Doubtful it stood; CAP. As two spent swimmers, that do cling together And choke their art. The merciless Macdonald (Worthy to be a rebel,-for, to that, The multiplying villainies of nature. Do swarm upon him) from the western isles Of kernes and gallowglasses is supplied; And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak: For brave Macbeth, (well he deserves that name) Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smok'd with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, d b ALL. Paddock calls: &c.] The folio prints these lines as if spoken in chorus by the three witches; but the distribution commonly adopted by modern editors, "2 Witch. Paddock call:-anon All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air," is certainly preferable. The dialogue throughout, with the exception of the two lines, "I come, Graymalkin!" and "Paddock calls-anon!" was probably intended to be sung or chaunted. c This is the sergeant,-] Sergeants were not formerly the noncommissioned officers now so called, but a guard specially appointed to attend the person of the king; and, as Minsheu says, "to arrest Traytors or great men, that doe, or are like to contemne messengers of ordinarie condition, and to attend the Lord High Steward of England, sitting in judgement upon any Traytor, and such like." d And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, &c.] The old text has," damned Quarry," &c.; but the fact that quarrel, a Ross. God save the king! KING. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane? From Fife, great king; Ross. Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, Norway himself, with terrible numbers,' (*) Old text, Enter Rosse and Angus. most appropriate word, occurs in the corresponding passage of Holinshed, is almost certain proof that the latter term is the genuine reading:-"Out of the westerne Iles there came unto him [Makdowald] a great multitude of people, offering themselves to assist him in that rebellious quarell."-History of Scotland. e Which ne'er shook hands, &c.] "Which" has been altered, and perhaps rightly, to And. fdireful thunders break; &c.] The word break is wanting in the folio 1623, and was supplied by Pope out of the subsequent folios, which read, "breaking." g As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks; &c.] Johnson interprets this, "cannon charged with double thunders;" and observes truly that cracks was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play the writer terms the general dissolution of nature the crack of doom. h that seems to speak things strange.] Johnson proposed, "that teems to speak things strange ;" and Mr. Collier's annotator, with characteristic vapidity, "that comes to speak," &c; but compare, Scene 5, "Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crown'd withal." i with terrible numbers,-] Pope's transposition, "numbers terrible," is, prosodically, an improvement. Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger: b But in a sieve I'll thither sail,(1) And, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do. 2 WITCH. I'll give thee a wind. 1 WITCH. Thou art kind. 3 WITCH. And I another. 1 WITCH. I myself have all the other; And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know I will drain him dry as hay: 2 WITCH. Show me, show me. 1 WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd as homeward he did come. 3 WITCH. A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come. [Drum without. ALL. The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine:-Peace!-the charm's wound up. Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. MACB. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BAN. How far is 't call'd to Forres? * -What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire ; (*) Old text, Soris. a Aroint thee, witch!] It is strange that although the word "aroint," supposed to signify avaunt! away! begone! occurs again in Shakespeare, "King Lear," Act III. Sc. 4,-" Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!" no example of its employment by any other writer has yet been discovered. From this circumstance it has been supposed by some commentators to be only a misprint for anoint, a term consistent enough with the vulgar belief which represents witches sailing through the air on their infernal missions by the aid of unguents. Others have ingeniously suggested that aroint thee" may be a corruption of a rowan-tree, i.e. the mountain ash; a tree, time out of mind, believed to be of such sovereign efficacy against the spells of witchcraft, that any one armed with a slip of it may bid defiance to the machinations of a whole troop of evil spirits. We make no question, however, that "aroint" is the genuine word: it was not likely to be thrice misprinted. And besides, there is a North-country proverb, "Rynt ye witch! quoth Bessie Locket to her mother," which seems to have been formed upon the exclamation in the text. b Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:] Sir W. By Sinel's death, I know I am thane of Glamis; C. Trevelyan has noted that in Hakluyt's Voyages there are d The weird sisters,-] Weird (in the old text weyward) from the Saxon wyrd=fatum, signifies prophetic.or fatal. Holinshed, whom Shakespeare follows, speaking of the witches who met Macbeth, says, "But afterwards the common opinion was that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphes or fairies." And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so.] e Witches, according to the popular belief, were always bearded So, in The Honest Man's Fortune," Act II. Sc. 1,— and the women that Come to us, for disguises must wear beards; And that's, they say, a token of a witch." f fantastical,~] Visionary; illusions of the fantasy. With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge [Witches vanish. you. BAN. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them: whither are they vanish'd? MACB. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted As breath into the wind.-Would they had stay'd! the insane root,-] Shakespeare is supposed to have found the name of this root in Batman's Commentary on Bartholeme de Propriet. Rerum:-" Henbane. . . . . is called Insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth BAN. Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root," MACB. Your children shall be kings. You shall be king. MACB. And thane of Cawdor too,-went it not so ? madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason." -Lib. xvii. ch. 87. |