1

Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
I went to seek him: in the street I met him;
And in his company, that gentleman.
There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down,
That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,
Which, God he knows, I saw not: for the which,
He did arrest me with an officer.

I did obey; and sent my peasant home
For certain ducats: he with none return'd.
Then fairly I bespoke the officer,

To go in person with me to my house.

By the way we met

My wife, her sister, and a rabble more

Of vile confederates; along with them
They brought one Pinch; a hungry lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,

A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller;
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man: this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer;
And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,
Cries out I was possess'd: then altogether
They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence;
And in a dark and dankish vault at home
There left me and my man, both bound together;
Till gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
I gaiu'd my freedom, and immediately

Ran hither to your grace; whom I beseech
To give me ample satisfaction

For these deep shames and great indignities.
Ang. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him;
That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.
Duke. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?
Ang. He had, my lord: and when he ran in here,
These people saw the chain about his neck.

Mer. Besides I will be sworn, these ears of mine
Heard you confess, you had the chain of him,
After you first forswore it on the mart,
And, thereupon I drew my sword on you;
And then you fled into this abbey here,
From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.
Ant. E. I never came within these abbey walls,
Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me:
I never saw the chain, so help me heaven!
And this is false, you burden me withal.

Duke. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.
If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;
If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly:-
You say, he dined at home; the goldsmith here
Denies that saying:-Sirrah, what say you?
Dro. E. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the Por-
cupine.

Cour. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that

ring.

Ant. E. 'Tis true, my liege, this ring I had of her.
Duke. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?
Cour. As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace.
Duke. Why, this is strange: -Go, call the abbess
hither;

I think, you are all mated, or stark mad.

[Erit an Attendant.

Ege. Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a
a word;
Haply I see a friend will save my life,
And pay the sum that may deliver me.

Duke. Speak freely, Syracusan, what thou wilt.
Æge. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?
And is not your bondman Dromio?

Dro. E. Within this hour, I was his bondman, sir, But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords; Now am I Dromio, and his man, unbound.

4 See note on Act in. Sc. 1.

Æge. I am sure, you both of you remember me.
Dro. E. Ourselves, we do remember, sir, by you;
For lately we were bound as you are now.
You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?

Æge. Why look you strange on me? you know
me well.

Ant. E. I never saw you in my life, till now.
Æge. Oh! grief hath chang'd me, since you saw
me last;

And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand,
Have written strange defeatures in my face:
But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
Ant. E. Neither.

Æge.

Dromio, nor thou?

Dro. E. No, trust me, sir, nor I.
Æge.

I am sure, thou dost.

Dro. E. Ay, sir? but I am sure, I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.5

Æge. Not know my voice! O, time's extremity!
Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue,
In seven short years, that here my only son
Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?"
Though now this grained" face of mine be hid
In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up;
Yet hath my night of life some memory,
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear:
All these old witnesses (I cannot err,)
Tell me, thou art my son Antipholus.

Ant. E. I never saw my father in my life.
Æge. But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,
Thou know'st, we parted: but, perhaps, my son,
Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.

Ant. E. The duke and all that know me in the

city,

Can witness with me that it is not so;
I ne'er saw Syracusa in my life.

Duke. I tell thee, Syracusan, twenty years
Have I been patron to Antipholus,
During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa:
I see, thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Enter the Abbess, with ANTIPHOLUS Syracusan,

and DROMIO Syracusan.
Abb. Most mighty duke, behold a man much
wrong'd.
[All gather to see him.
Adr. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.
Duke. One of these men is Genius to the other;
And so of these: Which is the natural man,
And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?
Dro. S. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.
Dro. E. I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay.
Ant. S. Ægeon, art thou not? or else his ghost?
Dro. S. O, my old master! who hath bound him
here?

Abb. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,
And gain a husband by his liberty:
Speak, old Ægeon, if thou be'st the man
That hadst a wife once called Æmilia,

That bore thee at a burden two fair sons:
O, if thou be'st the same Ægeon, speak,
And speak unto the same Æmilia!

Æge. If I dream not, thou art Æmilia;
If thou art she, tell me, where is that son
That floated with thee on the fatal raft?

