Act 1 — SCENE VIII.
Reading edition
King. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses.
Ban. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his lov'd mansionry, that heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty frieze, Buttrice, nor coigne of 'vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd, The air is delicate.
In this short scene, I propose a slight alteration to be made, by substituting site for seat, as the ancient word for situation; and sense for senses, as more agreeable to the measure; for which reason likewise I have endeavoured to adjust this passage,
—heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty frieze,
by changing the punctuation and adding the syllable thus,
—heaven's breath Smells wooingly. Here is no jutty frieze.
Those who have perused books, printed at the time of the first editions of Shakespeare, know that greater alterations than these are necessary almost in every page, even where it is not to be doubted, that the copy was correct.
NOTE XVI.
SCENE. X.
The arguments by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakespeare'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:
I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.
This topick, 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 consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument Shakespeare, 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.
NOTE XVII.
Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' th' adage.
The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish but dares not wet her foot.
Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.
NOTE XVIII.
Will I with wine and wassel so convince.
To convince is, in Shakespeare, to overpower or subdue, as in this play:
—Their malady convinces The great assay of art.
NOTE XIX.
—Who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell?
Quell is murder, manquellers being, in the old language, the term for which murderers is now used.