1 WITCH. Round about the cauldron go; Even numbers, however, were always reckoned inaufpicious. So, in The Honeft Lawyer, by S. S. 1616: "Sure 'tis not a lucky time; the first crow I heard this morning, cried twice. This even, fir, is no good number." Twice and once, however, might be a cant expreffion. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. Silence fays, "I have been merry twice and once, ere now." STEEVENS. The urchin, or hedgehog, from its folitarinefs, the ugliness of its appearance, and from a popular opinion that it fucked or poifoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic fyftem, and its fhape was fometimes fuppofed to be affumed by mischievous elves. Hence it was one of the plagues of Caliban in The Tempest. T. WARTON. 6 Harper cries:] This is fome imp, or familiar fpirit, concerning whofe etymology and office, the reader may be wifer than the editor. Those who are acquainted with Dr. Farmer's pamphlet, will be unwilling to derive the name of Harper from Ovid's Harpalos, ab agraw rapio. See Upton's Critical Obfervations, &c. edit. 1748, p. 155. Harper, however, may be only a mis-spelling, or misprint, for harpy. So, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, &c. 1590 : "And like a harper tyers upon my life." The word cries likewife feems to countenance this fuppofition. Crying is one of the technical terms appropriated to the noise made by birds of prey. So, in the nineteenth Iliad, 350: « Ἡ δ', ΑΡΠΗ εἰκυῖα τανυπτέρυγι, ΔΙΓΥΦΩΝΩ, « Οὐρανῶ ἐκκατέπαλτο, Thus rendered by Chapman : 7 "And like a harpie, with a voice that shrieks," &c. STEEVENS. 'Tis time, 'tis time.] This familiar does not cry out that it is time for them to begin their enchantments; but cries, i. e. gives them the fignal, upon which the third Witch communicates the notice to her fifters: Harper cries:-'Tis time, 'tis time. Thus too the Hecate of Middleton, already quoted: Hec.] Heard you the owle yet? Stad.] Briefely in the copps. "Hec.] 'Tis high time for us then." STEEVENS. Toad, that under coldeft ftone,9 ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 3 2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny fnake, Round about the cauldron go;] Milton has caught this image in his Hymn on the Morning of Chrift's Nativity: "In difmal dance about the furnace blue." STEEVENS. coldest Stone,] The old copy has-" cold ftone." The modern editors" the cold ftone." The flighter change I have made, by fubftituting the fuperlative for the pofitive, has met with the approbation of Dr. Farmer, or it would not have appeared in the text. STEEVENS. The was added by Mr. Pope. MALONE. I Days and nights haft-] Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE. Old copy-has. Corrected by 2 Swelter'd venom-] This word feems to be employed by Shakspeare, to fignify that the animal was moistened with its own cold exfudations. So, in the twenty-fecond Song of Drayton's Polyolbion : "And all the knights there dub'd the morning but before, "The evening fun beheld there fwelter'd in their gore.' In the old tranflation of Boccace's Novels, [1620] the following fentence alfo occurs: an huge and mighty toad even weltering (as it were) in a hole full of poifon."" Sweltering in blood" is likewife an expreffion ufed by Fuller, in his Church Hiftory, p. 37. And in Churchyard's Farewell to the World, 1593, is a fimilar expreffion : "He fpake great thinges that fwelted in his greace." 3 Double, double toil and trouble;] As this was a very extraordinary incantation, they were to double their pains about it. I think, therefore, it fhould be pointed as I have pointed it : Double, double toil and trouble ; otherwife the folemnity is abated by the immediate recurrence of the rhyme. STEEVENS. Eye of newt, and toe of frog, ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 3 WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw, and gulf," Of the ravin'd falt-fea fhark; 7 Root of hemlock, digg'd i'the dark; Adder's fork,] Thus Pliny, Nat. Hift. Book XI. ch. xxxvii : "Serpents have very thin tongues, and the fame three-forked." P. Holland's tranflation, edit. 1601, p. 338. STEEVENS. 