Abb. By men of Epidamnum, he, and I
And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;
But, by and by, rude fishermen of Corinth
By force took Dromio and my son from them,
And me they left with those of Epidamnum:

9 In the old copy this speech of Ægeon, and the sub. sequent one of the abbess, follow the speech of the

5 Dromio delights in a quibble, and the word bound Duke. It is evident that they were transposed by miahas before been the subject of his mirth.

My heavy burden here delivered.
The duke, my husband, and my children both,
And you the calendars of their nativity,
Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me;
After so long grief, such nativtiy!

Duke. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast. [Exeunt Duke, Abbess, EGEON, Courtezar, Merchant, ANGELO, and Attendants.

Dro. S. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard? Ant. E. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou em bark'd 1

Dro. S. Your goods, that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.

Ant. S. He speaks to me; I am your master,
Dromio;

Come, go with us: we'll look to that anon:
Embrace thy brother there, rejoice with him.

[Exeunt ANT. S. and AxT. E. ADR. and Lec. Dro. S. There is a fat friend at your master's house,

That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;
She now shall be my sister, not my wife.

Dro. E. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:

I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.
Will you walk in to see their gossiping?
Dro. S. Not I, sir; you are my elder.

Dro. E. That's a question: how shall we try :
Dro. S. We will draw cuts for the senior: ll

МАСВΕΤΗ

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

DR. JOHNSON thought it necessary to prefix to this play an apology for Shakspeare's magic;-in which he says, 'A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability, be banished from the theatre to the nur ■sery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies. He then proceeds to defend this transgression upon the ground of the credulity of the poet's age; when 'the scenes of enchantment, however they may be now ridiculed, were both by himself and his audience thought awful and affecting. By whom, or when (always excepting French criticism,) these sublime conceptions were in danger of ridicule, he has not told us; and I sadly fear that this superfluous apology arose from the misgivings of the great critic's mind. Schlegel has justly remarked that, Whether the age of Shakspeare still believed in witchcraft and ghosts, is a matter of perfect indifference for the justification of the use which, in Hamlet and Macbeth, he has made of preexisting tra ditions. No superstition can ever be prevalent and widely diffused through ages and nations without having a foundation in human nature on this foundation the poet builds; he calls up from their hidden abysses that dread of the unknown, that presage of a dark side of nature, and a world of spirits which philosophy now imagines it has altogether exploded. In this manner he is in some degree both the portrayer and the philosopher of a superstition; that is, not the philosopher who denies and turns into ridicule, but, which is still more difficult, who distinctly exhibits its origin to us in apparently irrational and yet natural opinions.'-in another place the same admirable critic says-Since The Furies of Æschylus, nothing so grand and terrible has ever been composed: The Witches, it is true, are not divine Eumenides, and are not intended to be so; they are ignoble and vulgar instruments of hell. They discourse with one another like women of the very lowest class; for this was the class to which witches were supposed to belong. When, however, they address Macbeth, their tone assumes more elevation: their predictions have all the obscure brevity, the majestic solemnity, by which oracles have in all times contrived to inspire mortals with reverential awe. We here see that the witches are merely instruments; they are governed by an invisible spirit, or the operation of such great and dreadful events would be above their sphere. Their agency was necessary; for natural motives alone would have seemed inadequate to effect such a change astakes place in the nature and dispositions of Macbeth. By this means the poet 'has exhibited a more sublime picture to us: an ambitious but noble hero, who yields to a deep laid hellish temptation and all the crimes to which he is impelled by necessity, to secure the fruits of his first crime, cannot altogether eradicate in him the stamp of native heroism. He has therefore given a threefold division to the guilt of that crime. The first idea comes from that being whose whole activity is guided by a lust of wickedness. The weird sisters surprise Macbeth in the moment of intoxication after his victory, when his love of glory has been gratified; they cheat his eyes by exhibiting to him as the work of fate what can only in reality be accomplished by his own deed, and gain credence for their words by the immediate ful fihnent of the first prediction. The opportunity for murdering the king immediately offers itself; Lady Macbeth conjures him not to let it slip; she urges him on with a fiery eloquence, which has all those sophisms at command that serve to throw a false grandeur over crime. Little more than the mere execution falls to the share of Macbeth; he is driven to it as it were in a state of commotion, in which his mind is bewildered. Repentance immediately follows; nay, even precedes the deed; and the stings of his conscience leave him no rest either night or day. But he is now fairly entangled in the snares of hell; it is truly frightful to behold that Macbeth, who once as a warrior could spurn at death, now that he dreads the prospect of the life to come, clinging with growing anxiety to his earthly existence, the more miserable it becomes, and pitilessly removing out of his way whatever to his dark and suspicious mind seems to

