And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep, (Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey Soundly invite him,) his two chamberlains Will I with wine and wassel so convince "Which spends its strength by force of nimble wheels; "For they, once screwed up, in their return "Will rive an oak." Again, in Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. VIII. : "Wrench up thy power to the highest." Again, in Chapman's version of the ninth book of Homer's Odyssey: my wits which to their height "I striv'd to screw up—;" Again, in the fifteenth book: 66 Come, join we hands, and screw up all their spite," Perhaps, indeed, Shakspeare had a more familiar image in view, and took his metaphor from the screwing up the chords of string-instruments to their proper degree of tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place, i. e. in the place from which. it is not to move. Thus, perhaps, in Twelfth-Night: "And that I partly know the instrument true one. "That screws me from my true place," &c. STEevens. Mr. Steevens's last interpretation is, in my apprehension, the Sir W. D'Avenant misunderstood this passage. By the sticking-place, he seems to have thought the poet meant the stabbing place, the place where Duncan was to be wounded; for he reads, "Bring but your courage to the fatal place, "And we'll not fail." MALONE. his two CHAMBERLAINS Will I with wine and WASSEL So convince, &c.] The circumstance relative to Macbeth's slaughter of Duncan's Chamberlains, (as I observed so long ago, as in our edition 1773,) is copied from Holinshed's account of King Duffe's murder by Donwald. Mr. Malone has since transcribed the whole narrative of this event from the Chronicle; but being too long to stand here as a note, it is given, with other bulky extracts, at the conclusion of the play. STEEVENS. To convince is, in Shakspeare, to overpower or subdue, as in this play : Their malady convinces "The great assay of art." JOHNSON. So, in the old tragedy of Cambyses: "If that your heart addicted be the Egyptians to convince." That memory, the warder of the brain ", Again: 66 By this his grace, by conquest great the Egyptians did convince." Again, in Holinshed: "thus mortally fought, intending to vanquish and convince the other." Again, in Chapman's version of the sixth Iliad : 66 66 Chymera the invincible he sent him to convince." STEEVENS. and wassel." What was anciently called was-haile (as appears from Selden's notes on the ninth Song of Drayton's Polyolbion,) was an annual custom observed in the country on the vigil of the new year; and had its beginning, as some say, from the words which Ronix, daughter of Hengist, used, when she drank to Vortigern, "loverd king was-heil;" he answering her, by direction of an interpreter, drinc-heile; and then, as Robert of Gloucester says: "Kuste hire and sitte hire adoune and glad dronke hire heil; "And that was tho in this land the verst was-hail, "As in langage of Saxoyne that me might evere iwite, "And so wel he paith the folc about, that he is not yut voryute." Afterwards it appears that was-haile, and drinc-heil, were the usual phrases of quaffing among the English, as we may see from Thomas de la Moore in the Life of Edward II. and in the lines of Hanvil the monk, who preceded him : Ecce vagante cifo distento gutture wass-heil, But Selden rather conjectures it to have been a usual ceremony among the Saxons before Hengist, as a note of health-wishing, supposing the expression to be corrupted from wish-heil. Wassel or Wassail is a word still in use in the midland counties, and signifies at present what is called Lambs'-Wool, i. e. roasted apples in strong beer, with sugar and spice. See Beggar's Bush, Act IV. Sc. IV.: "What think you of a wassel? thou, and Ferret, "And Ginks, to sing the song; I for the structure, Ben Jonson personifies wassel thus:-"Enter Wassel like a neat sempster and songster, her page bearing a brown bowl drest with ribbands and rosemary, before her." Wassel is, however, sometimes used for general riot, intemperance, or festivity. On the present occasion I believe it means intemperance. STEEVENS. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 8 A limbeck only: When in swinish sleep Масв. Bring forth men-children only! For thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males. Will it not be receiv'd', When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers, That they have don't? LADY M. 66 Who dares receive it other 2, Antony, "Leave thy lascivious wassels." See also vol. iv. p. 423. MALONE. 5 the WARDER of the brain,] A warder is a guard, a sentinel. So, in King Henry VI. Part I. : 6 "Where be these warders, that they wait not here?" STEEVENS. the RECEIPT of reason,] i. e. the receptacle. MALONE. 