This supernatural soliciting' Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-If ill, 1 This supernatural SOLICITING ] Soliciting, for information. -] WARBURTON. Soliciting is rather, in my opinion, incitement, than information. JOHNSON. 2- suggestion] i. e. temptation. So, in All's Well That Ends Well: "A filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl." STEEVENS. 3 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,] in the latter part of this play: 66 And my fell of hair So Macbeth says, Would, at a dismal treatise, rouse and stir, "As life were in it." M. MASON. seated] i. e. fixed, firmly placed. So, in Milton's Pa radise Lost, b. vi. 643: Are less than horrible imaginings :] Present fears are fears of things present, which Macbeth declares, and every man has found, to be less than the imagination presents them while the objects are yet distant. JOHNSON. 66 Thus, in All's Well That Ends Well: when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.” Again, in The Tragedie of Croesus, 1604, by Lord Sterline: "For as the shadow seems more monstrous still, "Than doth the substance whence it bath the being, "So th' apprehension of approaching ill "Seems greater than itself, whilst fears are lying." STEEVENS. By present fears is meant, the actual presence of any objects of So, in The Second Part of King Henry IV. the King terror. says: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man, that function Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is, But what is not ". To fear is frequently used by Shakspeare in the sense of fright. In this very play, Lady Macbeth says "To alter favour ever is to fear." 66 single state of man,] The single state of man seems to be used by Shakspeare for an individual, in opposition to a commonwealth, or conjunct body. JOHNSON. By single state of man, Shakspeare might possibly mean somewhat more than individuality. He who, in the peculiar situation of Macbeth, is meditating a murder, dares not communicate his thoughts, and consequently derives neither spirit, nor advantage, from the countenance, or sagacity of others. This state of man may properly be styled single, solitary, or defenceless, as it excludes the benefits of participation, and has no resources but in itself. It should be observed, however, that double and single anciently signified strong and weak, when applied to liquors, and perhaps to other objects. In this sense the former word may be employed by Brabantio: And the latter, by the Chief Justice, speaking to Falstaff: "Is not your wit single?” The single state of Macbeth may therefore signify his weak and debile state of mind. STEEVENS. So, in Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour : "But he might have altered the shape of his argument, and explicated them better in single scenes-That had been single indeed." BoSWELL. Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is, But what is not.] All powers of action are oppressed and crushed by one overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. JOHNSON. Surmise, is speculation, conjecture concerning the future. MALONE. BAN. Look, how our partner's rapt. MACB. If chance will have me king, why, chance Shakspeare has somewhat like this sentiment in The Merchant of Venice: "Where, every something being blent together, Again, in Richard II. : 66 is nought but shadows "Of what it is not." STEEVENS. "By 7 TIME AND THE HOUR runs through the roughest day.] this, I confess I do not, with his two last commentators, imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allusion to time painted with an hour-glass, or an exhortation to time to hasten forward, but rather to say tempus et hora, time and occasion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to some determined point and end, let its nature be what it will." This note is taken from an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu. So, in the Lyfe of Saynt Radegunda, printed by Pynson, 4to. no date : "How they dispend the tyme, the day, the houre.” Such tautology is common to Shakspeare. "The very head and front of my offending," is little less reprehensible. "Time and the hour," is Time with his hours.' STEEVENS. 66 The same expression is used by a writer nearly contemporary with Shakspeare: Neither can there be any thing in the world more acceptable to me than death, whose hower and time if they were as certayne," &c. Fenton's Tragical Discourses, 1579. Again, in Davison's Poems, 1602 : "Time's young howres attend her still." Again, in our author's 126th Sonnet : "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power "Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour-.” Bar. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your lei sure 8. Macs. Give me your favour ̊:–my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten 1. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn The leaf to read them 2.-Let us toward the king.— Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it3, let us speak BAN. Very gladly. [Exeunt. MACB. Till then, enough.-Come, friends. Again, in his 57th Sonnet : 66 Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire ?" Again, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1587 (Legend of the Duke of Buckingham) : 8 66 "The unhappy hour, the time, and eke the day." MALONE. we stay upon your leisure.] The same phraseology occurs in the Paston Letters, vol. iii. p. 80: sent late to me a man STEEVENS. STEEVENS. ye which wuld abydin uppon my leysir," &c. favour : ] i, e. indulgence, pardon. my dull brain was WROUGHT With things forgotten.] My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. JOHNSON. So, in Othello : 2 ،، Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, The leaf to read them.] He means, as Mr. Upton has observed, that they are registered in the table-book of his heart. So Hamlet speaks of the table of his memory. MALONE. 3 The INTERIM having weigh'd it,] This intervening portion of time is also personified: it is represented as a cool impartial judge; as the pauser Reason. Or, perhaps, we should read— I' th' interim." STEEVENS. 66 I believe the interim is used adverbially: "you having weighed it in the interim." MALONE. SCENE IV. Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants. DUN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd? MAL. My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that saw him die3: who did report, That very frankly he confess'd his treasons; Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth A deep repentance: nothing in his life Became him, like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, As 'twere a careless trifle. - ARE not -] The old copy reads-Or not. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 5 With one that saw him die :] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds, in almost every circumstance, with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian. Such an allusion could not fail of having the desired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS. - studied in his death,] Instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. JOHNSON. His own profession furnished our author with this phrase. To be studied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALONE. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study." The same phrase occurs in Hamlet. STEEVENS. |