Sticking place

Posted by Joe on January 04, 2009 at 17:29

In Reply to: Sticking place posted by Momz Wopperer on January 04, 2009 at 16:31:

: What exactly is a "sticking place" where one may "screw their courage to"? I know it's from Shakespeare & I know what it means but I can't imagine what or where a sticking place is.

Here is a very early explaination:

The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journalý - Page 121
by Ralph Griffiths, G. E. Griffiths - English imprints - 1808

Few persons will perhaps be inclined to agree that the sticking place means ...
that she means to exhort her husband to wind up his courage to such a pitch, ...

" Macbeth" has furnished many opportunities for producing curious points of faith in regard to the powers and dispositions of witches.-Few persons will perhaps be inclined to agree that the sticking place means the stabbing place ; and without inquiring whether Lady Macbeth drew her metaphor from a pile-driver or the peg of a violin, the generality of readers will be satisfied with believing that she means to exhort her husband to wind up his courage to such a pitch, that it might act with force and vigor,-This play, more especially the part allotted to its hero^ abounds with obscure passages ; and perhaps it is not impossible that the poet might sometimes intend, by the obscurity of his language, to paint the agitated state of a mind employed in horrid actions at it jrevoltedj distracted with scruples, torn by remorse,

• Sticking place ESC 04/January/09
  • Sticking place Smokey Stover 04/January/09
    • Sticking place Lewis 06/January/09