# Macbeth (1918) Yale/Notes

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NOTES
I. i. 8. Witches were said to keep spirits in the likeness of toads and cats, as their 'familiars.' Gray-malkin is a pet name for a cat. Paddock means 'toad.' The familiar of the Third Witch is not named; but she hears him call, and answers.
I. ii. 15. The first part of this line means that fortune smiled upon him deceitfully for a while. The second part probably means that all Macdonwald's efforts are unavailing.
I. ii. 21. Which ne'er shook hands. The meaning is that Macbeth ne'er quitted Macdonwald till he had killed him.
I. ii. 25. reflection. This word is used in its literal sense of 'turning back.' The sun comes back across the equator in the spring, the season of equinoctial storms. The Sergeant puns on the word 'spring' in line 27.
I. ii. 41. memorize another Golgotha. 'Make memorable another place of slaughter as awful as that of the Crucifixion.'
I. ii. 46. Thane. A military title of nobility, almost equivalent to that of an English earl.
I. ii. 50. flout. Ross uses the present tense, though evidently referring to past time. The people were fanned cold with fear before Macbeth's arrival.
I. iii. 6. rump-fed ronyon. The precise meaning of this phrase is uncertain. Ronyon seems to be equivalent to 'hussy.' Rump-fed may mean 'fat in the rump.' If it means 'fed on rump-ends of meat,' it remains doubtful whether the witch regards the ronyon as pampered or as half-starved.
I. iii. 9, 10. When a witch changes herself into an animal, the animal is usually not perfectly formed. This witch apparently intends to gnaw the planks ​of the Tiger. She admits later that it cannot be sunk, but perhaps she can reduce it to a water-logged and unseaworthy condition.
I. iii. 20. pent-house lid. A pent-house is an out-house or shed, with a lean-to roof affixed to the side of the main building.
I. iii. 32. weird sisters. Weird was formerly a noun meaning 'fate.' In Holinshed's History, from which Shakespeare adapted the plot of the play, Macbeth is said to have encountered 'three women in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of [the] elder world.' Afterwards, Holinshed continues, it was supposed that these women were 'the weird, sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destiny.' Shakespeare has turned these personages into something like ordinary English witches, but his imagination was evidently impressed by Holinshed's more exalted designation of them.
I. iii. 35. Thrice to thine. These words cannot be precisely explained, but they evidently refer to figures in the dance. Possibly (for example) each witch circles three times in the direction of her left-hand neighbor, and then draws the latter back after her through three more circles. Or perhaps the words 'thine' and 'mine' accompany obeisances in honor of the witches' respective familiars.
I. iii. 56. noble having. The First Witch has just greeted Macbeth with present grace, the Second with great prediction of noble possessions, and the Third with great prediction of royal hope.
I. iii. 92, 93. There is a conflict in the King's mind between astonishment and admiration. His wonders and his praises contend as to which should be bestowed upon Macbeth. The words 'or his,' after the comma, are added as an afterthought, and mean: 'or rather, they contend as to which better express the King's own sentiments.' The King's uncertainty reduces him to silence.
​I. iii. 97. images of death. The meaning is that Macbeth was not at all afraid of those whom he himself straightway converted into corpses.
I. iii. 97. as thick as tale. This may mean either 'as fast as I can now tell you' or 'as fast as they could be counted.' With either interpretation the expression seems so awkward that many editors feel justified in changing 'tale' to 'hail.'
I. iii. 137. Present fears. 'Terrors that are present to the eye.' An enemy, for example, who confronts you in battle, is less disturbing than the dread of imagined horrors.
I. iii. 147. Time and the hour. 'Time and opportunity,' 'opportune time.' There is always opportunity, even in the day that seems hopeless.
I. iv. 19. proportion. The thought seems to be that, if Macbeth's services had been less great, Duncan might have overpaid him with thanks and benefits, and there would then have been a credit balance on Duncan's side of the account.
I. iv. 39. Prince of Cumberland. This title, in Scotland, corresponded to that of Prince of Wales in modern England. Malcolm is designated as heir-apparent to the throne. Cumberland is now the northwesternmost county in England, but in the eleventh century it was disputed territory. In the tenth century it had been for a time a recognized part of the Kingdom of Scotland.
I. v. 18. milk of human kindness. Some critics see a difficulty in this phrase, inasmuch as they do not find Macbeth overfull of kindness. They accordingly interpret the last two words as if they were written 'humankind-ness,' and explain the whole expression as meaning 'the inherited weakness of human nature.' To the present editor this seems uncalled for.
I. v. 23–26. The sense is: Thou wishest to have, great Glamis, the crown, which cries 'thou must do murder' if thou art to have it; and murder is what ​thou rather fearest to do than wishest undone. Logically we should expect in line 24 'Thus thou must do, if thou have me,' but the speaker shifts suddenly from direct to indirect quotation.
I. v. 64. time. This word (with the definite article) sometimes means 'the age,' i.e., 'all living men.' To beguile the time means substantially 'to deceive everybody.' In the next line, look like the time means 'adapt your expression to the festive occasion.'