6 throat. blind-worm's fting,] The blind-worm is the lowSo Drayton, in Noah's Flood: "The fmall-eyed flow-worm held of many blind." STEEVENS. ・maw, and gulf,] The gulf is the Swallow, the STEEvens. In The Mirror for Magiftrates, we have "monftrous mawes and gulfes." HENDERSON. 7-ravin'd falt-fea Shark;] Mr. M. Mafon obferves that we should read ravin, instead of ravin'd. So, in All's well that ends well, Helena fays: "Better it were "I met the ravin lion, when he roar'd "With fharp conftraint of hunger." And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid of the Mill, Gillian fays: "When nurfe Amaranta "Was feiz'd on by a fierce and hungry bear, "She was the ravin's prey." However, in Phineas Fletcher's Locufts, or Appollyonifis, 1627, the fame word, as it appears in the text of the play before us, occurs: "But flew, devour'd and fill'd his empty maw; "But with his raven'd prey his bowells broke, 8 Liver of blafpheming Jew; Make the gruel thick and flab:' Ravin'd is glatted with prey. Ravin is the ancient word for prey obtained by violence. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 7: but a den for beafts of ravin made." The fame word occurs again in Meafure for Meafare. STEEVENS. To ravin, according to Minthieu, is to devour, or eat greedily. See his DICT. 1617, in v. To devour. I believe our author, with his ufual licence, ufed ravin'd for ravenous, the paffive participle for the adjective. MALONE. * Sliver'd in the moon's eclipfe ;] Sliver is a common word in the North, where it means to cut a piece or a flice. Again, in King Lear: "She who herfelf will liver and disbranch." Milton has tranfplanted the fecond of thefe ideas into his Lycidas: -perfidious bark "Built in th' eclipfe." STEEVENS. 9 Nofe of Turk, and Tartar's lips;] Thefe ingredients, in all probability, owed their introduction to the deteftation in which the Turks were held, on account of the holy wars. So folicitous, indeed, were our neighbours, the French, (from whom most of our prejudices, as well as cuftoms, are derived,) to keep this idea awake, that even in their military fport of the quintain, their foldiers were accuftomed to point their lances at the figure of a Saracen. STEEVENS. 1 Finger of birth-ftrangled &c. Make the gruel thick and flab ;] Gray appears to have had this paffage in his recollection, when he wrote "Sword that once a monarch bore Keep the tiffie clofe and firong." Fatal Sifters. STEEVENS. Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,* ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. Enter HECATE, and the other Three Witches.3 HEC. O, well done! 4 I commend your pains; And every one shall share i'the gains. * Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,] Chaudron, i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common ufe in the books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1597, I meet with a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron. Again, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: Sixpence a meal wench, as well as heart can with, with calves' chauldrons and chitterlings." At the corona tion feast of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. among other dishes, one was 66 a fwan with chaudron," meaning fauce made with its entrails. See Ives's Select Papers, N° 3. p. 140. See alfo Mr. Pegge's Forme of Cury, a Roll of ancient English Cookery, &c. 8vo. 1780, p. 66. STEEVENS. 3 the other Three Witches.] The infertion of these words (and the other Three Witches) in the original copy, muft be owing to a mistake. There is no reason to suppose that Shakspeare meant to introduce more than Three Witches upon the fcene. RITSON. Perhaps these additional Witches were brought on for the fake of the approaching dance. Surely the original triad of hags was infufficient for the performance of the "ancient round" introduced in page 219. STEEVENS. 40, well done!] Ben Jonfon's Dame, in his Mafque of Queens, 1609, addreffes her affociates in the fame manner : "Well done, my hags." The attentive reader will obferve, that in this piece, old Ben has exerted his ftrongeft efforts to rival the incantation of Shakfpeare's Witches, and the final addrefs of Profpero to the aerial fpirits under his command. |