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

enquiry why they should ftile themselves the weyward, or wayward fifters. This word, in its general acceptation, fignifies, perverfe, froward, moody, obftinate, untractable, &c. and is every where fo ufed by our Shakespeare. To content ourfelves with two or three instances:

"Fy, fy, how wayward is this foolish love,
"That, like a tefty babe, &c."

Two Gentlemen of Verona. "This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy." Love's Labour Loft. "And which is worse, all you have done

Is but for a wayward fon."

It is improbable the witches would adopt this epithet to themfelves, in any of these senses, and therefore we are to look a little farther for the poet's word and meaning. When I had the first fufpicion of our author being corrupt in this place, it brought to my mind the following paffage in Chaucer's Troilus and Creffeide, lib. iii. v. 618:

"But O fortune, executrice of wierdes." Which word the Gloffaries expound to us by fates, or deftinies. I was foon confirmed in my fufpicion, upon happening to dip into Heylin's Cofmography; where he makes a fhort recital of the story of Macbeth and Banquo.

6.

3

"These two," fays he, travelling together through a forest, were met by three fairies, witches, wierds. The Scots call them, &c."

I prefently recollected, that this story must be recorded at more length by Holinfhed, with whom, I thought, it was very proba ble, that our author had traded for the materials of his tragedy, and therefore confirmation was to be fetched from this fountain. Accordingly, looking into the Hiftory of Scotland, I found the writer very prolix and exprefs, from Hector Boethius, in his remarkable story; and, p. 170, fpeaking of these witches, he uses this expreffion:

"But afterwards the common opinion was, that these women were either the weird fisters; that is, as ye would fay, the God deffes of Destiny, &c."

Again, a little lower:

"The words of the three weird fifters alfo (of whom before ye have heard) greatly encouraged him thereunto."

And in feveral other paragraphs there this word is repeated. I

Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

Mac. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Ban.

believe, by this time, it is plain, beyond a doubt, that the word wayward has obtained in Macbeth, where the witches are spoken of, from the ignorance of the copyifts, who are not acquainted with the Scotch term; and that in every paffage, where there is any relation to thefe witches or wizards, my emendation must be embraced, and we must read weird. THEOBALD.

The weyward fifters, hand in hand,]

Mr. Theobald had found out who thefe weyward fifters were; but obferved they were called, in his authentic Holinfhed, weird fifters; and fo would needs have weyward a corruption of the text, because it fignifies perverfe, froward, &c. and it is improbable (he Tays) that the witches should adopt this epithet to themselves. It was hard that, when he knew fo much, he fhould not know a little more; that weyward had anciently the very fame fenfe, as weird; and was, indeed, the very fame word differently spelt; having acquired its later fignification from the quality and temper of these imaginary witches. But this is being a critic like him who had discovered that there were two Hercules's; and yet did not know that he had two next-door neighbours of one and the fame name. As to thefe weyward fifters, they were the Fates of the northern nations; the three hand-maids of Odin. Hæ nominantur Valkyria, quas quodvis ad prælium Odinus mittit. He viros morti deftinant, & victoriam gubernant. Gunna, & Rota, & parcarum minima Skullda: per aëra & maria equitant femper ad morituros eligendos; & cædes in poteftate habent. Bartholinus de Caufis contemptæ à Danis adhuc Gentilibus mortis. It is for this reason that Shakespeare makes them three; and calls them,

Pofters of the fea and land;

and intent only upon death and mischief. However, to give this part of his work the more dignity, he intermixes, with this northern, the Greek and Roman fuperftitions; and puts Hecate at the head of their enchantments. And to make it ftill more familiar to the common audience (which was always his point) he adds, for another ingredient, a fufficient quantity of our own country fuperftitions concerning witches; their beards, their cats, and their broomsticks. So that his witch-fcenes are like the charm they prepare in one of them; where the ingredients are gathered from every thing hocking in the natural world, as here, from every thing abfurd in the moral. But as extravagant as all this is, the play has had the power to charm and bewitch every audience from that time to this. WARBURTON.

Wierd comes from the Anglo-Saxon pyn, and is used as a fub

ftantive

Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores??-What are thefe So wither'd, and fo wild in their attire;

That look not like the inhabitants o'the earth,
And yet are on't?-Live you? or are you aught
That man may queftion? You feem to understand

me,

By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips :-You fhould be women,

ftantive fignifying a prophecy by the tranflator of Hector Boethius in the year 1541, as well as for the Deftinies by Chaucer and Holinfhed. Of the weirdis gevyn to Makbeth and Banghuo, is the argument of one of the chapters. Gawin Douglas, in his tranflation of Virgil, calls the Parce the weird fifters; and in Ane verit excellent and delectabill Treatife intitulit PHILOTUS, qubairin we may perfave the greit inconveniences that fallis out in the Mariage be tweene Age and Zouth, Edinburgh, 1605, the word appears again; How dois the quheill of fortune go,

Again':

"Quhat wickit wierd has wrocht our wo."

