I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow, (Betimes I will) unto the weird sisters:7 More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, Lady M. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.1 6 There's not a one of them,] A one of them, however uncouth the phrase, signifies an individual. Chaucer frequently prefixes the article a to nouns of number. See Squiere's Tale, 10,697: "And up the risen, wel a ten or twelve." In Albumazer, 1614, the same expression occurs: "Not a one shakes his tail, but I sigh out a passion." Theobald would read thane; and might have found his proposed emendation in D'Avenant's alteration of Macbeth, 1674. This avowal of the tyrant is authorized by Holinshed. "He had in every nobleman's house one slie fellow or other in fee with him to reveale all," &c. Steevens. 7 (Betimes I will) unto the weird sisters:] The ancient copy reads And betimes I will to the weird sisters. They whose ears are familiarized to discord, may perhaps object ect to my omission of the first word, and my supplement to the fifth. Steevens.. Stept in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er:] This idea is borrowed by Dryden, in his Oedipus, Act IV: 66 - I have already past "The middle of the stream; and to return, "Seems greater labour, than to venture o'er." Steevens. be scann'd.] To scan is to examine nicely. Thus, in Hamlet: so he goes to heaven, "And so am I reveng'd: That would be scann'd." Steevens. 1 You lack the season of all natures, sleep.] I take the meaning to be, You want sleep, which seasons, or gives the relish to, all nature. " Inliget somini vitæ condimenti." Johnson. This word is often used in this sense by our author. So, in All's Well that Ends Well: "'Tis the best brine a maiden can VOL. VII. Macb. Come, we'll to sleep: My strange and self abuse Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use:- [Excunt. SCENE V. The Heath, Thunder. Enter HECATE, meeting the Three Witches. 1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate? you look angerly season her praise in." Again, in Much Ado about Nothing, where, as in the present instance, the word is used as a substantive: "And salt too little, which may season give An anonymous correspondent thinks the meaning is, "You stand in need of the time or season of sleep, which all natures require." Malone. 2 We are yet but young in deed.] The editions before Theobald read We're but young indeed. Johnson. The meaning is not ill explained by a line in King Henry VI, P. III: We are not, Macbeth would say, “Made impudent with use of evil deeds." or we are not yet (as Romeo expresses it) " old murderers." Theobald's amendment may be countenanced by a passage in Antony and Cleopatra: "Not in deed, madam, for I can de nothing." Again, in Chapman's translation of the eleventh book of the Iliad, fol. edit p. 146. "And would not be the first in name, unlesse the first in deed." Again, in Hamlet: "To show yourself in deed your father's son The initiate fear, is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by frequent repetition of it, or (as the poet says) by bard use. Steevens. 3 Enter Hecate,] Shakspeare has been censured for introducing Hecate among the vulgar witches, and, consequently, for confounding ancient with modern superstitions. He has however, authority for giving a mistress to the witches, Delrio Disquis. Mag. Lib. II, quæst 9, quotes a passage of Apuleius, Lib. de Asino aureo: " de quadam Caupona, regina Sagarum." Hec. Have I not reason, beldams, as you are, Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare And adds further: "ut scias etiam tum quasdam ab iis hoc titulo honoratas." In consequence of this information, Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Queens, has introduced a character which he calls a Dame, who presides at the meeting of the Witches: "Sisters, stay; we want our dame." The dame accordingly enters, invested with marks of supe. riority, and the rest pay an implicit obedience to her commands. Again, in A true Examination and Confession of Elizabeth Stile, alias Rockyngham, &c. 1579, bl. 1. 12mo: "Further she saieth, that Mother Seidre, dwelling in the almes house, was the maistres witche of all the reste, and she is now deade." Shakspeare is therefore blameable only for calling his presiding character Hecate, as it might have been brought on with propriety under any other title whatever. Steevens. The Gothic and Pagan fictions were now frequently blended and incorporated. The Lady of the Lake floated in the suite of Neptune before queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth; Ariel assumes the semblance of a sea-nymph, and Hecate, by an easy association, conducts the rites of the weird sisters in Macbeth. T. Warton. Shakspeare seems to have been unjustly censured for introducing Hecate among the modern witches. Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, B. III, c. ii, and c. xvi, and B. XII, c. iii, mentions it as the common opinion of all writers, that witches were supposed to have nightly "meetings with Herodias, and the Pagan gods." and "that in the night-times they ride abroad with Diana, the goddess of the Pagans," &c.-Their dame or chief leader seems always to bave been an old Pagan, as "the Ladie Sibylla, Minerva, or Diana" Tollet. In Jonson's Sad Shepherd, Act II, sc. iii, Maudlin, the witch, (who is the speaker) calls Hecate the mistress of witches, "our Dame Hecate;" which has escaped the notice of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Toilet, in their remarks on Shakspeare's being censured for introducing Hecate among the vulgar witches. Todd. 4 Why, how now, Hecate?] Marlowe, though a scholar, has likewise used the word Hecate, as a dissyllable: "Plutoe's blew fire, and Hecat's tree, "With magick spels so compass thee." Dr. Faustus. Malone. Mr. Todd, among his ingenious notes on Comus, has pointed out the illegitimate pronunciation in The Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson, Act II, sc. iii : 66 same that very night "We earth'd her in the shades, when our dame Headt "Made it her gaing night over the kirk-yard." To trade and traffick with Macbeth Milton, in his Comus, has likewise taken the same liberty "Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Again, in King Lear, Act I, sc. i: "The mysteries of Hecate and the night." Reed. $ for a wayward son, Spiteful, and wrathful; who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you.] Inequality of measure, (the first of these lines being a foot longer than the second) together with the unnecessary and weak comparison-as others do, incline me to regard the passage before us as both maimed and interpolated. Perhaps it originally ran thus : -for a wayward son, Loves for bis own ends, not for you. But the repetition of the article a being casually omitted by some transcriber for the theatre, the verse became too short, and a fresh conclusion to it was supplied by the amanuensis, who overlooked the legitimate rhyme who, when he copied the play for publication. If it be necessary to exemplify the particular phraseology introduced by way of amendment, the following line in Chaucer, "A frere there was, a wanton and a mery;" and a passage in The Witch, by Middleton, will sufficiently answer that purpose: "What death is 't you desire for Almachildes? In this instance, the repeated article a is also placed before two adjectives referring to a substantive in the preceding line. See also The Paston Letters, Vol. IV, p. 155: "Pray God send us a good world and a peaceable." Again, in our author's King Henry IV: "A good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent." Again, in an ancient MS. entitled The Boke of Huntyng, that is cleped Mayster of Game: "It [the Boar] is a prowde beest, a feers, and a perilous." Steevens. But make amends now: Get you gone, Great business must be wrought ere noon : 9 6 the pit of Acheron -) Shakspeare seems to have thought it allowable to bestow the name of Acheron on any fountain, lake, or pit, through which there was vulgarly supposed to be a communication between this and the infernal world. The true original Acheron was a river in Greece; and yet Virgil gives this name to his lake in the valley of Amsanctus in Italy. Steevens. 7 Unto a dismal-fatal end.] The old copy violates the metre by needless addition: Unto a dismal and a fatal end. I read-dismal-fatal. Shakspeare, as Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, in a note on King Richard III, is fond of these compound epithets, in which the first adjective is to be considered as an adverb. So, in that play, we meet with childish-foolish, senseless-obstinate, and mortal-staring. And, in King John, we have stubborn-bard. Steevens. • Upon the corner of the moon &c.] Shakspeare's mythological knowledge, on this occasion, appears to have deserted him; for as Hecate is only one of three names belonging to the same goddess, she could not properly be employed in one charecter to catch a drop that fell from her in another. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, however, our poet was sufficiently aware of her three-fold capacity: 9 fairies, that do run "By the triple Hecat's team, -." Steevens. vaporous drop profound;] That is, a drop that has profound, deep, or hidden qualities. Johnson. This vaporous drop seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment. Lucan introduces Erictho using it. L. VI: et virus large lunare ministrat." Steevens. |