I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. Lady M. What beast was't then 46 47. do] Rowe, Southern (MS),* 47. beast] boast Coll. (MS). Coll. (MS). no Ff. 6 BOSWELL. It is among Heywood's Proverbs, 1566: The cate would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete.' COLLIER. It is found in the following form in 'Adagia Scotica,' &c., collected by R. B., 1668, Ye breed of the cat: ye would fain have fish, but ye have na will to wet your feet.' 46, 47. I...none] JOHNSON. The arguments by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Sh.'s knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost. [The present lines quoted.] This topic, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene, with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier; and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman without great impatience. She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duncan, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their conscience, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument Sh., whose plan obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter; that obligations, laid on us by a higher power, could not be overruled by obligations which we lay upon ourselves. HUNTER. This reading, which is merely conjectural, which has not the slightest show of authority from the only copies through which we receive any information respecting the true text as it flowed from the pen of Sh., has so established itself in public opinion, and has received such extravagant praise from Dr Johnson, that he will be thought a rash man who shall attempt to disturb the opinion, and to show that it is not really what the poet wrote or intended. In the first place, the substitution of 'do' for 'no' is most violent. In the second place, if, indeed, Sh. meant to express the sentiment, which the line as amended implies, he has written feebly and imperfectly, and left his sense in some, perhaps not inconsiderable, obscurity. It will be admitted that some change in the text as delivered to us is required; that it cannot stand as it appears in the original eds. The question is, not whether it shall be restored, but how it shall be restored? and I now venture to propose that the second of the two lines [ Who...none'] shall be given to Lady Macbeth, retaining the exact text of the old copies. [See also to the same effect Hunter's Few Words, &c., p. 20, 1853. ED.] 47. beast] HUNTER. I regard this word as an intruder, and that it has got in thus: a copyist had written wast' by mistake twice. The first being but imperfectly effaced or cancelled, it would be easily read beast,' the only word like it that could occur. That made you break this enterprise to me? ELWIN. Lady Macbeth, perceiving that the exalted character of the argument adduced by her husband renders it impregnable to reasoning, skillfully brings him from the moral position in which he was intrenching himself, by ridiculing that position itself, by this powerfully derisive antithesis: If, as you imply, this enterprise be not the device of a man, what beast induced you to propose it? COLLIER (Notes, &c., ed. 2). Surely it reads like a gross vulgarism for Lady Macbeth thus to ask, 'What beast made him divulge the enterprise to her?' but she means nothing of the kind: she alludes to Macbeth's former readiness to do the deed, when he was prepared to make time and place adhere for the execution of it, and yet could not now 'screw his courage' to the point, when time and place had, as it were, made themselves;' this she calls a mere boast on his part: she charges him with being a vain braggart, first to profess to be ready to murder Duncan, and afterward, from fear, to relinquish it. JOHN FORSTER (The Examiner, Jan. 29, 1853). Here Mr Collier reasons, as it appears to us, without sufficient reference to the context of the passage, and its place in the scene. The expression immediately preceding, and eliciting, Lady Macbeth's reproach, is that in which Macbeth declares that he dares do all that may become a man, and that he who dares do more is none. She instantly takes up that expression. If not an affair in which a man may engage, what beast was it, then, in himself or in others, that made him break this enterprise to her? The force of the passage lies in that contrasted word, and its meaning is lost by the proposed substitution. DYCE (Few Notes, &c., p. 124). The emendation of the (MS.) is not unobjectionable on the score of phraseology. A boast making one break an enterprise to another' is hardly in the style of an experienced writer. SINGER (Sh. Vindicated, p. 253). The almost gentle manner in which, in a former scene, Macbeth hints at his purpose in the words, My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night,' shows that what may be supposed to have passed in their future conference would be anything but a boast. BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE (October, 1853). There is to our feelings a stronger expression of contempt, a more natural, if not a fiercer, taunt in boast than in 'beast.' ... Tried by their intrinsic merits, we regard boast as rather the better reading of the two; and if we advocate the retention of 'beast,' it is only on the ground that it, too, affords a very good meaning, and is de facto the text of the Ff. DELIUS. 