I. vi. 13. 'eyld. 'God 'eyld you' is merely a way of saying 'thank you.' Duncan's meaning is: The love that makes people come to visit us is sometimes a nuisance, though we still are grateful for it as love; therefore you must thank us for the pains we put you to.
I. vi. 25–28. The sense is: Your servants ever hold their retainers, their own persons, and their property subject and accountable (in compt) to you, to render their accounts whenever you please, and always to repay you what is yours. (Or it may be that the first theirs in line 26 means 'all that they own,' and the words themselves, and what is theirs are but an amplified repetition of the same idea.)
I. vii. 1–7. The sense is: If the whole business were finished when the murder is done, then 'twere well to do the murder quickly; if the killing of Duncan could at the same time remove the possibility of unpleasant consequences to myself, and with the removal thereof achieve final success; so that this murderous blow might be the end of the story so far as this life is concerned; then I would take the chances of the life to come.
I. vii. 7–25. In lines 7–12 Macbeth means that he cannot expect to go unpunished even in this life; he will be setting an example of murder which will react upon himself; he will have to drink his own medicine. In the twelve lines which ensue, he is ​thinking how the murder of Duncan will appear to others. Its peculiar wickedness makes it especially dangerous.
I. vii. 28. falls on the other. If the image in Macbeth's mind is of a man vaulting over a bar or a horse, these words must mean 'falls on the other side.' The word 'side,' indeed, is needed to fill the metre of the line, and it seems to have been omitted only by a printer's error. If this is not the meaning, we may imagine that Macbeth is thinking not of one vaulter but of two professional tumblers (who were commonly called 'vaulters'), or even of two players at leap-frog. One attempts too long a take-off, and falls on the other.
I. vii. 42. That which Macbeth esteems the ornament of life is the 'golden opinions' of line 33.
I. vii. 45. adage. 'The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet.'
I. vii. 60. sticking-place. The image is of a soldier winding up his cross-bow. He turns a screw until the cord reaches the notch and sticks.
II. i. 16. shut up. This expression apparently has its modern meaning, but without any shade of disrespect.
II. i. 17–19. The sense is: As we were unprepared, our desire to honor the King was hampered by our unpreparedness. Otherwise it certainly would have had free play.
II. i. 54. Whose howl's his watch. The howl of the wolf is the watch-cry that arouses Murder to action.
II. i. 55. Tarquin was the son of the last of the kings of prehistoric Rome. His crime was a midnight assault upon Lucrece, in her chamber.
II. ii. 3. bellman. The allusion is to the watch that was set over a condemned person the night before his execution.
​II. ii. 37. ravell'd sleeve. The word 'ravel' originally meant 'tangle,' but by Shakespeare's time it had already become confused with 'unravel,' and so might mean either 'tangle' or 'fray out.' Sleeve also admits of two interpretations. It may be used in the ordinary sense, or it may be a variant spelling of 'sleave,' a word somewhat loosely applied to various kinds of raw silk. If 'sleeve' is here used in the latter sense, 'ravell'd' means 'tangled,' and the whole phrase refers to the difficulties of the careworn weaver or spinner, when he has 'tangled silk fibres' to handle. Most modern editors adopt this interpretation, and actually change 'sleeve' to 'sleave' in the text. To the present editor the alteration seems unjustifiable. Shakespeare may have meant simply the 'frayed sleeve' of a person whom care has made negligent. From a purely literary point of view, each interpretation has its own advantages.
II. iii. 5. farmer. The Porter fancies that a farmer (who is knocking at hell's gate) had hoarded grain; but the prospect of a plentiful crop lowered prices and ruined him.
II. iii. 10. equivocator. This word became a jest in March, 1606, through the trial for treason of Henry Garnet, a detested Jesuit, who committed perjury and afterwards explained it as mere 'equivocation.'
II. iii. 103. vault. This word is used in a double sense, suggesting both a wine-cellar and the world with its overarching sky.
II. iii. 120. nature. This means not Duncan's merely human nature, but the whole order of the universe. It seemed as if Chaos were come again.
III. i. 26. go not my horse the better. Unless my horse go faster (than is to be expected).
III. i. 92–101. The sense is: Ay, in a mere list of objects you would pass for men; as various kinds of dogs are called just 'dogs'; but the list that gives ​values of objects (not merely their names) distinguishes dogs according to their worth; whereby each receives an individual title [as distinguished] from the bill or catalogue that writes them all down merely as dogs.
III. ii. 14. malice. This word often meant not ill-will, but the power to enforce one's will; and it was sometimes used with no evil sense. Thus the 'malice' of an army was its attacking power. Macbeth seems to mean simply his capacity for overcoming difficulties. So in line 32 'malice domestic' means not a spirit of disaffection, but the armed power of civil insurrection. But in either of these passages there may be also a shade of the more usual meaning of the word.
III. ii. 49. bond. This may mean Banquo's lease of life, referring to 'copy' in line 38; but more probably it means the promise of fate that Banquo's children should be kings.
