SONG 10.

Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.

2 Witch. By the pricking of my thumbs", Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks.

Enter MACBETH.

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

What is't you do?

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 12 waves Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodg'd13, and trees blown down;

Though castles topple 14 on their warders' heads;
Though palaces, and pyramids, do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germins 15 tumble all together,

10 Black spirits and white.' The original edition of this play only contains the two first words of this song; the entire stanza is found in The Witch, by Middleton, and is there called A charme Song about a Vessel.'

11 By the pricking of my thumbs.' It is a very ancient superstition, that all sudden pains of the body, and other sensations which could not naturally be accounted for, were presages of somewhat that was shortly to happen.

12 i. e. foaming, frothy.

13 i, e. laid flat by wind or rain.

14 Topple, tumble.

15 Germens, seeds which have begun to sprout or germinate.

Even till destruction sicken, answer me

To what I ask you.

1 Witch.

2 Witch.

3 Witch.

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

mouths,

Or from our masters'?

Macb.

Call them, let me see them.

1 Witch. Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow 16; grease, that's sweaten
From the murderer's gibbet, throw

Into the flame.

All.

Come, high, or low;

Thyself, and office, deftly 17 show.

Thunder. An Apparition of an armed Head rises 18

Macb. Tell me, thou unknown power,

1 Witch.

He knows thy thought;

Hear his speech, but say thou nought 19.

16 Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow.'

Shakspeare probably caught this idea from the laws of Kenneth II. king of Scotland: If a sow eate hir pigges, let hyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr flesh.'Holinshed's History of Scotland, ed. 1577, p. 181.

17 Deftly is adroitly, dexterously.

18 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.

19 Silence was necessary during all incantations. So in Dr. Faustus:

'Your grace demand no questions,

But in dumb silence let them come and go.'

And in The Tempest:

— be mute, or else our spell is marr'd.'

App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware

Macduff;

Beware the thane of Fife.-Dismiss me :- -Enough 20.

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

thanks;

Thou hast harp'd 21 my fear aright:-But one word

more:

1 Witch. He will not be commanded: Here's another,

More potent than the first.

Thunder. An Apparition of a bloody Child rises. App. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!Macb. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee 22. App. Be bloody, bold, And resolute: laugh to scorn the power of man, For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth23.

[Descends. Macb. Then live, Macduff; What need I fear of

thee?

But yet I'll make assurance double 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.—What is this,

20 Spirits thus evoked were supposed to be impatient of being questioned. The spirit in the Second Part of King Henry the VIth, Act iv. Sc. 1, says:—

'Ask what thou wilt:-That I had said and done.'

21 Harp'd, touched on a passion as a harper touches a string. 22 Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.' This singular expression probably means no more than 'I will listen to thee with all attention.'

23

For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.' So Holinshed :—' And surely hereupon he had put Macduff to death, but that a certeine witch, whom he had in great trust, had told him, that he should never be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the castle of Dunsinane. This prophecy put all fear out of his heart.'

Thunder. An Apparition of a Child crowned, with a Tree in his Hand, rises.

That rises like the issue of a king;

And wears upon
And top of sovereignty 24?

All.

his baby brow the round

Listen, but speak not to't.

App. Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are;
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 25
Shall come against him.

Macb.

[Descends.

That will never be;
Who can impress the forest 26; bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? sweet bodements!

good!

Rebellious head 27, rise never, till the wood
Of Birnam rise, and our high-plac'd Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time, and mortal custom.-Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing; Tell me, (if your art

24 The round is that part of a crown which encircles the head: the top is the ornament which rises above it.

25 The present accent of Dunsinane is right. In every subsequent instance the accent is misplaced. Thus in Hervey's Life of King Robert Bruce, 1729, which Ritson thinks a good authority

Whose deeds let Birnam and Dunsinnan tell,

When Canmore battled and the villain fell.'

Andrew of Wyntoun uses both accents.

Prophecies of apparent impossibilities were common in Scotland; such as the removal of one place to another, &c. Thus

Sir D. Lindsay:

Quhen the Bas and the Isle of May

Beis set upon the Mount Sinay,

Quhen the Lowmound beside Falkland

Be liftit to Northumberland.'

26 i. e. command it to serve him like a soldier impressed.

Rebellious head. The old copy reads dead; the emenda

tion is Theobald's.

Can tell so much), shall Banquo's issue ever
Reign in this kingdom?

All.

Seek to know no more.

Macb. I will be satisfied: deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know:Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise 28 is this? [Hautboys. 1 Witch. Show! 2 Witch. Show! 3 Witch. Show! All. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart 29; Come like shadows, so depart.

Eight Kings appear, and pass over the Stage in order; the last with a Glass in his Hand; BANQUO following.

Macb. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down!

Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs :—And thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:-
A third is like the former :-Filthy hags!

Why do you show me this?-A fourth ?-Start, eyes! What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom 30?

Another yet?—A seventh?—I'll see no more:-
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass

31

28 Noise in our old poets is often literally synonymous for music. Vide a note on the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act ii. Sc. 4.

29 Show his eyes, and grieve his heart.' And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart,'-1 Samuel, ii. 33.

30 i. e. the dissolution of nature. Crack and crash were formerly synonymous.

31 This method of juggling prophecy is referred to in Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 8:

6

and like a prophet

Looks in a glass, and shows me future evils.' In an extract from the Penal Laws against witches, it is said they do answer either by voice, or else set before their eyes glasses chrystal stones, &c. the pictures or images of the per

in