I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.1 2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind. I Witch. Thou art kind.5 3 Witch. And I another. I Witch. I myself have all the other; All the quarters that they know I will drain him dry as hay: under the tempestuous seas." And in the 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 I'll do is a threat of gnawing a hole through the hull of the ship so as to make her spring a-leak. 5 This free gift of a wind is to be taken as an act of sisterly kindness; witches being thought to have the power of selling winds. 6 The seaman's chart, which shows all the points of the compass, as we call them, marked down in the radii of a circle. 7" Penthouse lid" is eyelid protected as by a penthouse roof. So in Drayton's David and Goliah: His brows like two steep penthouses hung down over his eyelids." 8 To live forbid is to live under a curse or an interdict; pursued by an evil fate.- Sev'n-night is a week. 9 To peak is to grow thin. This was supposed to be wrought by means of a waxen figure. Holinshed, describing the means used for destroying King Duff, says that the witches were found roasting an image of him before the fire; and that, as the image wasted, the King's body broke forth in sweat, while the words of enchantment kept him from sleep. Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd. 2 Witch. Show me, show me. I Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, 3 Witch. A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come. [Drum within. All. The Weird Sisters, 10 hand in hand, Posters 11 of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. Mach. So foul and fair a day 13 I have not seen. 10 Weird is from the Saxon wyrd, and means the same as the Latin fatum; so that weird sisters is the fatal sisters, or the sisters of fate. Gawin Douglas, in his translation of Virgil, renders Parca by weird sisters. Which agrees well with Holinshed 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." 11 Posters is rapid travellers; going with a postman's speed. 12 Here the Witches perform a sort of incantation by joining hands, and dancing round in a ring, three rounds for each. Odd numbers and multiples of odd numbers, especially three and nine, were thought to have great magical power in thus winding up a charm. 13 A day fouled with storm, but brightened with victory. Professor Dowden, however, thinks a deeper meaning is here intended: "Observe that the last words of the witches in the opening scene of the play are the first words which Macbeth himself utters: 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair.' Shakespeare intimates by this that, although Macbeth has not yet set eyes upon these hags, the connection is already established between his soul and them. Their spells have already wrought upon his blood." Ban. How far is't call'd to Forres?· So wither'd and so wild in their attire, What are these That look not like th' inhabitants o' the Earth, That man may question? You seem to understand me, Upon her skinny lips: you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so. Macb. Speak, if you can: what are you? I Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis ! 2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Caw dor! 3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter ! Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner That he seems rapt withal: 15 to me you speak not: 14 That is, "Are ye imaginary beings, creatures of fantasy?" 15 Here, again, that has the force of so that.- Present grace refers to noble having, and great prediction to royal hope; and the Poet often uses having for possession. A similar distribution of terms occurs a little after: "Who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate."- Macbeth's rapture or trance of thought on this occasion is deeply significant of his moral predispositions. Coleridge remarks upon the passage as follows: "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 If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, 2 Witch. Hail! 3 Witch. Hail ! I Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier. 3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. All Three. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo ! Banquo and Macbeth, all hail ! Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence with ambitious thoughts. 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; 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." 16 Macbeth was the son of Sinel, Thane of Glamis, so that this title was rightfully his by inheritance. 17 We have a strange discrepancy here. In the preceding scene, Macbeth is said to have met Cawdor face to face in the ranks of Norway: he must therefore have known him to be a rebel and traitor; yet he here describes him in terms quite inconsistent with such knowledge. 18 To owe for to own, to have, to possess, occurs continually in Shakespeare. The original form of the word was owen; and the shortened form of own finally carried the day against owe. Upon this blasted heath you stop our way [Witches vanish. Ban. The earth hath bubbles as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd? Macb. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd! Ban. Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner ? 19 Macb. Your children shall be kings. Ban. You shall be king. Macb. And Thane of Cawdor too: went it not so? Ban. To th' 20 selfsame tune and words. Who's here? Enter Ross and ANGUS. Ross The King hath happily received, Macbeth, The news of thy success: and, when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, His wonders and his praises do contend What should be thine or his : 21 silenced with that, 19 "The insane root" is henbane or hemlock. So in Batman's Commentary on Bartholome de Proprietate 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 commonly called mirilidium, for it taketh away wit and reason." And in Greene's Never too Late: "You have gazed against the sun, and so blemished your sight, or else you have eaten of the roots of hemlock, that makes men's eyes conceit unseen objects."- On and of were used indifferently in such cases. 20 The Poet, especially in his later plays, very often thus elides the, so as to make it coalesce with the preceding word into one syllable. So he has by th, for th', from th', and even the double elision wi' th'. 21 The meaning probably is," His wonders and his praises are so earnest and enthusiastic, that they seem to be debating or raising the question, whether what is his ought not to be thine,—whether you ought not to be in |