, and three Witches t.

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers,
Attendants, and Messengers.

The Ghost of Banquo, and several other Apparitions.

SCENE, in the end of the Fourth Act, lies in England; through the rest of the play, in Scotland; and, chiefly, at Macbeth's Castle.

* Lady Macbeth's name was Gruach filia Bodhe, according to Lord Hailes. Andrew. of Wintown in his Cronykil informs us, that she was the widow of Duncan; a circumstance with which Shakspeare was of course unacquainted.

As the play now stands, in Act iv. Sc. 1, three other witches make their appearance.

MACBETH.

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ACT I.

SCENE I. An open Place.

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

1 Witch.

WHEN shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's1 done, When the battle's lost and won.

3 Witch. That will be ere set of sun. 1 Witch. Where the place?

1 When the hurlyburly's done.' In Adagia Scotica, or a Collection of Scotch Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases; collected by R. B. very useful and delightful. Lond. 12o. 1668:

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Little kens the wife that sits by the fire

How the wind blows cold in hurle burle swyre.'

'i. e. in the tempestuous mountain-top,' says Mr. Todd, in a note on Spenser; to which Mr. Boswell gives his assent, and says, this sense seems agreeable to the witch's answer.' But Peacham, in his Garden of Eloquence, 1577, shows that this was not the ancient acceptation of the word among us: Onomatopeia, when we invent, devise, fayne, and make a name imitating the sound of that it signifyeth, as hurlyburly, for an uprore and tumultuous stirre.' So in Baret's Alvearie, 1573: But harke yonder: what hurlyburly or noyse is yonde: what sturre ruffling or bruite is that?'-The witches could not mean when the storm was done, but when the tumult of the battle was over; for they are to meet again in lightning, thunder, and rain: their element was a storm. Thus in Arthur Wilson's History of James I. p. 141: '—Being in a citie not very defensible, among a wavering people, and a conquering enemy, in the field, took time by the foretop, and in this hurlieburlie the next morning left Prague.'

2 Witch.

Upon the heath :

3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth.

1 Witch. I come, Graymalkin!

All. Paddock calls:- Anon 2. Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Witches vanish.

SCENE II. A Camp near Fores.

Alarum within. Enter King DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier3.

Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

Mal.

This is the sergeant*,

Who, like a good and hardy soldier fought
'Gainst my captivity:-Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil,
As thou didst leave it.

Sold.

Doubtful it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel; for to that 5

The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him), from the western isles

2 Upton observes that, to understand this passage, we should suppose one familiar calling with the voice of a cat, and another with the croaking of a toad. A paddock most generally seems to have signified a toad, though it sometimes means a frog. What we now call a toadstool was anciently called a paddock-stool. 3 The first folio reads captain.

4 Sergeants, in ancient times, were not the petty officers now distinguished by that title; but men performing one kind of feudal military service, in rank next to esquires.

5 Vide Tyrwhitt's Glossary to Chaucer, v. for; and Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, p. 205. For to that means no more than for that; or cause that. The late editions erroneously point this passage, and as erroneously explain it. I follow the punctuation of the first folio.

Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied;

And fortune, on his damned quarry 7 smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore8.

But all's too weak:

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smok'd with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion,

Carv'd out his passage, till he fac’d the slave; And 9 ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

10;

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflexion Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break 10 So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come, Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:

6 i. e. supplied with armed troops so named. Of and with are indiscriminately used by our ancient writers. Gallowglasses were heavy armed foot soldiers of Ireland and the western isles: Kernes were the lighter armed troops.

7 But fortune on his damned quarry smiling.'-Thus the old copies. It was altered at Johnson's suggestion to quarrel, which is approved and defended by Steevens and Malone. But the old copy needs no alteration. Quarry means the squadron, escadre, or square body, into which Macdonwald's troops were formed, better to receive the charge; through which Macbeth carved out his passage till he faced the slave.' Thus in King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 2:

our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants, Who, in unnecessary action, swarm

About our squares of battle.'

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra :—

In the brave squares of battle.'

8 The meaning is that Fortune, while she smiled on him, deceived him.

9 The old copy reads which.

10 Sir W. Davenant's reading of this passage, in his alteration of the play, is a tolerable comment on it:

'But then this daybreak of our victory

Serv'd but to light us into other dangers,

That spring from whence our hopes did seem to rise.'

Break is not in the first folio.

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