account of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural acts by means of unguents, and particularly to fly to their hellish festivals."

Rump-fed. According to Colepepper this means fed on offal (kidneys, rumps, and other scraps being among the low perquisites of the kitchen given away to the poor); but more likely it means well-fed: "she fed on best joints, I hungry and begging for a chestnut" (Moberly). Nares (endorsed by Schmidt) thinks it means "fat-rumped.”

Ronyon. "A scabby or mangy woman." See Wb. The word is used again in M. W. iv. 2. 195.

7. Aleppo. From this place there was a large caravan trade to Ispahan, Bussora, and Damascus. In Hakluyt's Voyages (1589) there are accounts of a voyage made to Aleppo by the ship Tiger of London, in 1583. Cf. T. N. v. 1. 65: "And this is he that did the Tiger board."

8. A sieve. A favourite craft with witches. Sir W. Davenant says, in his Albovine (1629): "He sits like a witch sailing in a sieve." Steevens quotes Newes from Scotland, or the damnable Life of Dr. Fian, a notable Sorcerer, etc., wherein it is told how sundry witches "went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive."

9. Without a tail. It was believed that a witch could take the form of any animal, but that the tail would be wanting. According to Sir F. Madden, one distinctive mark of a werwolf, or human being changed to a wolf, was the absence of a tail.

10. I'll do. "She threatens, in the shape of a rat, to gnaw through the hull of the Tiger and make her spring a leak" (C. P. ed.).

II. Steevens remarks that this free gift of a wind is to be considered as an act of sisterly friendship, for witches were supposed to sell them. Cf. Sumner's Last Will and Testament (1600):

"in Ireland and Denmark both,
Witches for gold will sell a man a wind,
Which, in the corner of a napkin wrap'd,
Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will."

The C. P. ed. quotes Drayton, Moon-Calf, line 865:

"She could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread,
Which ever as the seafarer undid,
They rose or scantled, as his sails would drive,
To the same port whereas he would arrive."

14. Other. See Gr. 12.
15. And the very ports they blow.
son wished to read "various" for
The C. P. editors think that "
able."

That is, to which they blow. Johnvery, and Pope "points" for ports. " for ports orts seems still more prob

66

17. The shipman's card. The card of the compass. =chart. Halliwell quotes The Loyal Subject:

as=

"The card of goodness in your minds, that shews ye
When ye sail false; the needle touch'd with honour,

Some explain it

That through the blackest storms still points at happiness," etc.

Cf. also Pope, Essay on Man, ii. 108:

"On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,

Reason the card, but passion is the gale."

For shipman, cf. T. and C. v. 2. 172; also 1 Kings, ix. 27 and Acts, xxvii. 27, 30.

20. Pent-house lid. Malone cites Decker, Gull's Horne-Booke: "The two eyes are the glasse windowes, at which light disperses itself into every roome, having goodlie pent-houses of haire to overshaddow them." Cf. also Drayton, David and Goliath:

21. Forbid.

"His brows, like two steep pent-houses, hung down
Over his eyelids."

Under a ban, or accursed.

22, 23. Probably suggested by Holinshed's account of the bewitching of King Duffe (see p. 133).

32. Weird. The folios have "weyward." Theo.. substituted weird, which is Holinshed's word. "The weird sisters" is Gawin Douglas's translation of Virgil's "Parcae." For the derivation of weird, see Wb. For the dissyllabic pronunciation of the word, see Gr. 485; and cf. ii. I. 20, iii. 4. 133, and iv. 1. 136.

33. Posters. "Speedy travellers" (Schmidt).

34. As the C. P. editors remark, the witches here take hold of hands and dance round in a ring nine times, three rounds for each witch, as a charm for the furtherance of their purposes. Multiples of three and nine were specially affected by witches, ancient and modern. See Ovid, Met. xiv. 58:

"Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore;"

and vii. 189-191:

"Ter se convertit; ter sumptis flumine crinem
Irroravit aquis; ternis ululatibus ora
Solvit."

38. Foul and fair. Perhaps referring to the sudden change in the weather, brought about by witchcraft; perhaps, as Elwin explains it, "foul with regard to the weather, and fair with reference to his victory." According to Delius (quoted by Furness), "Macbeth enters engaged in talking with Banquo about the varying fortune of the day of battle which they had just experienced."

39. Forres. Forres is on the southern shore of the Moray Frith, about twenty-five miles from Inverness. At its western extremity there is a height commanding the river, the level country to the south, and the town. Here are the ruins of an ancient castle, a stronghold of the Earls of Moray. Some believe that it was the residence of Duncan, and afterwards of Macbeth, when the court was at Forres. Not far distant is the famous "blasted heath," of which Knight says: "There is not a more dreary piece of moorland to be found in all Scotland. It is without tree or shrub. A few patches of oats are visible here and there, and the eye reposes on a fir plantation at one extremity; but all around is bleak and brown, made up of peat and bog water, white stones and bushes of furze. The desolation of the scene in stormy weather, or when the twilight fogs are trailing over the pathless heath or settling down upon the pools, must be indescribable."

