And that, distill'd by magick slights 3,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As, by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion:
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear:
And you all know, security

Is mortal's chiefest enemy.

4

Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c. * Hark, I am call'd; my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

[Exit.

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LENOX and another Lord.

Len. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,

Which can interpret further: only, I say,

Things have been strangely borne: The gracious Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth:-marry, he was dead:-
And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;
Whom, you may say, if it please you, Fleance kill'd,
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot1 want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm, and for Donalbain,
To kill their gracious father? damned fact !

same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment. Lucan introduces Erictho using it, lib. vi. :—

Et virus large lunare ministrat.' 3 Slights are arts, subtle practices.

4 This song is to be found entire in The Witch, by Middleton. 1 Who cannot want the thought,' &c. The sense requires who can want the thought; but it is, probably, a lapse of the poet's pen.

How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive,
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well: and I do think,
That, had he Duncan's sons under his key,

(As, an't please heaven, he shall not), they should find What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance. But, peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd

His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
Macduff lives in disgrace: Sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?

Lord.
The son of Duncan,
From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court; and is receiv'd
Of the most pious Edward with such grace,
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect: Thither Macduff
Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid
To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward:
That, by the help of these, (with Him above
To ratify the work), we may again

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives2;
Do faithful homage, and receive free honours 3,
All which we pine for now: And this report

2 Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives.' The construction is:- Free our feasts and banquets from bloody knives.'

3 Johnson says, 'Free may be either honours freely bestowed, not purchased by crimes; or honours without slavery, without ad of a tyrant.' I have shown in a note on Twelfth Night, Actii. 1, p. 322, that free meant pure, chaste, consequently unspotted, ch may be its meaning here. Free also meant noble. See e on the Second Part of King Henry VI. Act iii. Sc. 1.

4

Hath so exasperate the king, that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.

Len.

Sent he to Macduff?

Lord. He did: and with an absolute, Sir, not I, The cloudy messenger turns me his back,

And hums; as who should say, You'll rue the time That clogs me with this answer.

And that well might

Len.
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England, and unfold
His message ere he come; that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accurs'd 5!

Lord.

I'll send my prayers with him!

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Cauldron boiling.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches1.

1 Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 2 Witch. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd2.

4 Exasperate, for exasperated.

5

to this our suffering country Under a hand accursed.'

6

The construction is to this our country, suffering under a hand accursed.'

1'Enter the three Witches.' Dr. Johnson has called the reader's attention to the judgment with which Shakspeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions.' 2 Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.' The urchin or hedgehog, like the toad, for its solitariness, the ugliness of its

3 Witch. Harper cries:-'Tis time, 'tis time.
1 Witch. Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under coldest3 stone,

4

Days and nights hast thirty-one
Swelter'd venom, sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!
All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's 5 sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf;
Witch's mummy; maw and gulf

appearance, and from a popular belief that it sucked or poisoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic system; and its shape was sometimes supposed to be assumed by mischievous elves. Hence it was one of the plagues of Caliban in the Tempest.

3 Coldest stone.' The old copy reads cold stone;' the emendation is Steevens's. Mr. Boswell thinks that the alteration was unnecessary. See his Essay on Shakspeare's Versification.

4 Sweitered. This word is employed to signify that the animal was moistened with its own cold exudations. So in the twenty-second song of Drayton's Polyolbion :

'And all the knights there dubb'd the morning but before, The evening sun beheld there sweltered in their gore.'

5 The blind-worm is the slow-worm. Thus in Drayton's Noah's Flood:

The small eyed slow-worm held of many blind. ulf, the throat.

Of the ravin'd7 salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;

Gall of goat; and slips of yew,
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver❜d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter HECATE, and the other three Witches.
Hec. O, well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains.
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

7 To ravin according to Minshew is to devour, to eat greedily. Ravin'd, therefore, may be glutted with prey. Unless, with Malone, we suppose that Shakspeare used ravin'd for ravenous, the passive participle for the adjective. In Horman's Vulgaria, 1519, occurs Thou art a ravenar of delycatis'.

8 Sliver is a common word in the north, where it means to cut a piece or slice. Again in King Lear:

'She who herself will sliver and disbranch.'

9 i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common use in books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1597, is a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron.