Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies | Page 3

body; 6. That every such
person being convicted shall suffer death." This law was repealed in

our own time.
Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once
established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite,
but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are always seen in proportion
as they are expected, witches were every day discovered, and
multiplied as fast in some places, that bishop Hall mentions a village in
Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the houses.
The jesuits and sectaries took advantage of this universal error, and
endeavoured to promote the interest of their parties by pretended cures
of persons afflicted by evil spirits; but they were detected and exposed
by the clergy of the established church.
Upon this general infatuation Shakespeare might be easily allowed to
found a play, especially since he has followed with great exactness
such histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the
scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both
by himself and his audience thought awful and affecting.
I.i.10 (396,5) Fair is foul, and foul is fair] I believe the meaning is, that
to us, perverse and malignant as we are, _fair is foul, and foul is fair_.
I.ii.14 (398,9) And Fortune, on his damned quarry smiling] Thus the
old copy; but I am inclined to read quarrel. Quarrel was formerly used
for cause, or for the occasion of a quarrel, and is to be found in that
sense in Hollingshed's account of the story of Macbeth, who, upon the
creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, says the historian, that
he had a just quarrel, to endeavour after the crown. The sense therefore
is, Fortune smiling on his excrable cause, &c. This is followed by Dr.
Warburten. (see 1765, VI, 373, 4).
I.ii.28 (400,4) Discomfort swells] Discomfort the natural opposite to
comfort. _Well'd_, for flawed, was an emendation. The common copies
have, discomfort swells.
I.ii.37 (400,5) As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks, So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe]
Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this passage by
altering the punctuation thus:
--_they were As cannons overcharg'd, with double cracks So they
redoubled strokes_--
He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a
_cannon charged with double cracks_; but surely the great author will

not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he
redoubles strokes with double cracks, an expression not more loudly to
be applauded, or more easily pardoned than that which is rejected in its
favour. That a cannon is charged with thunder, or with double thunders,
may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance, and
nothing else is here meant by cracks, which in the time of this writer
was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he terms the
general dissolution of nature the crack of doom.
The old copy reads,
They doubly redoubled strokes.
I.ii.46 (401,8) So should he look, that seems to speak things strange]
The meaning of this passage, as it now stands, is, _so should he look,
that looks as if he told things strange_. But Rosse neither yet told
strange things, nor could look as if he told them; Lenox only
conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and therefore
undoubtedly said,
_What haste looks thro' his eyes? So should he look, that_ teems to
speak thinks strange.
He looks like one that is big with something of importance; a metaphor
so natural that it is every day used in common discourse.
I.ii.55 (402,1) Confronted him with self-comparisons] [Theobald
interpreted "him" as Cawdor; Johnson, in 1745, accused Shakespeare of
forgetfulness on the basis of Theobald's error; and Warburton here
speaks of "blunder upon blunder."] The second blunderer was the
present editor.
I.iii.6 (403,5) _Aroint thee, witch_!] In one of the folio editions the
reading is Anoint thee, in a sense very consistent with the common
accounts of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural acts
by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the
places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this sense, _anoint
thee, Witch_, will mean, _Away, Witch, to your infernal assembly_.
This reading I was inclined to favour, because I had met with the word
aroint in no other authour till looking into Hearne's Collections I found

it in a very old drawing, that he has published, in which St. Patrick is
represented visiting hell, and putting the devils into great confusion by
his presence, of whom one that is driving the damned before him with a
prong, has a label issuing out of his mouth with