Be called our mother, but our grave: where | Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, nothing, To cure this deadly grief. But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, [seems Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Macd. O, relation, Too nice, and yet too true! Each minute teems a new one. Macd. How does my wife? And all my children? Rosse. Well too. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? [leave them. Rosse. No; they were well at peace when I did Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it? [tidings, Rosse. When I came hither to transport the Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Of many worthy fellows that were out; Which was to my belief witness'd the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot : Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff+ their dire distresses. Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones? Mal. Dispute it like a man. I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword : let Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue!-But, gentle The night is long that never finds the day. Act Fifth. [Exeunt. SCENE I.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentlewoman. Doct. I HAVE two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching.-In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. Doct. You may, to me; and 'tis most meet you should. Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech. Enter LADY MACBETH, with a Taper. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise ; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close. Doct. How came she by that light? Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually: 'tis her command. Doct. You see, her eyes are open. ? A grief that has a single owner. Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady M. Yet here's a spot. Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do 't:-Hell is murky!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood Doct. Do you mark that? [in him? Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now?-What, will these hands ne'er be clean -No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that you mar all with this starting. Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not. Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh oh oh! [charged. Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body. Doct. Well, well, well, Gent. 'Pray God, it be, sir. Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doct. Even so? Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at Doct. Will she go now to bed? Good night, good doctor. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The Country near Dunsinane. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers. | Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son, Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all; Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, [colm? All mortal consequents, pronounc'd me thus: The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd Where gott'st thou that goose look? Geese, villain? Serv. Serv. The English force, so please you. Ment. The English power is near, led on by When I behold-Seyton, I say !-This push His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Ang. Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now. Must minister to himself. [Exeunt, marching.. Within the Castle. Enter, with Drums and Colours, MACBETH. Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, rors; fel' Direness, familiar to vy slaght'rous thoughts,. That should applaud again.-Pull 't off, I say.-To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to -morrow, What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, Would scour these English hence?--Hearest thou of them? To the last syllable of recorded tir ae; Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, Doct. Ay, my good lord; your royal prepara-The way to dust y death. Out, or at, brief candle! [tion And all our yesterdays have light ed fools Makes us hear something. Life's but a walking shadow; a That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, poor player, And then is 'neard no more: it Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Macb. Bring it after me. Country near Dunsinane: A Wood in view. Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at The wood of Birr.am. Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, Sold. Siw. We learn no other, but the confident Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure Mal. For where there is advantage to be given, * Scour. + Skin. B Well, say, sir. Mess. As I did stand my watch upon th look'd toward Birnam, and anon, metho ight, e hill, The wood began to move. Macb. Macb. Liar and slaye! Lem SO: Within this three mile may you see it coming To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, + i. e. Greater and less. At least we 'll die with harness on our back. SCENE VI.-A Plain before the Castle. Mal. Now near enough; your leavy screens Siw. Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give Mcted. That way the noise is :-Tyrant, show thy face: My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain Macd. Despair thy charm; Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me Macd. Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o' the time. I'll not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; If thou be slain, and with no stroke of mine, Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge, sheathe again undeeded. There thou should'st By this great clatter, one of greatest note [be; Seems bruited: Let me find him, fortune! And more I beg not. [Exit. Alarum. Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD. Siw. This way, my lord;-the castle's gently The tyrant's people on both sides do fight; The day almost itself professes yours, And little is to do. Mal. I would, the friends we miss were safe Siw. Some must go off: and yet, by these I see, He only liv'd but till he was a man; Siw. Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then Siw. Had he his hurts before? Rosse. Ay, on the front. Siw. Why then, God's soldier be he! I would not wish them to a fairer death: He's worth more sorrow, So, God be with him!-Here comes newer com- And make us even with you. My thanes and fort. Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH'S Head on a Pole. Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: Behold, where stands The usurper's cursed head: the time is free: King of Scotland, hail! [Flourish. Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time, Before we reckon with your several loves, kinsmen, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen; Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life;-This, and what needful else INTRODUCTION TO OTHELLO. SHAKESPEARE took the hint for this tragedy from a story in the Hecatomithi of Giraldi Cinthio, the Italian novelist; of which, however, no translation of the time of our poet has been discovered. The story by Cinthio is very short, the characters consisting only of the Moor, Desdemona, the lieutenant, the ensign, and the wife of the latter; none of them being called by their names, except the unfortunate victim of treachery and jealousy. The incidents also are dissimilar in many respects, especially in regard to the death of Desdemona, who is murdered in a manner so revolting, that the good taste of Shakespeare instantly discarded it. She is beaten to death by the ensign with a stocking filled with sand, the Moor countenancing this savage murder by his presence. Then placing her in bed, they pull down the rafters of the room upon it, and the Moor calls for help, saying the house is falling. The neighbours, on this alarm, running there, find Desdemona dead under the beams; and her decease is attributed to accident, and not to design. "But," says the novelist, "God, who is a just observer of the hearts of men, suffered not so great a crime to pass without the punishment that was due to it." The Moor becomes deranged in his mind; and hating the ensign for the part he took against his wife, degrades him from his commission; upon which the latter accuses him of the murder of Desdemona, and the general is subjected to the rack, and then condemned to exile, "in which," says the narrator, "he was afterwards killed, as he deserved to be, by his wife's relations." The ensign escaped for a time; but being arrested for some other crime, he also was put to the torture, and racked so severely that he died in consequence. Such are the bare and rude materials (possessing no further interest or literary merit than a modern newspaper narrative of murder) upon which our poet has founded his great tragedy, which Mr. Douce contends is inferior, "in point of originality and poetic wealth, to Macbeth, to Lear, to Hamlet, and The Tempest." Its inferiority, in point of originality, I emphatically deny Shakespeare's obligation to Cinthio is so very trifling as to be unworthy of record, if it were not interesting to know from what seed in the garden of fiction so great and noble a tree as Othello was generated. To carry out the com parison, it reminds me of the mustard seed in the parable, which is the least of all seeds, but, when it is grown, it becometh a great tree, and the fowls of the air lodge in the branches. This tragedy may be inferior, in mere poetry, to all the plays just enumerated; but in the delineation of the sublime energy of passion, it is superior to them all, except Lear; and our compassion for Othello is even greater than that which we entertain for the aged monarch. The Moor is amiable, brave, generous, and firm; with him, what should be, must be: he will not permit his feelings to interfere with what he deems his duty. This feature of his character contributes materially to the catastrophe of the tragedy: had he possessed the irresolution of Hamlet, Iago's villany would have been discovered, and Desdemona saved; for Hamlet would always have been desiring more evidence; and even when convinced of her falseness, would have remained undecided how to act, and probably would have ultimately divorced her. But Tago calculates on the hot Moorish blood that runs in Othello's veins; he knows the impetuous, fierce passions which lie latent in the soul of the victim of his fiendish deception, and practises upon them accordingly. Othello is very philosophical until his mind is poisoned by the insinuations of Iago: he keeps a sort of military guard over his passions. Remember his calm, even conduct when Brabantio approaches him in the street at night, followed by armed servants and public officers, whom he bids to seize the Moor; he himself addressing him as "vile thief," and with other violent language. And before the Duke, he conducts his own cause with the subtlety and readiness of an advocate. What a touch of effective oratorical artifice is that, where he tells the assembled senate that he had been bred in a camp, knew but little of the world, and therefore could not grace his cause by the arts of eloquence: thus leading them to the belief that he was incapable of defending himself, and then delivering the most effective oration that could have been uttered in his behalf. But when the maddening conviction of his wife's treachery and shame is forced upon him, he breaks out into a paroxysm of frantic passion; his habit of self-government is for a time annihilated, and the hot blood of the |