7 A limbeck only:] That is, shall be only a vessel to emit fumes or vapours. JOHNSON. The limbeck is the vessel through which distilled liquors pass into the recipient. So shall it be with memory; through which every thing shall pass, and nothing remain. A. C. 8 Their DRENCHED NATURES] i. e. as we should say at present-soaked, saturated with liquor. STEEVENS. 9 — who shall bear the guilt Of our great QUELL?] Quell is murder, manquellers being, in the old language, the term for which murderers is now used. JOHNSON. So, in Chaucer's Tale of the Nonnes Priest, v. 15,396, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. : "The dokes cryeden as men wold hem quelle." The word is used in this sense by Holinshed, p. 567: "-the poor people ran about the streets, calling the capteins and governors murtherers and manquellers." STEEVENS. I-Will it not be RECEIV'D,] i. e. understood, apprehended. So, in Twelfth-Night: 2 Who dares receive it other,] So, in Holinshed: “ As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar Масв. I am settled, and bend up" Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know. [Exeunt. burthen'd the chamberleins, whom he had slaine, with all the fault, they having the keyes of the gates committed to their keeping all the night, and therefore it could not be otherwise (said he) but that they were of counsel in the committing of that most detestable murther." MALONE. 3 - and BEND UP-] A metaphor from the bow. King Henry V.: 66 bend up every spirit "To his full height." So, in The same phrase occurs in Melvil's Memoirs : " but that rather she should bend up her spirit by a princely, &c. behaviour." Edit. 1735, p. 148. Till this instant, the mind of Macbeth has been in a state of uncertainty and fluctuation. He has hitherto proved neither resolutely good, nor obstinately wicked. Though a bloody idea had arisen in his mind, after he had heard the prophecy in his favour, yet he contentedly leaves the completion of his hopes to chance. At the conclusion, however, of his interview with Duncan, he inclines to hasten the decree of fate, and quits the stage with an apparent resolution to murder his sovereign. But no sooner is the king under his roof, than, reflecting on the peculiarities of his own relative situation, he determines not to offend against the laws of hospitality, or the ties of subjection, kindred, and gratitude. His wife then assails his constancy afresh. He yields to her suggestions, and, with his integrity, his happiness is destroyed. I have enumerated these particulars, because the waverings of Macbeth have, by some criticks, been regarded as unnatural and contradictory circumstances in his character; not remembering that nemo repente fuit turpissimus, or that (as Angelo observes) : when once our grace we have forgot, 66 Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not—." a passage which contains no unapt justification of the changes that happen in the conduct of Macbeth. STEEVENS. ACT II. SCENE I1. The Same. Court within the Castle. Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, and a Servant, with a torch before them. BAN. How goes the night, boy? FLE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. BAN. And she goes down at twelve. FLE. I take't, 'tis later, sir. BAN. Hold, take my sword:-There's husbandry in heaven 3, Their candles are all out 6.-Take thee that too. • Scene I.] The place is not marked in the old edition, nor is it easy to say where this encounter can be. It is not in the hall, as the editors have all supposed it, for Banquo sees the sky; it is not far from the bedchamber, as the conversation shows : it must be in the inner court of the castle, which Banquo might properly cross in his way to bed. JOHNSON. The Scene. A large court surrounded all or in part by an open gallery; chambers opening into that gallery; the gallery ascended into by stairs, open likewise; with addition of a college-like gateway, into which opens a porter's lodge; appears to have been the poet's idea of the place of this great action. The circumstances that mark it, are scatter'd through three scenes; in the latter, the hall (which moderns make the scene of this action), is appointed a place of second assembly, in terms that show it plainly distinct from that assembled in them. Buildings of this description rose in ages of chivalry; when knights rode into their courts, and paid their devoirs to ladies, viewers of their tiltings and them from these open galleries. Fragments of some of them, over the mansions of noblemen, are still subsisting in London, changed to hotels or inns. Shakspeare might see them much more entire, and take his notion from them. CAPELL. There's HUSBANDRY in heaven,] Husbandry here means thrift, frugality. So, in Hamlet: "And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." MALONE. 6 Their CANDLES are all out.] The same expression occurs in Romeo and Juliet: "Night's candles are burnt out." |