'Beast' as opposed to man, on the score of reason, was a less harsh expression in Sh.'s time than at present. Rom. & Jul., III, ii, 95. CLARENDON. Boast is utterly inadmissible. Then,' which follows, seems more appropriate to the first clause of an indignant remonstrance, if we adopt Rowe's emendation. STEEVENS. A similar passage is in Meas. for Meas., II, iv, 134, 135. BAILEY (vol. i, p. 75). Lady Macbeth might with propriety have taken up Macbeth's remarks in one of two ways; she might have replied, 'What beast were you then (seeing by your own declaration that you were not a man) when,' &c. Or she might have said, 'Since you say such a deed would sink a man below humanity, what degradation of your nature was it that made you divulge your project to your wife?' In the first, the term beast would be retained, but the structure of the sentence would be changed; in the second, that term would be replaced by another signifying degradation, but the structure of the sentence would remain unaltered. When you durst do it, then you were a man; 51. the] than Han. 52. adhere] co-here Pope,+. 53. They have] They've Pope,+. 55. me:] Cap. me-Rowe,+. me, Ff, Han. i. me; Han. ii. Johns. Sta. me.... Ktly. 50 55 The received reading is a hybrid between the two. It does not ask Macbeth whether he was then a beast, or what vileness actuated him, but what beast prompted his disclosure-which is incoherent and beside the mark, since there is no question of external influence, but one of internal conflict and mutation. Inasmuch as the first method here described would alter the structure of the sentence, we are led to adopt the second method, which requires only such a synonyme for degradation as would be readily transmuted into 'beast.' Unless I am greatly mistaken we may find the word in baseness. By this reading the metre is preserved by making' was't' a long or accented syllable, or in other words the last foot becomes an amphibrach instead of an iambus. In the Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, vol. i, p. 146, Mr KOESTER infers from this word that a former scene has been omitted, either lost, or cut out by some stage-manager, in which Macbeth and his wife discuss the murder, and in which Macbeth asserts his readiness to do the deed and to force the adherence of time and place. An aposiopesis, such as Lessing referred to when he asserts that a dramatist is sometimes greater in what he does not say than in what he says, cannot here be seriously maintained. Such a scene is too important to the action of the tragedy to have been overlooked by Sh., who is always so exact in such matters; without it Duncan's murder takes place too early, and it is needed to counterbalance artistically the long-drawn-out, almost epic scenes between Malcolm and Macduff towards the close of the tragedy.' ED. 52. adhere] CAPELL (ii, 9). It is not the coherence of time with place; but the adherence of these two with the murder of the king. 51, 52. Nor...adhere]. See HERAUD, p. 342. 58. the] CLARENDON. We should now say its brains,' but 'the' is found not unfrequently for the possessive pronoun. Compare the version of Lev., xxv, 5 in the Bishops' Bible: That which groweth of the owne accord,' &c. And Bacon, Advancement of Learning, i, 4, 8 I: ‘————— it is the manner of men to scandalize and deprave that which retaineth the state and virtue.' out] LETTSOM (WALKER's Vers., 209, foot-note). But of F, is a crutch furnished by the compassionate editor to assist the lameness of the metre. The idiom of our language, as well as the harmony of the verse, seems to require us to read, 'And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn,' &c. sworn] SEYMOUR. The measure of the line is complete without 'so.' HUDSON. It is said that Mrs Siddons used to utter the close of this speech in a scream, as though she were almost frightened out of her wits by the audacity of her own tongue. And I can easily conceive how a spasmodic action of fear might lend to such a woman as Lady Macbeth an appearance of superhuman or inhuman boldness. At all events, it should be observed that her energy and intensity of purpose overbears the feelings of the woman; and her convulsive struggle of feeling against that overbearing violence of will might well be expressed by a scream. 