Scene 1. Page 505.
Macb. Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches.
The influence of witches over the winds had been already discussed by Mr. Steevens in a former note on Act I. Scene 3, and it might be well supposed that their formidable power would be occasionally directed by these mischievous beings against religious edifices. It is therefore by no means improbable that in order to counteract this imaginary danger, the superstitious caution of our ancestors might have planted the yew-tree in their church-yards, preferring this tree not only on account of its vigour as an evergreen, but as independently connected, in some now forgotten manner, with the influence of evil powers. Accordingly in a statute made in the latter part of the reign of Edward I., to prevent rectors from cutting down trees in church-yards, we find the following passage: "verum arbores ipsæ, propter ventorum impetus ne ecclesiis noceant, sæpe plantantur." This is at least sufficient for the purpose of disproving what has been so often asserted respecting the plantation of yews in church-yards for the purpose of making bows; for although these weapons were sometimes made of English yew, the more common materials employed were elm and hazel, either on account of the comparative scarcity of English yew, or more probably from its inadequacy, in point of toughness, for constructing such bows as our robust and skilful archers were famed for using. Indeed modern experience has proved the truth of the latter supposition; and therefore, whenever yew was used for making the best sort of bows, it was of foreign growth: many of our ancient statutes very carefully provide for the importation of that commodity, which appears to have been chiefly Italian, with other merchandise.
Scene 1. Page 506.
1. Witch. ... grease that's sweaten
From the murderer's gibbet.
Apuleius in describing the process used by the witch, Milo's wife, for transforming herself into a bird, says that "she cut the lumps of flesh of such as were hanged." See Adlington's translation, p. 49, edit. 1596, 4to, a book certainly used by Shakspeare on other occasions.
Scene 3. Page 540.
Rosse. ... to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.
"Quarry," says Mr. Steevens, "is a term used both in hunting and falconry. In both sports it means the game after it is killed." So far this is just, and serves partly to explain the passage before us, as well as this in Coriolanus, Act I. Scene 1:
"And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
As I could pitch my lance."