Rosse. God save the king! Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane! Rosse. From Fife, great king; Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky. And fan our people cold. Norway himself, with terrible numbers, Assisted by that most disloyal traitor The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict; Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, Dun. Rosse. That now Great happiness! Sweno, the Norway's king, craves composition; Nor would we deign him burial of his men, Till be disbursed, at St. Colmes' Inch,' Ten thousand dollars to our general use. Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor shall de ceive Our bosom interest. death, Go, pronounce his present And with his former title greet Macbeth. Rosse. I'll see it done. Dun. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath [Excunt. won. 5 Steevens chuckles over the Poet's ignorance in making Bellona the wife of Mars. Surely a man must be ignorant not to see that the Poet makes Macbeth the husband of Bellona.- Lapp'd in proof is covered with armour of proof. H. 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. 7 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: 2 "Aroint thee,' witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries. 2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind.* The meaning of uroint, says Collier, is, "begone, stand oft, and it is still used in the Craven district, and generally in the north of England, as well as in Cheshire. In some places it has assumed the form of rynt, but it is the same word." Richardson, however, puts it down as from Rodere or Ronger, to guaw, to eat. So that the meaning here would be, as we still say, "por on you," or a plague take you." H. 2 A scabby or mangy woman fed on offals; the rumps heing formerly part of the kitchen fees of the cooks in great houses. 3 Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, 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: 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." 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. 4 This free gift of a wind is to be considered as an act of sisterly friendship; for witches were supposed to sell them. So in Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600 : In Ireland and in Denmark both Witches for gold will sell a man a wind, 1 Witch. Thou'rt kind. 3 Witch. And I another. 1 Witch. I myself have all the other; All the quarters that they know I'll drain him dry as hay: 2 Witch. Show me, show me. 6 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. 8 [Drum within. All. The weird sisters, hand in hand, 5 That is, forspoken, unhappy, charmed or bewitched. bedin fellow, Scotice, still signifies an unhappy one. A for 6 This was supposed to be done by means of a waxen figure. Holinshed, speaking of the witchcraft practised to destroy King Duff, says that they found one of the witches roasting, upon a wooden broach, an image of wax at the fire, resembling in each feature the king's person; "for as the image did waste afore the fire, so did the bodie of the king break forth in sweat: and as for the words of the inchantment, they served to keepe him still waking from sleepe." 7 In the pamphlet about Dr. Fian, already quoted: "Againe it is confessed, that the said christened cat was the cause of the Kinge's majestie's shippe, at his coming forth of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of his shippes then being in his companie." In the original weird is spelt weyward; doubtless either a misprint, or else intended to mark the word as having two sylla ules. Weird is from the Saxon wyrd, and means the same as the Posters of the sea and land, Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores? - What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o'the earth, me, By each at once her choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips : — You should be women. That you are so. Macb. Speak, if you can: What are you? 1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter. Ban. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? —I'the name of truth, Latin fatum; so that weird sisters is the fatal sisters, or the sisters of fate. Gawin Douglas, in his translation of Virgil, renders Parco by weird sisters. Which agrees well with Holinsned in the passage which the Poet no doubt had in his eye: "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 nymphs or feiries, indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necromanticall science, bicause everie thing came to passe as they had spoken." H. Are ye fantastical," or that indeed Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace, and great prediction Of noble having, and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal to me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear, Your favours, nor your hate. 1 Witch. Hail! 2 Witch. Hail! 3 Witch. Hail! 1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier. 3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none: So, all hail, Macbeth, and Banquo! 1 Witch. Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail! Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis; Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence you. Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them: Whither are they van ish'd? That is, creatures of fantasy or imagination. 10 According to Holinshed, "Sinell the thane of Glammis,' was Macbeth's father. H. |
