Thane, thy book is hard to read

I have been labouring in my first-ever reading of a full-length, unabridged Shakespearan play. After I finally mustered up the guts to read one and selected the complete annotated version of Macbeth, I found myself being caught up in the notes below each page instead of going with the flow. Many of the word usages can be self-deduced, but knowing that all the abstruse and archaic words are explained below tempt me to ensure I've decoded all of them, with the result that I've got a little exhausted by the constant to-and-fro between the ancient and the modern English ages. I need to pick myself up and finish the book. I always thought I must take a shot at the Bard, but wasn't sure if I was ready to do so.

Sidenote: If time travel was an option, travellers back and forth would find the language problem hard to solve more than anything else. Like the Americans and English are reputed to have been divided by a common language, we would be divided by our ancient ancestors by our own languages, and the changing meaning of words over the times. For instance, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie makes liberal use of the word "g a y" which modern authors wouldn't dare to in the same way. And the venerable ThiruvaLLuvar wouldn't have enough cotton plugs to put in his ears if he heard the slangy Madras Tamil of today.