2 Witch. Upon the heath: 3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth. 1 Witch. I come, Graymalkin! All. Paddock calls:- Anon2. Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. [Witches vanish. SCENE II. A Camp near Fores. Alarum within. Enter King DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier3. Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt The newest state. Mal. This is the sergeant*, Who, like a good and hardy soldier fought 'Gainst my captivity:-Hail, brave friend! Say to the king the knowledge of the broil, As thou didst leave it. Sold. Doubtful it stood; As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel; for to that5 The multiplying villanies of nature Do swarm upon him), from the western isles 2 Upton observes that, to understand this passage, we should suppose one familiar calling with the voice of a cat, and another with the croaking of a toad. A paddock most generally seems to have signified a toad, though it sometimes means a frog. What we now call a toadstool was anciently called a paddock-stool. 3 The first folio reads captain. 4 Sergeants, in ancient times, were not the petty officers now distinguished by that title; but men performing one kind of feudal military service, in rank next to esquires. 5 Vide Tyrwhitt's Glossary to Chaucer, v. for; and Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, p. 205. For to that means no more than for that; or cause that. The late editions erroneously point this passage, and as erroneously explain it. I follow the punctuation of the first folio. Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied 6; 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, Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the slave; And9 ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, And fix'd his head upon our battlements. Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflexion Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break 10; So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come, Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark: 6 i. e. supplied with armed troops so named. Of and with are indiscriminately used by our ancient writers. Gallowglasses were heavy armed foot soldiers of Ireland and the western isles: Kernes were the lighter armed troops. 7 But fortune on his damned quarry smiling.'-Thus the old copies. It was altered at Johnson's suggestion to quarrel, which is approved and defended by Steevens and Malone. But the old copy needs no alteration. Quarry means the squadron, escadre, or square body, into which Macdonwald's troops were formed, better to receive the charge; through which Macbeth carved out his passage till he faced the slave." Thus in King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 2: — our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants, Who, in unnecessary action, swarm About our squares of battle.' Again, in Antony and Cleopatra :— In the brave squares of battle.' 8 The meaning is that Fortune, while she smiled on him, deceived him. 9 The old copy reads which. 10 Sir W. Davenant's reading of this passage, in his alteration of the play, is a tolerable comment on it : 'But then this daybreak of our victory Serv'd but to light us into other dangers, That spring from whence our hopes did seem to rise.' Break is not in the first folio. No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd, With furbish'd arms, and new supplies of men, Dun. Dismay'd not this Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo ? Sold. Yes; As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion. Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe: Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds, I cannot tell: But I am faint, my gashes cry for help. Dun. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds; They smack of honour both:-Go, get him sur[Exit Soldier, attended. geons. Enter ROSSE. Who comes here? Mal. The worthy thane of Rosse. Len. What a haste looks through his eyes! So 12 That is, reports. So in the old play of King John, 1591:~~ 6 as harmless and without effect As is the echo of a cannon's crack.' 13 i. e. make another Golgotha as memorable as the first. 14 6 That seems about to speak strange things.' Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky 15, Norway himself, with terrible numbers, The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict: Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, Dun. Rosse. That now Great happiness! Sweno 18, the Norways' king, craves composition; Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest:-Go, pronounce his present death, And with his former title greet Macbeth. Rosse. I'll see it done. Dun. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. 16 By Bellona's bridegroom Shakspeare means Macbeth. Lapp'd in proof is defended by armour of proof. 17 Confronted him with self-comparisons.' By him is meant Norway, and by self-comparisons is meant that he gave him as good as he brought, showed that he was his equal. 18 It appears probable, as Steevens suggests, that Sweno was only a marginal reference, which has crept into the text by mistake; and that the line originally stood That now the Norway's king craves composition.' It was surely not necessary for Rosse to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway. 19 Colmes' is here a dissyllable. Colmes' Inch, now called Inchcomb, is a small island, lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it dedicated to St. Columb. Inch or inse, in Erse, signifies an island. SCENE III. A Heath. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1 Witch. Where hast thou been, sister? 2 Witch. Killing swine. 3 Witch. Sister, where thou? 1 Witch. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd: :Give me, quoth I: Aroint thee1, witch! the rump-fed ronyon2 cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'the Tiger: But in a sieve I'll thither sail3, 1 The etymology of this imprecation is yet to seek. Rynt ye for out with ye! stand off! is still used in Cheshire; where there is also a proverbial saying, Rynt ye, witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother.' Tooke thought it was from roynous, and might signify a scab or scale on thee!'-Others have derived it from the rowan tree, or witch-hazle, the wood of which was believed to be a powerful charm against witchcraft; and every careful housewife had a churn-staff made of it. This superstition is as old as Pliny's time, who asserts that a serpent will rather creep into the fire than over a twig of ash.' The French have a phrase of somewhat similar sound and import-' Arry-avant, away there ho!'-Mr. Douce thinks that 'aroint thee' will be found to have a Saxon origin. 2 Rump-fed ronyon,' a scabby or mangy woman fed on offals ; the rumps being formerly part of the emoluments or kitchen fees of the cooks in great houses. 3 In The Discovery of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scott, 1584, he says it was believed that witches' could sail in an egg-shell, a cockle or muscle-shell through and under the tempestuous seas.' And in another pamphlet, Declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was buried at Edenborough in Januarie last, 1591'—'All they together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine making merrie, and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives,' &c. Sir W. D'Avenant, in his Albovine, 1629, says 'He sits like a witch sailing in a sieve.' It was the belief of the times that though a witch could assume the form of any animal she pleased, the tail would still be wanting. |