1

threaten danger. However much we may abhor his actions, we cannot altogether refuse to sympathize with the state of his mind; welament the ruin of so many noble qualities; and, even in his last defence, we are compelled to admire in him the struggle of a brave will with a cowardly conscience. The poet wishes to show that the conflict of good and evil in this world can only take place by the permission of Providence, which converts the curse that individual mortals draw down on their heads into a blessing to others. Lady Macbeth, who of all the human beings is the most guilty participator in the murder of the king, falls, through the horrors of her conscience, into a state of incurable bodily and mental disease; she dies, unlamented by her husband, with all the symptoms of reprobation. Macbeth is still found worthy of dying the death of a hero on the field of battle. Banquo atones for the ambitious curiosity which prompted him to wish to know his glorious descendants by an early death, as he thereby rouses Macbeth's jealousy; but he preserved his mind pure from the bubbles of the witches; his name is blessed in his race, destined to enjoy for a long succession of ages that royal dignity which Macbeth could only hold during his own life. In the progress of the action, this piece is altogether the reverse of Hamlet it strides forward with amazing rapidity from the first catastrophe (for Duncan's murder may be called a catastrophe) to the last. Thought, and done! is the general motto; for, as Macbeth says,

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it.'

In every feature we see a vigorous heroic age in the hardy North, which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,-years, perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much can be compressed into so narrow a space; not merely external events-the very innermost recesses of the minds of the persons of the drama are laid open to us. It is as if the drags were taken from the wheels of time, and they rolled along without interruption in their descent. Nothing can equal the power of this picture in the excitation of horror. We need only allude to the circumstance attending the murder of Duncan, the dagger that hovers before the eyes of Macbeth, the vision of Banquo at the feast, the madness of Lady Macbeth; what can we possibly say on the subject that will not rather weaken the impression? Such scenes stand alone, and are to be found only in this poet; otherwise the tragic muse might exchange her mask for the head of Medusa.*

Shakspeare followed the chronicle of Holinshed, and Holinshed borrowed his narration from the chronicles of Scotland, translated by John Bellenden, from the Latin of Hector Boethius, and first published at Edinburgh in 1541.

Malcolm the Second, king of Scotland, had two daughters. The eldest was married to Crynin, the father of Duncan, Thane of the isles, and western parts of Scotland: and on the death of Malcolm without male issue Duncan succeeded to the throne. Malcolm's second daughter was married to Sinel, Thane of Glamis, the father of Macbeth. Duncan, who married the sister of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, was murdered by his cousin german Macbeth, in the castle of Inverness, about the year 1040 or 1045. Macbeth was himself slain by Macduff, according to Boethius in 1061, according to Buchanan in 1057, at which time Edward the Confessor reigned in England.

In the reign of Duncan, Banquo having been plundered by the people of Lochaber of some of the king's revenues, which he had collected, and being dangerously wounded in the affray, the persons concerned in this outrage were summoned to appear at a certain day. But they slew the serjeant at arms who summoned them, and chose one Macdonwald as their captain. Macdonwald speedily collected a considerable body of

* Lectures on Dramatic Literature, by A. W. Schle. gel, translated by John Black, London, 1815, vol. ii. p. 200.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth.
Hecate, and three Witches.2

Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murderers,

Attendants, and Messengers.

The Ghost of Banquo, and several other Apparitions.

SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, General of the SCENE, in the end of the Fourth Act, lies in Eng

2 As the play now stands, in Act iv. Sc. 1, three other witches make their appearance.

3 When the hurlyburly's done. In Adagia Scotica, or A Collection of Scotch Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases; collected by R. B.; very useful and delightful. Lond. 12mo. 1668:

Little kens the wife that sits by the fire

How the wind blows cold in hurle burle swyre.

'i. e. in the tempestuous mountain-top,' says Mr. Todd, in a note on Spenser; to which Mr. Boswell gives his assent, and says, 'this sense seems agreeable to the witch's answer. But Peacham, in his Garden of Eloquence, 1577, shows that this was not the ancient acceptation of the word among us: 'Onomatopeia, when

Sold. Doubtful it stood;

Who comes here?
Mal.

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together,
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald

(Worthy to be a rebel; for to that1

The multiplying villanies of nature

Do swarm upon him), from the western isles

Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied;2

And fortune, on his damned quarry3 smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smok'd with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion,

Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the slave;
And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!

Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd,

Compell'd these skipping Kernes to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms, and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.

1 Vide Tyrwhitt's Glossary to Chaucer, v. for; and Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, p. 205. For to that means no more than for that, or cause that. The late editions erroneously point this passage, and as erroneously explain it. I follow the punctuation of the first folio.

2 i. e. supplied with armed troops so named. Of and with are indiscriminately used by our ancient writers. Gallorglasses were heavy-armed foot-soldiers of Ireland and the western isles: Kernes were the lighter armed troops.

3 But fortune on his damned quarry smiling. Thus the old copies. It was altered at Johnson's suggestion to quarrel, which is approved and defended by Steevens and Malone. But the old copy needs no alteration. Quarry means the squadron, escadre, or square body, anto which Macdonwald's troops were formed, better to receive the charge; through which Macbeth carved out his passage till he faced the slave.'

4 The meaning is, that Fortune, while she smiled on him, deceived him.

5 The old copy reads which.

6 Sir W. D'Avenant's reading of this passage, in his alteration of the play, is a tolerable comment on it:

But then this daybreak of our victory

Serv'd but to light us into other dangers,

Enter ROSSE.

The worthy thane of Rosse.

Len. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look,

That seems to speak things strange. 10

Rosse.

God save the king!

Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?

Rosse.

From Fife, great king.

Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,
And fan our people cold.

Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor

The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict:
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, 12 lapp'd in proof
Confronted him with self-comparisons, 13

Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: And, to conclude,
The victory fell on us;-
Dun.

Rosse. That now

Great happiness!

Sweno, 14 the Norways' king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes' Inch, 1s
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest: -Go, pronounce his present

death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Rosse. I'll see it done.

into the text by mistake, and that the line originally stood

That now the Norway's king craves composition."
It was surely not necessary for Rosse to tell Duncan the
name of his old enemy, the king of Norway.

15 Colmes' is here a dissyllable. Colmes' Inch, now
called Inchcomb, is a small island, lying in the Firth of
Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it dedicated to St. Co-
lumb. Inch or inse, in Erse, signifies an island.
16 The etymology of this imprecation is yet to seek.
Rynt ye, for out with ye! stand off! is still used in
Cheshire, where there is also a proverbial saying,
Rynt ye, witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother."
Tooke thought it was from roynous, and might signify
a scab or scale on thee! Others have derived it from
the rowan-tree, or witch-hazle, the wood of which was
believed to be a powerful charm against witchcraft; and
every careful housewife had a churn-staff made of it.
This superstition is as old as Pliny's time, who asserts
that a serpent will rather creep into the fire than over
a twig of ash. The French have a phrase of somewhat
similar sound and import-'Arry-avant, away there,
ho!'-Mr. Douce thinks that 'aroint thee' will be found
to have a Saxon origin.

That spring from whence our hopes did seem to rise. fed on offals; the rumps being formerly part of the

Break is not in the first folio.

7 Truth.

17 Rump-fed ronyon, a scabby or mangy woman,

emoluments or kitchen fees of the cooks in great houses IS In The Discovery of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scott, 1584, he says it was believed that witches 'could sail in

8 That is, reports. 9 i. e. make another Golgotha as memorable as the an egg-shell, a cockle, or muscle-shell, through and first.

10 That seems about to speak strange things.' 11 So in King John:

Mocking the air with colours idly spread." 12 By Bellona's bridegroom Shakspeare means Macbeth. Lapp'd in proof is defended by armour of proof. 13 Confronted him with self-comparisons. By him is meant Norway, and by self-comparisons is meant that he gave him as good as he brought, showed that he was his equal.

14 It appears probable, as Steevens suggests, that Sweno was only a marginal reference, which has crept

under the tempestuous seas. And in another pamphlet, 'Declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was buried at Edenborough in Januarie last, 1591,'-'All they together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine making merrie, and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives, &c.

Sir W. D'Avenant, in his Albovine, 1629, says'He sits like a witch sailing in a sieve.'

It was the belief of the times, that though a witch could assume the form of any animal she pleased, the tail would still be wanting.