II.i.49 (437,6) Now o'er the one half world/Nature seems dead] That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is perhaps the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden in his Conquest of Mexico:
All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead,
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little birds in dreams their song repeat,
And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat.
Even lust and envy sleep!
These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately observed.
Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lull'd with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover, the other, of a murderer.
II.i.52 (438,8)
wither'd Murther,
thus with hia stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, tow'rds his design
moves like a ghost.]
This was the reading of this passage [ravishing sides] in all the editions before that of Mr. Pope, who for sides, inserted in the text strides, which Mr. Theobald has tacitly copied from him, though a more proper alteration might perhaps have been made. A ravishing stride is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing at his prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an image of secrecy and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the stealthy pace of a ravisher creeping into the chamber of a virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to murder, without awaking him; these he describes as moving like ghosts, whose progression is so different from strides, that it has been in all ages represented te be, as Milton expresses it,
Smooth sliding without step.
This hemiatic will afford the true reading of this place, which is, I think, to be corrected thus:
and wither'd Murder.
thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin ravishing, slides tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.
Tarquin is in this place the general name of a ravisher, and the sense is, Now is the time in which every one is a-sleep, but those who are employed in wickedness; the witch who is sacrificing to Hecate, and the ravisher, and the murderer, who, like me, are stealing upon their prey.
When the reading is thus adjusted, he wishes with great propriety, in the following lines, that the earth may not hear his steps.
II.i.59 (439,3) And take the present horrour from the time,/Which now suits with it] Of this passage an alteration was once proposed by me, of which I have now a less favourable opinion, yet will insert it, as it may perhaps give some hint to other critics:
And take the present horrour from the time,
Which now suits with it.
I believe every one that has attentively read this dreadful soliloquy is disappointed at the conclusion, which, if not wholly unintelligible, is, at least, obscure, nor can be explained into any sense worthy of the authour. I shall therefore propose a slight alteration:
Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And talkthe present horrour of the time!
That now suits with it.
Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by enumerating all the terrors of the night; at length he is wrought up to a degree of frenzy, that makes him afraid of some supernatural discovery of his design, and calls out to the stones not to betray him, not to declare where he walks, nor to talk.As he is going to say of what, he discovers the absurdity of his suspicion, and pauses, but is again overwhelmed by his guilt, and concludes, that such are the horrors of the present night, that the stones may be expected to cry out against him:
That now suits with it.
He observes in a subsequent passage, that on such occasions stones have been known to move. It is now a very just and strong picture of a man about to commit a deliberate murder under the strongest conviction of the wickedness of his design. Of this alteration, however, I do not now see much use, and certainly see no necessity.
Whether to take horrour from the time means not rather to catchit as communicated, than to deprive the time of horrour, deserves te be considered.
II.ii.37 (443,6) sleave of care] A skein of silk is called a sleave of silk, as I learned from Mr. Seward, the ingenious editor of Beaumont and Fletcher.
II.ii.56 (444,8) gild the faces of the grooms withal,/For it must seem their guilt] Could Shakespeare possibly mean to play upon the similitude of gild and guilt.
II.iii.45 (447,5) I made a shift to cast him] To cast him up, to ease my stomach of him. The equivocation is between cast or throw, as a term of wrestling, and cast or cast up.
II.iii.61 (448,7)
strange screams of death;
And prophesying, with accents terrible
Of dire combustions, and confus'd events,
New hatch'd to the woeful time: The obscure bird
Clamour'd the live-long night: some say the earth
Was feverous, and did shake]
Those lines I think should be rather regulated thus:
prophecying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustions and cosfus'd events.
New-hatch'd to th' woful time, the obscure bird
Clamour'd the live-long night. Some say the earth
Was fev'rous and did shake.
A prophecy of an event new hatch'd, seems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new hatch'd is a wry expression. The term new hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen should be new-hatch'd to the woful time, that is, should appear in uncommon numbers, is very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the perpetration of this horrid murder. (see 1765, VI, 413, 7)
II.iii.117 (452,3) Here, lay Duncan,/His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood] Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines by substituting goary blood for golden blood; but it may easily be admitted that he who could on such an occasion talk of lacing the silyer skin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.