Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies | Page 7

the crown, _when 'tis_, when that happens which
the prediction promises, it shall make honour for you.
II.i.49 (437,6) Now o'er the one half world/Nature seems dead] That is,
over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This
image, which is perhaps the most striking that poetry can produce, has
been adopted by Dryden in his _Conquest of Mexico_:
_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 song repeat, And
sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat. Even lust and envy
sleep!_
These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast
between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately
observed.
Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet,
the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of

the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery,
lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lull'd
with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that
peruses Shakspeare looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself
alone. One is the night of a lover, the other, of a murderer.
II.i.52 (438,8)
--wither'd Murther, --thus with hia stealthy pace, With Tarquin's
ravishing strides, tow'rds his design moves like a ghost.--]
This was the reading of this passage [ravishing sides] in all the editions
before that of Mr. Pope, who for sides, inserted in the text strides,
which Mr. Theobald has tacitly copied from him, though a more proper
alteration might perhaps have been made. A ravishing stride is an
action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage
rushing at his prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an
image of secrecy and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty
timidity, the stealthy pace of a ravisher creeping into the chamber of a
virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he
proposes to murder, without awaking him; these he describes as moving
like ghosts, whose progression is so different from strides, that it has
been in all ages represented te be, as Milton expresses it,
Smooth sliding without step.
This hemiatic will afford the true reading of this place, which is, I think,
to be corrected thus:
--_and wither'd Murder_. --thus with his stealthy pace. With Tarquin
ravishing, slides _tow'rds his design_, Moves like a ghost.--
Tarquin is in this place the general name of a ravisher, and the sense is,
Now is the time in which every one is a-sleep, but those who are
employed in wickedness; the witch who is sacrificing to Hecate, and
the ravisher, and the murderer, who, like me, are stealing upon their
prey.

When the reading is thus adjusted, he wishes with great propriety, in
the following lines, that the earth may not hear his steps.
II.i.59 (439,3) And take the present horrour from the time,/Which now
suits with it] Of this passage an alteration was once proposed by me, of
which I have now a less favourable opinion, yet will insert it, as it may
perhaps give some hint to other critics:
_And take the present horrour from the time, Which now suits with
it_.--
I believe every one that has attentively read this dreadful soliloquy is
disappointed at the conclusion, which, if not wholly unintelligible, is, at
least, obscure, nor can be explained into any sense worthy of the
authour. I shall therefore propose a slight alteration:
--_Thou sound and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they
walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about, And talk--the
present horrour of the time! That now suits with it_.--
Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by
enumerating all the terrors of the night; at length he is wrought up to a
degree of frenzy, that makes him afraid of some supernatural discovery
of his design, and calls out to the stones not to betray him, not to
declare where he walks, nor to talk.--As he is going to say of what, he
discovers the absurdity of his suspicion, and pauses, but is again
overwhelmed by his guilt, and concludes, that such are the horrors of
the present night, that the stones may be expected to cry out against
him:
That now suits with it.--
He observes in a subsequent passage, that on such occasions stones
have been known to move. It is now a very just and strong picture of a
man about to commit a deliberate murder under the strongest
conviction of the wickedness of his design. Of this alteration, however,
I do not now see much use, and certainly see no necessity.

Whether to take horrour from the time means not rather to