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advantage, on fresh and frightful numbers, with unconcern like that
sometimes the wife of Mars, sometimes his mother, at others his sister, and even his nurse? The inconsistencies of the Theogony are endless. Shakspeare, probably, took Bellona, as the moderns usually do, for the sister of Mars:—
Lastly, and most to the point;—Mars is not alluded to in this passage at all: The Bridegroom here figuratively wedded to Bellona—(however ill this truth may accord with Mr. Steevens's purpose,)—can be no other person, but Macbeth. Though Rosse does not mention him by name; yet common sense, and metaphorical sense, and the, otherwise unintelligible, context of this scene with that which follows, all prove that he alone is meant in this bold expression: The poet, by hyperbole, calls Macbeth himself, Bellona's Bridegroom; as if he were, in fact, honoured with the union, of which Rosse, in his excessive admiration, paints him worthy. Mr. Henley and Mr. Steevens might just as reasonably suppose, that Duncan, who also omits the name of Macbeth, is
