Chapter VI: Act II: Scene II

--Now o'er one half the world
(a)_Nature seems dead_, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecat's offerings: and wither'd murther,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
_With (b)Tarquin's ravishing sides_ tow'rds his design
Moves like a ghost.--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 (c)take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it_.--

(a)--Now o'er one half the 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 songs repeat,
And sleeping flowers 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 lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, that of a murderer.

(b)--Wither'd murder,
--thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing _sides_ tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.--

This was the reading of this passage 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 on 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 to be, as Milton expresses it,

Smooth sliding without step.

This hemistich 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 asleep, 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_.

(c) And take the present horror 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 author. 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 _talk_--the present horror of the time!--
That now suits with it.--

Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by enumerating all the terrours 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 horrours 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 convictions of the wickedness of his design.

NOTE XXI.

SCENE IV.

_Len_. The night has been unruly; where we lay
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i'th'air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confused events,
_New-hatch'd to the woeful time_.
The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night:
Some say, the earth was fev'rous, and did shake.

These lines, I think, should be rather regulated thus:

--prophesying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events.
New-hatch'd to th'woeful 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_. The term _new-hatch'd_ is properly applicable to a _bird_, and that birds of ill omen should be _new-hatch'd to the woeful time_ 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.

NOTE XXII.

--Up, up, and see
The great doom's image, Malcolm, Banquo,
As from your graves rise up.--

The second line might have been so easily completed, that it cannot be supposed to have been left imperfect by the author, who probably wrote,

--Malcolm! Banquo! rise!
As from your graves rise up.--

Many other emendations, of the same kind, might be made, without any greater deviation from the printed copies, than is found in each of them from the rest.

NOTE XXIII.

_Macbeth_.--Here, lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
_Unmannerly breech'd with gore_.--

An _unmannerly dagger_, and a _dagger breech'd_, or as in some editions _breach'd with gore_, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor can it be imagined that Shakespeare would reproach the murderer of his king only with _want of manners_. There are, undoubtedly, two faults in this passage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,

--Daggers
_Unmanly drench'd_ with gore.--

_I saw_ drench'd _with the king's Mood the fatal daggers, not only instruments of murder but evidences of_ cowardice.

Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have substituted for it by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent inspection.

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 silver 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.

It is not improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech, considered in this light, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as if consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.

NOTE XXIV.