APP. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff; 6 Beware the thane of Fife .--Dismiss me : Enough 7. [Descends. MACB. What-e'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks; 8 Thou hast harp'd my fear aright :-But one word more: 1 WITCH. He will not be commanded; Here's another, More potent than the first. Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! APP. MACB. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee 9. APP. Be bloody, bold, And resolute laugh to scorn the power of man, "Your grace, demand no questions, "But in dumb silence let them come and go." Again, in The Tempest: be mute, or else our spell is marr'd." STEEVENS. 6 Beware the thane of Fife.-] He had learned of certain wizzards, in whose words he put great confidence, how that he ought to take heede of Macduff," &c. Holinshed. STEEVENS. 7 Dismiss me :-Enough.] Spirits thus evoked were usually represented as impatient of being questioned. So, in Henry VI. Part II. Act I. Sc. IV. the spirit by the witch Jourdain, says, 66 Ask what thou wilt-that I had said and done!" See Mr. Steevens's note on that passage. MALONE. 8 Thou hast HARP'D my fear aright:] To harp, is to touch on a passion as a harper touches a string. So, in Coriolanus, Act II. Sc. ult. : 66 Harp on that still." STEEVENS. 9 Had I THREE EARS, &c.] Does Macbeth mean to say-that if his sense of hearing were thrice what it is,' &c. ?-or-that if the number of his ears were equal to that of the spectre's invocations of his name,' &c.? Let the reader determine. STEEVENS. For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth 1. [Descends. MACB. Then live, Macduff; What need I fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of fate 2: thou shalt not live; And sleep in spite of thunder.-What is this, Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a Tree in his Hand, rises. That rises like the issue of a king; And wears upon his baby brow the round ALL. Listen, but speak not to't '. APP. Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are: Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 5 [Descends. I shall harm Macbeth.] So, Holinshed: "And surely hereupon he had put Macduff to death, but that a certeine witch, whom he had in great trust, had told him, that he should never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castell of Dunsinane. This prophecie put all feare out of his heart." STEEVENS. 2 take a BOND of fate :] In this scene the attorney has more than once degraded the poet; for presently we have"the lease of nature." STEEVENS. And TOP of sovereignty ?] The round is that part of the crown that encircles the head. The top is the ornament that rises above it. JOHNSON. + Listen, but speak not.] The old copy, injuriously to measure, reads 5 66 'Listen, but speak not to't." STEEVENS. high DUNSINANE hill —] The present quantity of Dunsinane is right. In every subsequent instance the accent is misplaced. Thus, in Hervey's Life of King Robert Bruce, 1729 (a good authority): Масв. That will never be ; Who can impress the forest"; bid the tree Unfix his earth-bound root? sweet bodements! good! Rebellious head, rise never", till the wood "The noble Weemyss, Mcduff's immortal son, 66 Mcduff! th' asserter of the Scottish throne; RITSON. This accent may be defended on the authority of A. of Wyntown's Cronykil, b. vi. ch. xviii. : 66 A gret hows for to mak of were 66 66 A-pon the hycht of Dwnsynāne : Tymbyr thare-til to drawe and stane-." v. 120. It should be observed, however, that Wyntown employs both quantities. Thus, in b. vi. ch. xviii. v. 190: the Thane wes thare "Of Fyfe, and till Dwnsynăne fare "To byde Makbeth." STEEvens. Prophecies of apparent impossibilities were common in Scotland; such as the removal of one place to another. Under this popular prophetick formulary the present prediction may be ranked. In the same strain, peculiar to his country, says Sir David Lindsay: "Quhen the Bas and the Isle of May "Beis set upon the Mount Sinay, "Quhen the Lowmound besyde Falkland "Be liftit to Northumberland." T. WARTON. 6 Who can impress the forest;] i. e. who can command the forest to serve him like a soldier impressed. JOHNSON. 7 Rebellious HEAD, rise never,] The old copy has-rebellious dead. MALOne. We should read-" Rebellious head,"-i. e. let rebellion never make head against me till a forest move, and I shall reign in safety. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald rightly observes, that head means host, or power: "That Douglas and the English rebels met ;— Again, in King Henry VIII. : * Macbeth. King Henry IV. Part I. Of Birnam rise, and our high-plac'd Macbeth Reign in this kingdom? ALL. Seek to know no more. MACB. I will be satisfied: deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know :Why sinks that cauldron ? and what noise is this? [Hautboys. 1 WITCH. Show! 2 WITCH. Show! 3 WITCH. Show! ALL. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart 9; Come like shadows, so depart. Eight Kings' appear, and pass over the Stage in order; the last with a Glass in his Hand; BANQUO following. MACB. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down! "My noble father, Henry of Buckingham, JOHNSON. This phrase is not peculiar to Shakspeare. So, in The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: 66 howling like a head of angry wolves." Again, in Look About You, 1600: "Is, like a head of people, mutinous." STEEVENS. 8 what NOISE is this?] Noise, in our ancient poets, is often literally synonymous for musick. See a note on King Henry IV. Part II. Act II. Sc. IV. Thus also Spenser, Fairy Queen, b. i. xii. 39: "During which time there was a heavenly noise." See likewise the 47th Psalm: "God is gone up with a merry. noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump." STEEVENS. 9 Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;] "And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart." 1 Samuel, ii. 33. 1 Eight Kings -] MALONE. "It is reported that Voltaire often laughs 9 Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls :-And thy air, Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first :— A third is like the former 1:-Filthy hags! Why do you show me this?-A fourth ?-Start, eyes! What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom 2 ? at the tragedy of Macbeth, for having a legion of ghosts in it. One should imagine he either had not learned English, or had forgot his Latin; for the spirits of Banquo's line are no more ghosts, than the representation of the Julian race in the Æneid; and there is no ghost but Banquo's throughout the play."Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakspeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu. STEEVENS. 9 Thy crown does SEAR mine eye-balls:] The expression of Macbeth, that the crown sears his eye-balls,' is taken from the method formerly practised of destroying the sight of captives or competitors, by holding a burning bason before the eye, which dried up its humidity. Whence the Italian, abacinare, to blind. JOHNSON. 1 And thy AIR, &c.] In former editions, "Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first : "A third is like the former." As Macbeth expected to see a train of kings, and was only inquiring from what race they would proceed, he could not be surprised that the hair of the second was bound with gold like that of the first; he was offended only that the second résembled the first, as the first resembled Banquo, and therefore said : "Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first." This Dr. Warburton has followed. So, in The Winter's Tale : JOHNSON. "Your father's image is so hit in you, "His very air, that I should call you brother "As I did him." The old reading, however, as Mr. M. Mason observes, may be the true one. "It implies that their hair was of the same colour, which is more likely to mark a family likeness, than the air, which depends on habit," &c. A similar mistake has happened in The Maid's Tragedy, by Beaumont and Fletcher : "Mine arms thus; and mine air [hair] blown with the wind." STEEVENS. 2 to the CRACK of doom?] i. e. the dissolution of nature. Crack has now a mean signification. It was anciently employed in a more exalted sense. So, in The Valiant Welchman, 1615 |