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.