I MACB. Speak, if you can ;-What are you? All hail, Macbeth 2! hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 1 WITCH. your BEARDS] Witches were supposed always to have hair on their chins. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635; Some women have beards, marry they are half witches.” STEEVENS. 66 2 All hail, Macbeth!] It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's Essay upon English Tragedy, that the portrait of Macbeth's wife is copied from Buchanan, "whose spirit, as well as words, is translated into the play of Shakspeare: and it had signifyed nothing to have pored only on Holinshed for facts.""Animus etiam, per se ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quæ omnium consiliorum ei erat conscia) stimulabatur."-This is the whole that Buchanan says of the Lady, and truly I see no more spirit in the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. The wordes of the three weird sisters also greatly encouraged him [to the murder of Duncan,] but specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable desire to beare the name of a queene." Edit. 1577, p. 244. 66 This part of Holinshed is an abridgement of Johne Bellenden's translation of the Noble Clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the passage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all wemen ar) specially quhare they are desirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to persew the third weird, that sche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht desyrus of honouris, sen he durst not assailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit sindry otheris hes assailzeit sic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they had not sic sickernes to succeid in the end of thair laubouris as he had : p. 173. But we can demonstrate, that Shakspeare had not the story from Buchanan. According to him, the weird sisters salute Macbeth : "Una Angusiæ Thanum, altera Moraviæ, tertia Regem."Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c. but according to Holinshed, immediately from Bellenden, as it stands in Shakspeare: "The first of them spake and sayde, All hayle Makbeth Thane of Glammis, the second of them sayde, Hayle Makbeth Thane of Cawder; but the third sayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereafter shall be King of Scotland':' p. 243. 66 1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! "2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 2 WITCH. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 3 WITCH. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter. BAN. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair ?-I' the name of Are truth, ye fantastical, or that indeed "3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter! Here too our poet found the equivocal predictions, on which his hero so fatally depended: "He had learned of certaine wysards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe:and surely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch, whom he had in great trust, had tolde, that he should neuer be slain with man borne of any woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castell of Dunsinane : p. 244. And the scene between Malcolm and Macduff, in the fourth Act, is almost literally taken from the Chronicle. FARMER. "All hail, Macbeth!" All hail is a corruption of al-hael, Saxon, i. e. ave, salve. MALONE. 3 thane of Glamis !] The thaneship of Glamis was the ancient inheritance of Macbeth's family. The castle where they lived is still standing, and was lately the magnificent residence of the Earl of Strathmore. See a particular description of it in Mr. Gray's letter to Dr. Wharton, dated from Glames Castle. STEEVENS. 4 thane of CAW DOR!] Dr. Johnson observes, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that part of Calder Castle, from which Macbeth drew his second title, is still remaining. In one of his Letters, vol. i. p. 122, he takes notice of the same object : "There is one ancient tower with its battlements and winding stairs-the rest of the house is, though not modern, of later erection." STEEVENS. 5 Are ye FANTASTICAL,] By fantastical is not meant, according to the common signification, creatures of his own brain; for he could not be so extravagant to ask such a question: but it is used for supernatural, spiritual. WARBURTON. By fantastical he means creatures of fantasy or imagination : the question is, 'Are these real beings before us, or are we deceived by illusions of fancy!' JOHNSON. So, in Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584:-"He affirmeth these transubstantiations to be but fantastical, not ac Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace, and great prediction Of noble having o, and of royal hope, 6 That he seems rapt withal'; to me you speak not: And say, which grain will grow, and which will not; 1 WITCH. Hail! 2 WITCH. Hail! 3 WITCH. Hail! The cording to the veritie, but according to the appearance." same expression occurs in All's Lost by Lust, 1633, by Rowley : or is that thing, 66 "Which would supply the place of soul in thee, Shakspeare, however, took the word from Holinshed, who in his account of the witches, says: "This was reputed at first but some vain fantastical illusion by Macbeth and Banquo.” The word occurs afterwards in this play: STEEVENS. "My thought, whose murder's but fantastical." So, in Massinger's Maid of Honour : 66 How he stares, and feels his legs, "As yet uncertain whether it can be "True or fantastical." Boswell. 6 Of noble HAVING,] Having is estate, possession, fortune. So, in Twelfth-Night: 66 my having is not much; "I'll make division of my present store : "Hold; there is half my coffer." Again, in the ancient metrical romance of Syr Bevys of Hampton, bl. 1. no date : "And when he heareth this tydinge, "He will go theder with great having." See also note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III. Sc. II. STEEVENS. 7 That he seems RAPT withal;] Rapt is rapturously affected, extra se raplus. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, iv. ix. 6: That, with the sweetness of her rare delight, “The prince half rapt, began on her to dote." 66 Again, in Cymbeline : 66 What, dear sir, thus raps you?" STEEVENS. 1 WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier. 3 WITCH, Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none: So, all hail, Macbeth, and Banquo! 1 WITCH. Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail! MACB. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis ; No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetick greeting ?-Speak, I charge [Witches vanish. you. BAN. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them :-Whither are they vanish'd ? MACB. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid! BAN. Were such things here, as we do speak about? 8 By Sinel's death,] The father of Macbeth. POPE. His true name, which however appears, but perhaps only typographically, corrupted to Synele in Hector Boethius, from whom, by means of his old Scottish translator, it came to the knowledge of Holinshed, was Finleg. Both Finlay and Macbeath are common surnames in Scotland at this moment. RITSON. Synele for Finleg, seems a very extraordinary typographical corruption. The late Dr. Beattie conjectured that the real name of the family was Sinane, and that Dunsinane, or the hill of Sinane, from thence derived its appellation. BoSWELL. 9 blasted heath —] Thus, after Shakspeare, Milton, Paradise Lost, b. i. 615: 66 their stately growth though bare Or have we eaten of the insane root 1, 1 MACB. Your children shall be kings. You shall be king. MACB. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not so? eaten of the INSANE ROOT,] The insane root is the root which makes insane. THEOBALD. The old copies read-" on the insane root." REED. Shakspeare alludes to the qualities anciently ascribed to hemlock. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "You gaz'd against the sun, and so blemished your sight; or else you have eaten of the roots of hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit unseen objects." Again, in Ben Jonson's Sejanus: 66 they lay that hold upon thy senses, "As thou hadst snuft up hemlock." STEEVENS. This quality was anciently attributed to other roots, besides hemlock. In Buchanan's History of Scotland, b. vii. Duncan King of Scotland destroys the invading army of Sueno King of Norway, by sending him provisions steeped in nightshade, solanum somniferum, which is fully described, and this property mentioned: "Vis fructui, radici, ac maximè semini somnifera, et quæ in amentiam si largius sumantur agat." Shakspeare may have also recollected a passage in North's translation of Plutarch. In the Life of Antony, (which our author must have diligently read,) the Roman soldiers, while employed in the Parthian war, are said to have suffered great distress for want of provisions. 'In the ende (says Plutarch) they were compelled to live of herbs and rootes, but they found few of them that men do commonly eate of, and were enforced to taste of them that were never eaten before; among the which there was one that killed them, and made them out of their wits; for he that had once eaten of it, his memorye was gone from him, and he knew no manner of thing, but only busied himself in digging and hurling of stones from one place to another, as though it had been a matter of great waight, and to be done with all possible speede." MALONE. 66 There is another book which has been shown to have been also read, and even studied, by the poet, and wherein, it is presumed, he actually found the name of the above root. This will appear from the following passage: "Henbane .... is called Insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason." Batman Uppon Bartholome de propriet. rerum, lib. xvii. ch. 87. DOUCE. |