III. iv. 33–36. The sense is: A feast does not seem freely given, unless the host often declares (vouches), while it is in progress, that 'tis given with welcome; mere feeding is best done at home; away from home, the sauce to meat is ceremony.
III. iv. 71–73. Macbeth means that, if the dead will not stay buried, our bones will be consumed by birds of prey, and only then will find their resting-place.
III. iv. 106. baby of a girl. The word 'baby' was sometimes used, even of a grown person, for 'pet' or 'darling.' A 'girl's pet' would be a molly-coddle. But possibly the whole phrase is merely an intensive expression for 'girl'; as we say 'chit of a child' or 'monster of a man.' There is room also for divers other conjectural interpretations.
III. iv. 112, 113. strange . . . to. 'Unfamiliar with,' hence 'uncertain of.' Macbeth means: You make me uncertain even of my own character (i.e., ​doubtful whether I am a brave man), when I see you unterrified.
III. iv. 124. understood relations. 'The correct understanding of related facts,' i.e., the ability to put two and two together. Macbeth means that observations of the actions of birds of ill omen, and ability to use these observations in interpretation of the facts, have led to the detection of the most secret murders.
III. v. It is fairly certain that this scene, and also the half-dozen lines assigned to Hecate in Act IV, Scene i, were not written by Shakespeare. At some revival of the play, perhaps after Shakespeare's death and certainly before the printing of the First Folio, it seems to have been thought best to expand the part of the witches. The writer employed to make the additions had a conception of witches, and of their relations with men, which differed materially from Shakespeare's. He seems to have obtained his conception from a play called The Witch, by Thomas Middleton. The two songs, designated here by their first lines, are found in full in that play.
IV. i. 3. Harpier. It is impossible to determine who this is; but see note on I. i. 8.
IV. i. 50, 51. Macbeth conjures the witches in the name of that skill in divination which they profess; and no matter by what evil methods they have learned the answer to his question, he must have it.
IV. i. 58, 59. treasure Of Nature's germens. Germens are seeds. The phrase seems to mean 'the whole stock of Nature's fruitfulness.' It is almost as if Macbeth had said 'all creation.'
IV. i. 97. Rebellious dead. Many editors change this to 'Rebellion's head,' but the alteration destroys the sense of the passage. Macbeth is thinking of the ghost of Banquo. He felt that the Second Apparition insured him only against the power of living man; but the Third Apparition seems to mean that he will ​never be vanquished by anything. Note that after the Second Apparition's promise Macbeth speaks of Macduff; but that here his mind turns immediately to Banquo. Banquo's ghost cannot vanquish him; but who will reign after him?
IV. i. 121. two-fold balls and treble sceptres. James, who became King of England in 1603, was already King of Scotland. In 1604 he assumed the title of 'King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.' He was popularly supposed to be descended from Banquo.
IV. ii. 22. Each way and move. This passage is probably corrupt. As it stands, it seems best to take move as a noun. 'Each way we travel, nay, each movement we make.'
IV. iii. 13–16. Malcolm purposely speaks darkly. His full meaning seems to be: 'Macbeth was once thought honest (as you are; perhaps you are really as bad as he). You have formerly loved him well (perhaps you do still). He hath not touched you yet (because you are his friend). Young and harmless as I am, you may discern a chance for greater favor from him through me; you may discern wisdom in betraying me.' The last sentence is awkward, and some editors change 'discern' to 'deserve'; but even this alteration does not remove the whole difficulty.
IV. iii. 136, 137. The sense is: May our chance of success be in proportion to the justice of our quarrel.
IV. iii. 142. stay his cure. To Edward the Confessor, King of England in Macbeth's time, was ascribed the power to cure scrofula by his touch. The disease was called 'the king's evil.' Many of Edward's successors practiced the same cure. Among these was James I, in compliment to whom this passage is inserted.
IV. iii. 171. Is there scarce ask'd for who. When ​a death-knell is heard in Scotland, people scarcely ask for whom it is rung, it has become so common.
IV. iii. 219. Dispute it. This is usually taken to mean 'contend with your sorrow.' More probably Malcolm is again urging Macduff to seek vengeance.
V. iii. 21. disease. The reading of the First Folio is 'dis-eate.' This is obviously a misprint, and modern editors take their choice between 'disseat' and 'disease.' The former makes a more vigorous sentence: but 'disease' offers a more natural antithesis to 'cheer'; it is the reading of all the Folios except the First; and it was commonly used in Shakespeare's time in the sense here attributed to it. Cf. Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603), Act IV, Scene iii: 'I should disease my friend, and be a trouble to the whole house.'
V. vii. 2. course. In the favorite sport of bear-baiting, a bear was tied to a stake, and dogs were set upon him in relays, sometimes ten at a time.
V. vii. 30. Roman fool. This is a scornful allusion to the ancient Roman conception of suicide as an act of heroism. Shakespeare may or may not have had in mind the individual cases of Brutus and Cassius, whose stories he had already dramatized in Julius Cæsar.