ACT FOURTH

SCENE I

A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

First Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew❜d.
Sec. Witch. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch. Harpier cries "Tis time, 'tis time.'
First Witch. Round about the cauldron go:
In the poison'd entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
All. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Sec. Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,

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6. So in the original. Pope would read, "under the cold stone"; Steevens, "under coldest stone"; the latter of which is commonly followed. There seems, indeed, no call for any discord here, such as comes by omitting a syllable from the verse, and perhaps something dropped out in the printing. Yet to our ear the extending of cold to the time of two syllables feels right enough. At all events, we stick to the original.-H. N. H.

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. All. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Third Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

25. "the dark"; as the season of misdeeds.-C. H. H.

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30

28. "in the moon's eclipse"; a season proverbially ill-omened; cf. Lear i. 2. 117, Sonnets lx. and cvii.-C. H. H.

34. In sorting the materials wherewith the Weird Sisters celebrate their infernal orgies, and compound their "hell-broth," Shakespeare gathered and condensed the popular belief of his time. Ben Jonson, whose mind dwelt more in the circumstantial, and who spun his poetry much more out of the local and particular, made a grand showing from the same source in his Mask of Queens. But his powers did not permit, nor did his purpose require, him to select and dispose his materials so as to cause anything like such an impression of terror. Shakespeare so weaves his incantations as to cast a spell upon the mind, and force its acquiescence in what he represents: explode as we may the witchcraft he describes, there is no exploding the witchcraft of his description; the effect springing not so much from what he borrows as from his own ordering thereof.— H. N. H:

Sec. Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.

Hec. O, well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains:
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

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[Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' &c.

Macb. How now, you secret, black, and midnight

hags!

What is 't you do?

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All.
A deed without a name.
Macb. I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches! though the yesty waves

43. "Black spirits"; this song also, like the former, was not given in the printed copy of the play, and has been supplied from Middleton's Witch, the manuscript of which was discovered towards the close of the last century. We give it here, not feeling authorized to print it in the text:

"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may."

Probably both songs were taken from "the traditional wizard poetry of the drama.”—H. N. H.

Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown
down;

Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the
treasure

Of nature's germins tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken; answer me
To what I ask you.

First Witch.

Sec. Witch.

Third Witch.

60

Speak.

Demand.

We'll answer.

First Witch. Say, if thou 'dst rather hear it from

our mouths,

Or from our masters?

Macb.

Call 'em, let me see 'em.

First Witch. Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten

All.

Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten

From the murderer's gibbet throw

Into the flame.

Come, high or low;

Thyself and office deftly show!

Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head.

Macb. Tell me, thou unknown power,

First Witch.

He knows thy thought:

68. The "armed head" represents symbolically Macbeth's head cut off and brought to Malcolm by Macduff. The bloody child is Macduff, untimely ripped from his mother's womb. The child, with a crown on his head and a bough in his hand, is the royal Malcolm, who ordered his soldiers to hew them down a bough, and bear it before them to Dunsinane (Upton).-H. N. H.

Hear his speech, but

say

thou nought.

70

First App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;

Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me: enough.

[Descends. Macb. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution

thanks;

Thou hast harp'd my fear aright: but one word

more,

First Witch. He will not be commanded: here 's another,

More potent than the first.

Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody Child. Sec. App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Macb. Had I three ears, I 'ld hear thee.

Sec. App. Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to

scorn

The power of man, for none of woman born 80
Shall harm Macbeth.

[Descends. Macb. Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of

thee?

But yet I'll make assurance doubly sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.

Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand.

70. Silence was necessary during all incantations. So in The Tempest: "Be mute, or else our spell is marr'd.”—H. N. H.

72. "Dismiss me: enough"; spirits thus evoked were supposed to be impatient of being questioned.-H. N. H.

78. So the expression still in use: "I listened with all the ears I had."-H. N. H.