A dagger of the mind; a false creation, As this which now I draw. Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, And on thy blade, and dudgeon3, gouts of blood, Which was not so before.-There's no such thing: It is the bloody business, which informs Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world Nature seems dead 10, and wicked dreams abuse 8 Dudgeon for handle; a dudgeon dagger is a dagger, whose handle is made of the root of box,' according to Bishop Wilkins in the dictionary subjoined to his Real Character. Dudgeon is the root of box. It has not been remarked that there is a peculiar propriety in giving the word to Macbeth, Pugnale alla scoccese, being a Scotch or dudgeon haft dagger,' according to Torriano. 9 Gouts, drops; from the French gouttes. 10 Dryden's well known lines in the Conquest of Mexico are here transcribed that the reader may observe the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare: '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 flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat, In the second part of Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602, we have the following lines: 'Tis yet the dead of night, yet all the earth is clutch'd No breath disturbs the quiet of the air, No spirit moves upon the breast of earth, Save howling dogs, night-crows, and screeching owls, Unequalled in revenge:-you horrid scouts The curtain❜d sleeper 11; witchcraft celebrates Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it 13.- Whiles I threat, he lives; 11 The old copy has sleepe. The emendation was proposed by Steevens, and is well worthy of a place in the text; the word now having been formerly admitted to complete the metre. 12 The old copy reads sides: Pope made the alteration. Johnson objects to the epithet ravishing strides. But Steevens has shown that a stride was not always an action of violence, impetuosity, or tumult. Thus in The Faerie Queene, b. iv. c. viii. 'With easy steps so soft as foot could stride.' And in other places we have an easy stride, a leisurable stride, &c. Warburton observes, that the justness of the similitude is not very obvious. But a stanza in Shakspeare's Tarquin and Lucrece will explain it : 'Now stole upon the time in dead of night, When heavy sleep had clos'd up mortal eyes; No noise but owls' and wolves' dead-boding cries; The silly lambs. Pure thoughts are dead and still, 13 Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that added such horror to the night, as well suited with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, observes, that 'all general privations are great because they are terrible.' The poets of antiquity have many of them heightened their scenes of terror by dwelling on the silence which accompanied them: 'Dii quibus imperium et animarum umbræque silentes, Et Chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late.-Virgil. Statius, in describing the Lemnian massacre, notices the silence and solitude in a striking manner: 'Conticuere domus,' &c. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. [A bell rings. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. SCENE II. The same. Enter LADY MACBETH. [Exit. Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold: What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire:- It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, That death and nature do contend about them, Macb. [Within.] Who's there?-what, ho! Lady M. Alack! I am afraid, they have awak'd, And 'tis not done :—the attempt, and not the deed, and when he enumerates the terrors to which Chiron had familiarized his pupil, he subjoins: - nec ad vastæ trepidare silentia sylvæ.' Tacitus, describing the distress of the Roman army, under Cæcina, concludes by observing-Ducemque terruit, dira quies. In all the preceding passages, as Pliny remarks, concerning places of worship, silentia ipsa adoramus. To these instances adduced by Steevens, Malone adds another from the second Eneid: vestigia retro Observata sequor per noctem, et lumine lustro, and the well known lines which exposed Dryden to so much ridicule: A horrid stillness first invades the ear, Confounds us :-Hark!-I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss them.-Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't.-My husband? Enter MACBETH. Macb. I have done the deed:-Didst thou not hear a noise? Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets Macb. This is a sorry sight. Donalbain. [Looking on his hands. Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, murder! That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them: But they did say their prayers, and address'd them Again to sleep. Lady M. There are two lodg'd together. Macb. One cried, God bless us! and, Amen, the other; As1 they had seen me, with these hangman's hands. Lady M. 1 As for as if. Consider it not so deeply. 2 i. e. listening to their fear: the particle omitted. Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen? I had most need of blessing, and amen Stuck in my throat. Lady M. These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad. Macb. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave3 of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast;— ? Lady M. You do unbend your noble strength, to think 3 Sleave is unwrought silk, sometimes also called floss silk. It appears to be the coarse ravelled part separated by passing through the slaie (reed comb) of the weaver's loom; and hence called sleaved or sleided silk. I suspect that sleeveless, which has puzzled the etymologists, is that which cannot be sleaved, sleided, or unravelled; and therefore useless: thus a sleeveless errand would be a fruitless one. 4 Steevens observes that this triple menace, accommodated to the different titles of Macbeth, is too quaint to be received as the natural ebullition of a guilty mind; but Mr. Boswell thinks that there is no ground for his objection. He thus explains the passage: Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore my lately acquired dignity can afford no comfort to one who suffers the agony of remorse,-Cawdor shall sleep no more; nothing can restore me to that peace of mind which I enjoyed in a comparatively humble state; the once innocent Macbeth shall sleep no more. |