Do faithful homage, and receive free honours, Prepares for fome attempt of war.8 LEN. Sent he to Macduff? LORD. He did and with an abfolute, Sir, not I, The cloudy meffenger turns me his back, And hums; as who fhould fay, You'll rue the time That clogs me with this anfwer. LEN. And that well might Advife him to a caution, to hold what distance knives. Perhaps the words are tranfpofed, and the line originally flood: Our feafts and banquets free from bloody knives. Aukward tranfpofitions in ancient language are fo frequent, that the paffage before us might have paffed unfufpected, had there not been a poffibility that the compofitor's eye caught the word free from the line immediately following. We might read, fright, or fray, (a verb commonly used by old writers,) but any change, perhaps, is needlefs. STEEVENS, 3 and receive free honours,] Free may be either honours freely beftowed, not purchased by crimes; or honours without Navery, without dread of a tyrant. JOHNSON. 6 -exafperate-] i. e. exafperated. So contaminate is ufed for contaminated in King Henry V. STEEVENS. 7 the king,] i. e. Macbeth. The old copy has, lefs intelligibly their. STEEVENS. Their refers to the fon of Duncan, and Macduff. Sir T. Hanmer reads, unneceffarily, I think, the king. MALONE. 8 Prepares for fome attempt of war.] The fingularity of this expreffion, with the apparent redundancy of the metre, almoft perfuade me to follow Sir T. Hanmer, by the omiffion of the two laft words. STEEVENS. Advife him to a caution,] Sir T. Hanmer, to add fmoothnefs to the yerfification, reads to a care. I fufpect, however, the words-to a, are interpolations, defigned to render an elliptical expreffion more clear, according to His wifdom can provide. Some holy angel LORD. My prayers with him! 2 [Exeunt. fome player's apprehenfion. Perhaps the lines originally stood thus: I And that well might Advife him caution, and to hold what distance His wifdom can provide. STEEVENS. to this our fuffering country Under a hand accurs'd!] The conftruction is, to our country fuffering under a hand accurfed. MALONE. 2 My prayers with him!] The old copy, frigidly, and in defiance of meafure, reads I'll fend my prayers with him. I am aware, that for this, and fimilar rejections, I fhall be cenfured by those who are difinclined to venture out of the track of the old ftage-waggon, though it may occafionally conduct them into a flough. It may foon, therefore, be discovered, that numerous beauties are refident in the difcarded wordsI'll fend; and that as frequently as the vulgarifm-on, has been displaced to make room for-of, a diamond has been exchanged for a pebble. For my own fake, however, let me add, that, throughout the present tragedy, no fuch liberties have been exercised, without the previous approbation of Dr. Farmer, who fully concurs with me in fuppofing the irregularities of Shakspeare's text to be oftener occafioned by interpolations, than by omiffions. STEEVENS, A dark Cave. ACT IV. SCENE 1,3 In the middle, a Cauldron boiling. Thunder. Enter the Three Witches. 1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.4 3 Scene I.] As this is the chief fcene of enchantment in the play, it is proper, in this place, to obferve, with how much judgment Shakspeare has felected all the circumftances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions : "Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd." The ufual form in which familiar fpirits are reported to converfe with witches, is that of a cat. A witch, who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakspeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the fpirit of one of those witches was Grimalkin; and when any mischief was to be done, she used to bid Rutterkin go and fly. But once, when fhe would have fent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the Countess of Rutland, inftead of going or flying, he only cried mew, from whence the difcovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not univerfal, but limited, as Shakspeare has taken care to inculcate : Though his bark cannot be loft, "Yet it fhall be tempeft-toft." The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced, were melancholy, fits, and lofs of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakspeare's witches: "Weary fev'n nights, nine times nine, "Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine." It was likewife their practice to deftroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to fecure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they feem to have been moft fufpected of malice against fwine. Shakspeare has accordingly made one of his witches declare that the has been killing fwine; and Dr. Harfnet obferves, that, about that time, "a fow could not be ill of the measles, 2 WITCH. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.5 nor a girl of the fullens, but fome old woman was charged with witchcraft." Toad, that under the cold ftone, Days and nights haft thirty-one, * Swelter'd venom fleeping got, "Boil thou first i'the charmed pot." Toads have likewife long lain under the reproach of being by fome means acceffary to witchcraft, for which reason Shakspeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits Paddock or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was feized at Tholoufe, there was found at his lodgings ingens bufo vitro inclufus, a great toad fhut in a vial, upon which those that profecuted him Veneficium exprobrabant, charged him, I fuppofe, with witchcraft. "Fillet of a fenny fnake, "In the cauldron boil and bake: 66 Eye of newt, and toe of frog ;"For a charm," &c. The propriety of these ingredients may be known by confulting the books De Viribus Animalium and De Mirabilibus Mundi, afcribed to Albertus Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover very wonderful fecrets. "Finger of birth-ftrangled babe, "Ditch-deliver'd by a drab;' It has been already mentioned, in the law against witches, that they are fuppofed to take up dead bodies to ufe in enchantments, which was confeffed by the woman whom King James examined; and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their affemblies, two fingers for her fhare. It is obfervable, that Shakspeare, on this' great occafion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstances of horror. The babe, whofe finger is ufed, must be ftrangled in its birth; the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the fow, whose blood is used, muft have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius. "And now about the cauldron fing, "Black fpirits and white, "Red fpirits and grey, "Mingle, mingle, mingle, "You that mingle may." 3 WITCH. Harper cries: 'Tis time, 'tis time." And, in a former part: <s weird fifters, hand in hand,- "Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, "And thrice again, to make up nine!" These two paffages I have brought together, because they both feem fubject to the objection of too much levity for the folemnity of enchantment, and may both be shown, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really obferved by the uncivilifed natives of that country: "When any one gets a fall, fays the informer of Camden, he starts up, and, turning three times to the right, digs a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a fpirit in the ground, and if he falls fick in two or three days, they fend one of their women that is fkilled in that way to the place, where the fays, I call thee from the east, weft, north, and fouth, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the fairies, red, black, white." There was likewise a book written before the time of Shakspeare, defcribing, amongst other properties, the colours of spirits. Many other circumstances might be particularifed, in which Shakspeare has shown his judgment and his knowledge. JOHNSON. 4 Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.] A cat, from time immemorial, has been the agent and favourite of Witches. This fuperftitious fancy is pagan, and very ancient; and the original, perhaps, this: "When Galinthia was changed into a cat by the Fates, (fays Antonius Liberalis, Metam. c. xxix.) by witches, (fays Paufanias in his Botics,) Hecate took pity of her, and made her her prieftefs; in which office the continues to this day. Hecate herself too, when Typhon forced all the gods and goddeffes to hide themselves in animals, affumed the fhape of a cat. So, Ovid: Fele foror Phabi latuit." WARBURTON. 5 Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.] Mr. Theobald reads, twice and once, &c. and obferves that odd numbers are ufed in all enchantments and magical operations. The remark is juft, but the paffage was misunderstood. The second Witch only repeats the number which the first had mentioned, in order to confirm what she had faid; and then adds, that the hedge-pig had likewife cried, though but once. Or what seems more eafy, the hedge-pig had whined thrice, and after an interval had whined once again. |
