Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell "Now fole upon the time the dead of night, [Exit. SCENE "No noife but owls' and wolves' dead-boding cries; "The filly lambs. Pure thoughts are dead and still, "While luft and murder wake, to ftain and kill." WARE. 2 Thou fure and firm-fet earth,] The old copy reads-Thou fowre. The emendation now adopted was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. So, in A& IV. fc. iii: “Great tyranny, lay thou thy bafis fure." STEEVENS. 3- which way they walk,] The folio reads — which they may walk. STEEVENS. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. 4 Thy very ftones prate of my aubere about,] The following paffage in a play which has been already mentioned, and which Langbaine fays was very popular in the time of queen Elizabeth, A Warning for faire Women, 1599, perhaps fuggefted this thought: "Mountains will not fuffice to cover it, 5 And take the prefent borrour from the time, Which now fuits with it.] i. e. left the noife from the stones take away from this midnight feafon that prefent horror which fuits fo well with what is going to be acted in it. What was the horror he means? Silence; than which nothing can be more horrid to the perpetrator of an atrocious defign. This fhews a great knowledge of human nature. WARBURTON. Whether to take borrour from the time means not rather to catch it as communicated, than to deprive the time of borrour, deferves to be confidered. JOHNSON. The latter is furely the true meaning. Macbeth would have nothing break through the univerfal filence that added fuch a horror to the night, as fuited well with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Mr. Burke, in his Effay on the Sublime and Beautiful, obferves, that "all general privations are great, because they are all terrible;" and, with other things, he gives filence as an instance, illuftrating the whole by that remarkable paffage in Virgil, where amidst all the images of SCENE II. Enter Lady MACBETH. Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold: What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire:-Hark! It was the owl that fhriek'd, the fatal bell-man", Do mock their charge with fnores 7: I have drugg'd their poffets, terror that could be united, the circumftance of filence is particularly dwelt upon : Dii quibus imperium eft animarum, umbræque filentes, "Et chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte filentia late." When Statius in the fifth book of the Thebaid defcribes the Lemmian Maffacre, his frequent notice of the filence and folitude after the deed is ftriking in a wonderful degree: "Conticuere domus," &c. STEEVENS. Dryden's well-known lines, which exposed him to fo much ridicule, "An berrid ftillness first invades the ear, "And in that filence we the tempest hear-" fhow, that he had the fame idea of the awfulness of filence as our poet. MALONI. 6 It was the owl that friek'd; the fatal bell-man,] So, in King Richard III: "Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death!" MALONE. 7 - the furfeited grooms Do mock their charge with fnores :] i. e. By going to fleep, they trifle and make light of the truft repofed in them, that of watching by their king. So, in Orbello: "O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love." MALONE. 8- their poffets,] It appears from this paffage, as well as from many others in our old dramatick performances, that it was the general custom to eat possets juít before bed-time. Macbeth himself has already faid: "Go bid thy miftrefs, when my drink is ready, "She ftrike upon the bell." And in the Merry Wives of Windfor, Mrs. Quickly promises Jack Rugby a poffet at night." STEEVENS. That That death and nature do contend about. them, Macb, [within.] Who's there?-what, ho! Macb. I have done the deed :-Didft thou not hear a noife? Lady M. I heard the owl fcream, and the crickets cry. Did not you speak? Macb. When? Lady M. Now. death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live, or die.] So, in All's Well that ends well: Nature and fickness "Debate it at their leifure." MALONE. 1 - Hark! I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss them.] Compare Euripides,-Oreftes, v. 1291, where Electra ftands fentinel at the door of the palace whilft Oreftes is within for the purpose of murdering Helen. The dread of a surprise, and eagerness for the bufinefs, make Electra conclude that the deed must be done ere time enough had elapfed for attempting it. She liftens with anxious impatience; and hearing nothing, expreffes ftrong fears left the daggers fhould have failed. Read the whole paffage. S. W. Had be not refembled 2 My father as be flept, I bad done't.] This is very artful. For, as the poet has drawn the lady and her husband, it would be thought the act should have been done by her. It is likewife highly juft; for though ambition had fubdued in her all the fentiments of nature towards prefent objects, yet the likeness of one past, which she had been accustomed to regard with reverence, made her unnatural paffions, for a moment, give way to the fentiments of instinct and humanity. WARBURTON. The fame circumftance on a fimilar occafion is introduced by Statius in the fifth book of his Thebaid, v. 236: Ut vero Alcimeden etiamnum in murmure truncos Ferre patris vultus, et egentem fanguinis enfem Thoas was the father of Hypfipyle, the fpeaker. STEVENS. Y 4 Macb Macb. As I defcended? Lady M. Ay. Macb. Hark!