ACT I.
Scene 1. Page 327.
All. Paddock calls.
Mr. Steevens has remarked that "in Shakspeare a paddock certainly means a toad." Indeed it properly does everywhere; and when applied to the frog, seems either to have been mistakenly used, or to have signified the rubeta or rana bufo, a frog of a venomous kind. The word comes to us from the Saxon Paꝺa, and a toad is still called by a similar term in most of the Teutonic languages. It may be likewise observed that witches have nothing to do with frogs, an animal always regarded as perfectly harmless, though perhaps not more so in reality than the unjustly persecuted toad.
Scene 2. Page 331.
Sold. And fortune on his damned quarrel smiling.
The old copy has quarry, which Dr. Johnson has changed to quarrel, a reading that had already been adopted by Hanmer. Chance may hereafter determine that quarry was an occasional mode of orthography, euphoniæ gratiâ, as we find perrie for perril. See Howard's Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophesies, 1583, 4to, sig. A iij. The word too which expresses a square-headed arrow and a pane of glass is written both quarry and quarrel.
Scene 2. Page 335.
Dun. Dismay'd not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
Sold. Yes.
Mr. Steevens, adverting to the apparent defect of metre in the last line, concludes that some word has been omitted in the old copy; and Hanmer reads, brave Macbeth, &c. No other change is necessary than in orthography; for Shakspeare had, no doubt, written capitaynes, a common mode of spelling the word in his time; and the fault lay either in the printer or transcriber for the press.
Scene 2. Page 339.
Rosse. Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof.
Shakspeare is here accused of ignorantly making Bellona wife to the God of war; but, strictly speaking, this is not the case. He has not called Macbeth, to whom he alludes, the God of war; and there seems no great impropriety in poetically supposing that a warlike hero might be newly married to the Goddess of war. Mr. Steevens's objection appears to have been founded on a conclusion that Shakspeare meant to compare Macbeth to Mars, and that of the other learned and ingenious critic, on the impropriety of considering Bellona as a married goddess.
Scene 3. Page 341.
1. Witch. Aroint thee witch!
The reference to Hearne's print from an old calendar, in his edition of Fordun, is very appositely introduced by Dr. Johnson in illustration of aroint; but his explanation of the print is in many respects erroneous. He is particularly mistaken in supposing it to represent Saint Patrick visiting hell; for it is manifestly the very trite subject of Christ delivering souls from purgatory, often painted by Albert Durer and other ancient artists. The Doctor neglected to examine not only the inscription on the print, but Hearne's own account of it; and his eye having accidentally caught the name of Saint Patrick, of whom Hearne had been speaking, his imagination suggested the common story of the visit to purgatory (not hell). There is no doubt that aroint signifies away! run! and that it is of Saxon origin. The original Saxon verb has not been preserved in any other way, but the glossaries supply ryne for running; and in the old Islandic, runka signifies to agitate, to move. Mr. Grose is certainly wrong in his explanation of the proverb, "Rynt you witch! quoth Besse Locket to her mother," when he says it means "by your leave, stand handsomely." See his Provincial glossary.
Scene 3. Page 353.
Ban. Or have we eaten of the insane root,
That takes the reason prisoner?
Mr. Steevens conceives that hemlock is the root in question; whilst Mr. Malone, after noticing the trouble which the commentators have given themselves, introduces a quotation from Plutarch's life of Antony, ("which," says he, "our author must have diligently read,") that leads him to conclude the name to have been unknown even to Shakspeare himself. There is however another book which has in the course of these notes 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.
Scene 5. Page 373.
Atten. One of my fellows had the speed of him;
Who almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
Lady M. Give him tending,
He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.
The last lines may appear less difficult, if the reader will suppose that at the moment in which the attendant finishes his speech, the raven's voice is heard on the battlements of the castle; when Lady Macbeth, adverting to the situation in which the messenger had just been described, most naturally exclaims, "the raven himself is hoarse," &c. Entrance must be here pronounced as a trisyllable, which is better than to read Dŭncān.
Scene 5. Page 374.
Lady M. Under my battlements. Come come you spirits.
The second come has been added by Mr. Steevens. On this it may be permitted to remark, that although Shakspeare's versification is unquestionably more smooth and melodious than that of most of his contemporaries, he has on many occasions exhibited more carelessness in this respect than can well be accounted for, unless by supposing the errors to belong to the printers or editors. If the above line was defective, many others of similar construction are still equally so; as for example, this in p. [378],
"This ignorant present, and I feel now,"
which Mr. Steevens strangely maintains to be complete, though undoubtedly as discordant to the ear as the other. Both, strictly speaking, have the full number of syllables; a mode of construction which it is to be feared our elder poets regarded as sufficient in general to give perfection to a line.
Scene 6. Page 384.
Dun. We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor.
The duty of the purveyor, an officer belonging to the court, was to make a general provision for the royal household. It was the office also of this person to travel before the king whenever he made his progresses to different parts of the realm, and to see that every thing was duly provided. The right of purveyance and pre-emption having become extremely oppressive to the subject, was included, among other objects of regulation, under the stat. of 12 Car. II.
Scene 7. Page 395.
Lady M. But screw your courage to the sticking-place.
Mr. Steevens has suggested two metaphors, neither of which seems to advance the explanation. If it could be shown that the stop of a pile-driver, or the bed of a violin peg were ever called sticking-places, one might indeed suspect a miserable pun: but it is submitted that all the metaphor lies in the screwing. Another learned commentator states that Davenant misunderstood the sense when he supposed that stabbing is alluded to; and yet there are grounds for thinking his opinion correct. Lady Macbeth, after remarking that the enterprise would not fail if her husband would but exert his courage to the commission of the murder, proceeds to suggest the particular manner in which it was to be accomplished. In short, if there be a metaphor, abstractedly considered, it signifies nothing; for what would be the use of Macbeth's courage, if, according to Mr. Steevens, it were to remain fast in that sticking-place from which it was not to move? The Scots have a proverb, "Sticking goes not by strength, but by guiding of the gooly," i. e. the knife.