[32] It is now plainly understood that the prince can name among the dear ones who appear to him the elector and the electress, that is his mother, but not the third, who is merely a split-off from the latter, at bottom identical with her.
[33] I cite this according to “Die Quellen des Shakespeare,” by Karl Simrock, 2d edition, 1870.
[34] The words of Holinshed's chronicle.
[35] One notes the emptiness of this passage. She could scarcely have said much less, if she wished to comfort him. And yet this passage is always quoted by those authors who accept love on the part of Lady Macbeth for her husband as the driving motive for her action. Indeed, Friedrich Theodor Vischer himself does not shrink from an interpolation and translates the passage: Lady Macbeth (“caressingly”)—“Come, come, my noble lord, remove thy wrinkles, smooth thy gloomy brow, be jovial this evening, well-disposed toward thy guests.” And although the original English text contains no word for “caressingly,” yet Vischer gives this commentary: “His wife's answer to him must be spoken on the stage with an altogether tender accent. She embraces him and strokes his forehead.” (Shakespeare-Vorträge, Vol. 2, pp. 36, 102.)
[36] This is not without significance as a direct precipitating cause, although naturally not the true source of her night wandering.
[37] A second still more important motivation for the nightly visit I will discuss later.
[38] Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, translated by A. A. Brill. The Macmillan Company, London, New York, 4th edition, p. 218.
[39] Holinshed's chronicle lays emphasis upon this: “She … burned with an inextinguishable desire to bear the name of queen.”