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: Arointa thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:b But in a sieve I'll thither sail, (1) I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do. 2 WITCH. I'll give thee a wind. 1 WITCH. Thou art kind. 3 WITCH. And I another. 1 WITCH. I myself have all the other; And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know I will drain him dry as hay: 2 WITCH. Show me, show me. 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. [Drum without. Aroint thee, witch!] It is strange that although the word "aroint," supposed to signify avaunt! away! begone! occurs again in Shakespeare, "King Lear," "Act III. Sc. 4,-"Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!" no example of its employment by any other writer has yet been discovered. From this circumstance it has been supposed by some commentators to be only a misprint for anoint, a term consistent enough with the vulgar belief which represents witches sailing through the air on their infernal missions by the aid of unguents. Others have ingeniously suggested that "aroint thee" may be a corruption of a rowan-tree, i. e. the mountain ash; a tree, time out of mind, believed to be of such sovereign efficacy against the spells of witchcraft, that any one armed with a slip of it may bid defiance to the machinations of a whole troop of evil spirits. We make no question, however, that "aroint" is the genuine word: it was not likely to be thrice misprinted. And besides, there is a North-country proverb, "Rynt ye witch! quoth Bessie Locket to her mother," which seems to have been formed upon the exclamation in the text. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:] Sir W. C. Trevelyan has noted that in Hakluyt's Voyages there are several letters and journals of a voyage made to Aleppo in the ship Tiger, of London, in the year 1583. e-forbid :] Forespoken, bewitched. ALL. The weirda sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: 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 Forres?*-What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire; That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on 't? (3)—Live you? or are you aught Upon her skinny lips.-You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret 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, Are ye fantastical, or that indeed Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner That he seems rapt withal:-to me you speak not: And say which grain will grow, and which will not, 1 WITCH. Hail! 2 WITCH. Hail! 3 WITCH. Hail! 1 WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier. (*) Old text, Soris The weird sisters,-] Weird (in the old text weyward) from the Saxcn wyrd= fatum, signifies prophetic or fatal. Holinshed, whom Shakespeare follows, speaking of the witches who met Macbeth, says, "But afterwards 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 nymphes or fairies." b And yet your beards forbid me to interpret Witches, according to the popular belief, were always bearded. So, in "The Honest Man's Fortune," Act II. Sc. 1,— " and the women that Come to us, for disguises must wear beards; - fantastical,-] Visionary; illusions of the fantasy. 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: No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence [Witches vanish. BAN. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, That takes the reason prisoner? MACB. Your children shall be kings. You shall be king. MACB. And thane of Cawdor too,-went it not so? Enter Ross and ANGUS. Ross. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth, Which should be thine or his: silenc'd with that, ANG. Not pay thee. (*) Old text, Can. Corrected by Rowe. 90 the insane root,-] Shakespeare is supposed to have found the name of this root in Batman's Commentary on Bartholeme de Propriet. Rerum :-" Henbane is called Insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly Mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason."-Lib. xvii. ch. 87. bas thick as tale-] That is-as rapid as counting. Rowe most unwarrantably changed "tale" to "hail;" and this alteration has been adopted by many editors, for no other reason, it would appear, than that the former simile was unusual, and the latter common-place. Ross. And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! For it is thine. BAN. [Aside.] What! can the devil speak true? ANG. MACB. [Aside.] Glamis, and thane of Cawdor! BAN. Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 't is strange: The instruments of darkness tell us truths; In deepest consequence.- Two truths are told, As happy prologues to the swelling act 130 Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.- My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, suggestion-] Temptation. -130 b Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,-] Query, upfix? That temptation whose horrid image fixes my unstable hair, and shakes my seated heart. my single state of man,-] "Single" here bears the sense of weak; my feeble government (or body-politic) of man. Shakespeare's affluence of thought and language is so unbounded that he rarely repeats himself, but there is a remarkable affinity both in idea and expression between the present passage and one in Act II. Sc. 1, of "Julius Cæsar," "Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Look, how our partner's rapt. MACB. [Aside.] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir. BAN. New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use. MACB. [Aside.] Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten. Where every day I turn the leaf to read them.— Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, Our free hearts each to other. Flourish. Enter KING DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Attendants. KING. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd? My liege, MAL. writers of England. Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: Time and the hour-] Examples of this phrase may readily be found in the early Mr. Dyce has shown that it was familiar also to those of Italy:"Ferminsi in un momento il tempo e l' ore." Michelagnolo,-Son. xix. "Aspettar vuol ch' occasion gli dia, Dolce,-Prime Impresse del Conte Orlando, c. xvii. p. 145, ed. 1572. - Are not-] So the second folio; that of 1623 has, " Or not," &c |