59. We fail!] STEEVENS. Macbeth having casually employed the former part of the common phrase: If we fail, we fail, his wife designedly completes it. We fail, and thereby know the extent of our misfortune. Lady Macbeth is unwilling to afford her husband time to state any reasons for his doubt. Such an interval for reflection to act in might have proved unfavorable to her purposes. This reply, at once cool and determined, is sufficiently characteristic of the speaker: according to the old punctuation, she is represented as rejecting with contempt (of which she had already manifested enough) the very idea of failure. According to the mode of pointing now suggested, she admits a possibility of miscarriage, but at the same instant shows herself not afraid of the result. Her answer, therefore, communicates no discouragement to her husband.—We fail! is the hasty interruption of scornful impatience. We fail.—is the calm deduction of a mind which, having weighed all circumstances, is prepared, without loss of confidence in itself, for the worst that can happen. MRS JAMESON (ii, 319). Mrs Siddons adopted successively three different intonations in giving the words we fail. At first as a quick contemptuous interrogation. Afterwards with the note of admiration, and an accent of indignant astonishment, laying the emphasis on 'we.' Lastly, she fixed on what I am convinced is the true reading-we fail. with the simple period, modulating her voice to a deep, low, resolute tone, which settled the issue at once-as though she had said, 'If we fail, why then we fail, and all is over.' This is consistent with the dark fatalism of the character, and the sense of the line following-and the effect was sublime, almost awful. KNIGHT. We prefer the quiet self-possession of the punctuation we have adopted. DYCE (Remarks, &c.). There is in reality no difference; whether the words be pointed 'We fail!' or 'We fail?' (and I much prefer the former method), they can only be understood as an impatient and contemptuous repetition of Macbeth's 'we fail,-.' Any kind of admission on the part of Lady Macbeth that the attempt But screw your courage to the sticking-place, 62. his] this Pope, Han. 60 65 might prove unsuccessful, appears to me quite inconsistent with all that she has previously said, and all that she afterwards says, in the present scene. She hastily interrupts her husband, checking the very idea of failure as it rises in his mind. I recollect, indeed, hearing Mrs Siddons deliver the words as if she was stating the result of failure;' but there can be no doubt that she had adopted that manner of delivery in consequence of Steevens's note. [DYCE (ed. 1). In the folio the interrogation-point is frequently equivalent to an exclamation-point.] 60. sticking-place] STEEVENS. A metaphor perhaps taken from the screwing up the chords of string-instruments to their proper degree of tension, when the peg remains fast in its sticking-place, i. e., in the place from which it is not to move. Thus, perhaps, in Twelfth Night, V, i, 126. STAUNTON. The abiding place,- Which flower out of my hand shall never passe, But in my heart shall have a sticking-place'-The Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, 1578. CLARENDON. A similar figure is found in Cor. I, viii, 11. Compare also Tro. and Cres., III, iii, 22-25. As wrest' is an instrument for tuning a harp, this lastcited passage lends some probability to Steevens's interpretation. 63. chamberlains] [See Appendix, p. 358.] 64. wassail] SINGER. Thus explained by Bullokar in his Expositor, 1616: Wassaile, a term usual heretofore for quaffing and carowsing; but more especially signifying a merry cup (ritually composed, deckt and fill'd with country liquor) passing about amongst neighbors, meeting and entertaining one another on the vigil or eve of the new year, and commonly called the wassail-bol.' CLARENDON. Derived from the Anglo-Saxon waes hael, be of health.' This, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, was the salutation used by Rowena to Vortigern in presenting a cup of wine. Hence 'wassail' came to mean drinking of healths, revelry, and afterwards 'drink' itself. Here it means 'revelry.' 64. convince] JOHNSON. To overpower or subdue, as in IV, iii, 142. STEEVENS. In Holinshed: " thus mortally fought, intending to vanquish and convince the other.' HARRY ROWE. My wooden figure, who performs Sh.'s principal characters, and whose head is made of a piece of the famous mulberry tree, observes, that the known property of strong drink is to confound' and not to convince' the understanding. CLARENDON. So in Hall's Chronicle, Richard III, fol. 33 a: Whyle the two forwardes thus mortallye fought, eche entending to vanquish and conuince the other.' 65-67. CLARENDON. By the old anatomists (Vigo, fol. 6 b, ed. 1586) the brain was divided into three ventricles, in the hindermost of which they placed the memory. That this division was not unknown to Sh. we learn from Love's Lab. Lost, IV, ii, 70. The third ventricle is the cerebellum, by which the brain is connected with the spinal marrow and the rest of the body: the memory is posted in the cerebelli m F |