43. That man may question. permitted to hold converse, or (Johnson).

"Are ye any beings with which man is of whom it is lawful to ask questions ?"

45. Should. See Gr. 323, and cf. i. 2. 46 above.

46. Beards. St. quotes B. and F., Honest Man's Fortune, ii. 1 :

"And the women that

Come to us, for disguises must wear beards;

And that's, they say, a token of a witch."

Cf. also M. W. iv. 2. 202: "I think the 'oman is a witch indeed; I like not when a 'oman has a great peard."

48. Glamis. "In Scotland, always pronounced as a monosyllable, with the open sound of the first vowel, as in alms" (Seymour).

Glamis, or Glammis, is a village about twenty-five miles north-east of Perth, in a very beautiful situation.* Near by is Glamis Castle, "perhaps the finest and most picturesque of the Scottish castles now inhabited." In its present form, it dates back only to the 17th century, though portions of it are much older. The original castle was frequently used as a residence by the Scottish kings, especially by Alexander II. in 1263-64. Robert II. gave it to John Lyon, who had married his daughter, but in 1537 it reverted to the Crown, and James V. occupied it for some time.

Sir Walter Scott says: "I was only nineteen or twenty years old when I happened to pass a night in this magnificent old baronial castle. The hoary old pile contains much in its appearance, and in the traditions connected with it, impressive to the imagination. It was the scene of the murder of a Scottish king of great antiquity; not indeed the gracious Duncan, with whom the name naturally associates it, but Malcolm II. It contains also a curious monument of the peril of feudal times, being a secret chamber, the entrance to which, by the law or custom of the family, must only be known to three persons at once-the Earl of Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they may take into their confidence. The extreme antiquity of the building is vouched by the immense thickness of the walls, and the wild and straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors. I was conducted to my apartment in a distant corner of the building; and I must own that, as I heard door after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead."

In front of the manse at Glamis is an ancient sculptured obelisk (see cut, p. 150) called "King Malcolm's Gravestone," and here tradition says he was buried.

51. Coleridge comments on this speech and the context as follows: "But O! how truly Shakespearian is the opening of Macbeth's character given in the unpossessedness of Banquo's mind, wholly present to the present object—an unsullied, unscarified mirror! And how strictly true to nature it is that Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our notice to the effect produced on Macbeth's mind, rendered temptable by previous dalliance of the fancy with ambitious thoughts:

* See cut on p. 8; and for Glamis Castle, views on p. 9 (from a sketch by Creswick, made about 1840) and p. 46.

'Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?'

And then, again, still unintroitive, addresses the witches:

'I' the name of truth,

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show?"

Banquo's questions are those of natural curiosity-such as a girl would put after hearing a gipsy tell her school-fellow's fortune;-all perfectly general, or rather planless. But Macbeth, lost in thought, raises himself to speech only by the witches being about to depart :

'Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more;'

and all that follows is reasoning on a problem already discussed in his mind-on a hope which he welcomes, and the doubts concerning the attainment of which he wishes to have cleared up. Compare his eagerness —the keen eye with which he has pursued the witches' evanishing— 'Speak, I charge you,'

with the easily satisfied mind of the self-uninterested Banquo: 'The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?'

and then Macbeth's earnest reply

'Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted

As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!

Is it too minute to notice the appropriateness of the simile as breath,' etc., in a cold climate?

Still again Banquo goes on wondering, like any common spectator : 'Were such things here as we do speak about?'

while Macbeth persists in recurring to the self-concerning:

'Your children shall be kings.

Banquo. You shall be king.

Macbeth. And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?"

So surely is the guilt in its germ anterior to the supposed cause and immediate temptation! Before he can cool, the confirmation of the tempting half of the prophecy arrives, and the concatenating tendency of the imagination is fostered by the sudden coincidence:

'Glamis, and thane of Cawdor!

The greatest is behind.'

Oppose this to Banquo's simple surprise :

'What, can the devil speak true?'"

53. Fantastical. "That is, creatures of fantasy, or imagination" (Johnson). The word occurs in Holinshed's account of this interview with the weird sisters (see p. 141). Cf. line 139 below, and Rich. II. i. 3. 299. 54. Show. Appear. See on i. 2. 15. On ye followed by you, see Gr.

236.

55.

"There is here a skilful reference to the thrice repeated 'Hail' of L