-Who lies i'the second chamber? Lady M. Donalbain. Macb. This is a forry fight3. [Looking on bis hands. Lady M. A foolish thought, to fay a forry fight. Macb. There's one did laugh in his fleep, and one cry'd, murder! That they did wake each other; I ftood and heard them: But they did fay their prayers, and address'd them Again to fleep. Lady M. There are two lodg'd together. Macb. One cry'd, God bless us! and, Amen, the other; As they had feen me *, with these hangman's hands, Liftening their fear. I could not say, amen, When they did fay, God bless us. Lady M, Confider it not fo deeply. Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen? I had most need of bleffing, and amen Stuck in my throat. Lady M. Thefe deeds must not be thought After these ways; fo, it will make us mad. Macb. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder fleep, the innocent fleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd fleave of care, The 3 This is a forry fight.] This expreffion might have been borrowed from Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. V. c. 1. ft. 14: "To whom as they approched, they efpide "A forie fight as ever feene with eye; "A headleffe ladie lying him befide, "In her own bloud all wallow'd wofully." WHALLEY. As they bad feen me,] As for As if. See p. 254, n. 4. MALONE. 4 Liftening their fear.] i. e. Liftening to their fear, the particle omitted. This is common in our author, Jul. Cæfar, A& IV. fc. ü; and now Octavius, "Liften great things." Contemporary writers took the fame liberty. So, in the World tofs'd at Tennis, by Middleton and Rowley, 1620: 5 "Liften the plaints of thy poor votaries." STEEVENS. the ravell'd heave of care,] Sleeve fignifies the ravell'd knotty part of the filk, which gives great trouble and embarrassment to the knitter or weaver. HEATH. A poet The death of each day's life, fore labour's bath, A poet of Shakspeare's age, Drayton, has likewise alluded to fleaved or ravelled filk, in his Queft of Cynthia: "At length I on a fountain light, "Whose brim with pinks was platted, "With grafs, like fleave, was matted." LANGTON. Sleave appears to have fignified coarse, foft, unwrought filk. Seta groffolana, Ital. Cotgrave in his DICT. 1660, renders foye flofche, fleave filk." See alfo ibid." Cadaree, pour faire capiton. The tow, or coarseft part of filke, whereof fleave is made." In Troilus and Creffida we have-" Thou idle immaterial skein of fleave filk." Again, (as Mr. Steevens has observed,) in Holinfhed, p. 835: "Eight wild all apparallel'd in green mofs made of fleeved filk." MALONE, 6 Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd fleave of care, men, The death of each day's life, fore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds,] Is it not probable that Shakspeare remembered the following verfes in Sir Philip Sydney's Aftropbel and Stella, a poem, from which he has quoted a line in the Merry Wives of Windfor: Come fleepe, O fleepe, the certain knot of peace, The bathing place of wits, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prifoner's release, "The indifferent judge between the high and low." So alfo, in the Famous Hiftorie of George Lord Fauconbridge, &c. bl. let: Yet fleep, the comforter of diftreffed minds, could not lock up her eyes." Again, in Golding's Translation of Ovid's Metamorphofes, B. Viil. 1587: Át fuch a time as folkes are wont to find release "Of cares that all the day before were working in their heds, "By fleep, &c. Again, ibid, B. XI. "O sleepe, quoth she, the rest of things, O gentleft of the goddes, "Sweete fleepe, the peace of mind, with whom crookt care is aye at odds; "Which cherisheft men's weary limbs appall'd with toyling fore, "And makeft them as fresh to worke, and luftre as before." The late Mr. Gray had perhaps our author's "death of each day's life" in his thoughts, when he wrote "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." MALONE. The death of each day's life, means the end of each day's labour, the conclufion of all that buftle and fatigue that each day's life brings with STEEVENS. it. 7 Chief nourisher in life's feaft;] So, in Chaucer's Squiere's Tale, . 10661; late edit. "The norice of digeftion, the flepe. STEVENS. Lady M. |