"Quhat neidis Philotus to think ill,

"Or zit his wierd to warie?"

The other method of fpelling was merely a blunder of the tran fcriber or printer.

The Valkyria, or Valkyriur, were not barely three in number. The learned critic might have found in Bartholinus, not only Gunna, Rota, et Skullda, but alfo Scogula, Hilda, Gondula, and Geirofcogula. Bartholinus adds that their number is yet greater, according to other writers who fpeak of them. They were the cup-bearers of Odin, and conductors of the dead. They were distinguifhed by the elegance of their forms, and it would be as just to compare youth and beauty with age and deformity, as the Valky ria of the North with the Witches of Shakespeare. STEEVENS.

? How far is't call'd to Fores?- -1

The king at this time refided at Fores, a town in Murray, not far from Inverness. "It fortuned, (fays Holinfhed) as Macbeth and Banquo journeyed towards Fores, where the king then lay, they went fporting by the way, without other company, fave only themselves, when fuddenly in the midst of a laund, there met them three women in ftrange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of the elder world, &c." STEEVENS.

* That man may question? -}

Are ye any beings with which man is permitted to hold converfe, or of whom it is lawful to ask questions? JOHNSON,

And

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are fo.

Mach. Speak, if you can;-What are you? i Witch. All hail, Macbeth hail to thee, thane of Glamis 4!

your beards}

2 Witch:

Witches were fuppofed always to have hair on their chins. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635:

66 Some women have beards, marry they are half witches." STEEVENS,

It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's Efay upon English Tragedy, that the portrait of Macbeth's wife is copied from Buchanan, "whofe fpirit, as well as words, is tranflated into the play of Shakespeare: and it had fignified nothing to have pored only on Holinfhed for facts.". Animus etiam, per fe ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quæ omnium confiHorum ei erat confcia) ftimulabatur.". This is the whole, that Buchanan fays of the Lady, and truly I fee no more Spirit in the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. "The wordes of the three weird fifters alfo greatly encouraged him [to the mur der of Duncan], but fpecially his wife lay fore upon him to attempt the thing, as fhe that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable defire to beare the name of a queene." Edit. 1577,

P. 244.

This part of Holinfhed is an abridgment of Johne Bellenden's tranflation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edingburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the paffage as it is found there,

His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all avemen ar) fpecially quhare they are defirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to purfew the third weird, that fche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht defyrus of honouris, fen he durft not affailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit findry otheris hes affailzeit fic thinges afore with maist terribyl jeopardyis, quhen thay had not fic fickernes to fucceid in the end of thair laubouris as he had." p. 173.

But we can demonftrate, that Shakespeare had not the story from Buchanan. According to him, the weird fifters falute Macbeth :

Una Angufie Thanum, altera Moravia, tertia Regem. Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c. but according to Holinfhed, immediately from Bellenden, as it ftands in Shakespeare: The first of them fpake and fayde, All hayle Makbeth Thane of Glammis, the fecond of them fayde, Hayle Makbeth Thane

2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor 5!

3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that fhalt be king hereafter.

Ban. Good fir, why do you ftart; and seem to fear

Things that do found fo fair?-I'the name of truth, Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which

of Cawder; but the third fayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereaf ter fhall be king of Scotland." p. 243.

3

1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! 2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that halt be king hereafter! Here too our poet found the equivocal predictions, on which his hero fo fatally depended: "He had learned of certaine wyfards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe; -and furely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch whom he had in great truft, had tolde, that he should neuer be flain with man borne of any woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the caftell of Dunfinane." P. 244. And the fcene between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almoft li terally taken from the Chronicle. FARMER.

4

thane of Glamis!]

The thaneship of Glamis was the ancient inheritance of Macbeth's family. The castle where they lived is still standing, and was lately the magnificent refidence of the earl of Strathmore. See a parti cular description of it in Mr. Gray's letter to Dr. Wharton, dated from Glames Caftle. STEEVENS.

5

-thane of Cawdor!]

Dr. Johnson obferves in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scot land, that part of Calder caftle, from which Macbeth drew his fecond title, is still remaining. STEEVENS.

• Are ye fantastical,

-]

By fantaftical is not meant, according to the common fignifica tion, creatures of his own brain; for he could not be fo extravagant to ask fuch a question: but it is used for fupernatural, Spiria tual. WARBURTON.

By fantaftical, he means creatures of fantafy or imagination; the question is, Are these real beings before us, or are we deceived by illufions of fancy? JOHNSON.

So, in Reginald Scott's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584: "He affirmeth thefe tranfubftantiations to be but fantaftical, not accor ding to the veritie, but according to the appearance." The fame expreffion occurs in All's Loft by Luft, 1633, by Rowley:

"