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 his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty 24?

All.

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 Shall come against him.

Macb.

25

[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. 27 Rebellious head. The old copy reads dead; the emendation 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:

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 in glasses chrystal stones, &c. the pictures or images of the per

and some I see,

Which shows me many more;
That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry
Horrible sight!-Now, I see, 'tis true;

For the blood-bolter'd 33 Banquo smiles upon me,
And points at them for his.-What, is this so?

1 Witch. Ay, sir, all this is so:-But why
Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?—
Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprights 34,
And show the best of our delights;

I'll charm the air to give a sound,
While you perform your antique 35 round:
That this great king may kindly say,
Our duties did his welcome pay.

[Musick. The Witches dance, and vanish.

sons or things sought for.' Spenser has given a circumstantial account of the glass which Merlin made for King Ryence.— Faerie Queene, b. iii. c. 2. A mirror of the same kind was presented to Cambuscan, in the Squire's Tale of Chaucer: and we are told that a certaine philosopher did the like to Pompey, the which shewed him in a glasse the order of his enemies march.' —Boisteau's Theatrum Mundi, translated by John Alday, b. l. no date.

32 That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.' This was intended as a compliment to James the First: he first united the two islands and the three kingdoms under one head, whose house too was said to be descended from Banquo, who is therefore represented not only as innocent, but as a noble character; whereas, according to history, he was confederate with Macbeth in the murder of Duncan.

33 In Warwickshire, when a horse, sheep, or other animal, perspires much, and any of the hair or wool, in consequence of such perspiration, or any redundant humour, becomes matted into tufts with grime and sweat, he is said to be boltered; and whenever the blood issues out and coagulates, forming the locks into hard clotted bunches, the beast is said to be blood-boltered. When a boy has a broken head, so that his hair is matted together with blood, his head is said to be boltered [pronounced baltered]. The word baltereth is used in this sense by Philemon Holland in his Translation of Pliny's Natural History, 1601, b. xii. c. xvii. p. 370. It is therefore applicable to Banquo, who had 'twenty trenched gashes on his head.'

34 i. e. spirits. It should seem that spirits was almost always pronounced sprights or sprites by Shakspeare's cotemporaries. 35 Antique was the old spelling for antick.

VOL. IV.

C C

Macb. Where are they? Gone?-Let this per

nicious hour

Stand aye accursed in the calendar!—

Come in, without there!

Macb. Came they not by you?

Len.

No, indeed, my lord. Macb. Infected be the air whereon they ride; And damn'd all those that trust them!-I did hear The galloping of horse: Who was't came by? Len. "Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word,

Macduff is fled to England.

Macb.

Len. Ay, my good lord.

Fled to England?

Macb. Time, thou anticipat'st 36 my dread exploits : The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it: From this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand. And even now

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

The castle of Macduff I will surprise;

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o'the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace 37 him in his line. No boasting like a fool:
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool:

But no more sights!-Where are these gentlemen ?
Come, bring me where they are.

[Exeunt.

36 i. e. preventest them, by taking away the opportunity. 37 i. e. follow, succeed in it.

SCENE II. Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle.

Enter LADY MACDUFF, her Son, and ROSSE.

L. Macd. What had he done, to make him fly the land?

He had none;

Rosse. You must have patience, madam. L. Macd. His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors 1.

Rosse.

You know not,

Whether it was his wisdom, or his fear.

L. Macd. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His mansion, and his titles, in a place

From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch2: for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear, and nothing is the love;

As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.

Rosse.
My dearest coz',
I pray you, school yourself: But, for your husband,
He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o'the season 3. I dare not speak much
further:

But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour

1 'Our fears do make us traitors.' Our flight is considered as evidence of our treason.

2 Natural touch, natural affection.

3 The fits o' the season should appear to be the violent disorders of the season, its convulsions: as we still say figuratively the temper of the times. So in Coriolanus :

The violent fit o' th' times craves it as physic.'