Aroint thee, witch!1 the rump-fed ronyon cries. • Aroint thee, witch!] Aroint, or avaunt, be gone. POPE. In one of the folio editions the reading is-Anoint thee, in a fense very confiftent with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many fupernatural acts, by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this sense, anoint thee, witch, will mean, away, witch, to your infernal affembly. This reading I was inclined to favour, because I had met with the word aroint in no other author; till looking into Hearne's Collections, I found it in a very old drawing, that he has published,* in which St. Patrick is represented vifiting hell, and putting the devils into great confufion by his presence, of whom one, that is driving the damned before him with a prong, has a label issuing out of his mouth with these words, OUT OUT ARONGT, of which the last is evidently the fame with aroint, and used in the same sense as in this passage. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's memory, on the prefent occafion, appears to have deceived him in more than a fingle instance. The fubject of the above-mentioned drawing is ascertained by a label affixed to it in Gothick letters. Iefus Chriftus, refurgens a mortuis Spoliat infernum. My predeceffor, indeed, might have been misled by an uncouth abbreviation in the Sacred Name. The words-Out out arongt, are addressed to our Redeemer by Satan, who, the better to enforce them, accompanies them with a blast of the horn he holds in his right hand. Tartareum intendit cornu. If the inftrument he grasps in his left hand was meant for a prong, it is of fingular make. Ecce fignum. Satan is not "driving the damned before him;" nor is any * See Ectypa Varia &c. Studio st cura Thomæ Hearne, &c. 1737. STEEVENS. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'the Tiger: other dæmon present to undertake that office. Redemption, not punishment, is the subject of the piece. This story of Chrift's exploit, in his descensus ad inferos, (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed in a note on Chaucer, 3512,) is taken from the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was called by our ancestors the harrowinge of helle, under which title it was represented among the Chester Whitsun Playes, MS. Harl. 2013. Rynt you, witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother, is a north country proverb. The word is used again in King Lear: "And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee." Anoint is the reading of the folio 1664, a book of no authority. STEEVENS. 2 -the rump-fed ronyon-] The chief cooks in noblemen's families, colleges, religious houses, hospitals, &c. anciently claimed the emoluments or kitchen fees of kidneys, fat, trotters, rumps, &c. which they fold to the poor. The weird fifter in this scene, as an infult on the poverty of the woman who had called her witch, reproaches her poor abject state, as not being able to procure better provifion than offals, which are confidered as the refuse of the tables of others. COLEPEPER. So, in The Ordinance for the Government of Prince Edward, 1474, the following fees are allowed: "mutton's heads, the rumpes of every beefe," &c. Again, in The Ordinances of the Household of George Duke of Clarence: " -the hinder shankes of the mutton, with the rumpe, to be feable." Again, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News, old Penny-boy says to the Cook: " And then remember meat for my two dogs; Again, in Wit at several Weapons, by Beaumont and Fletcher : "With kidneys, rumps, and cues of fingle beer." In The Book of Haukynge, &c. (commonly called The Book of St. Albans) bl. 1. no date, among the proper terms used in kepyng of haukes, it is faid: "The hauke tyreth upon rumps." STEEVENS. 3 ronyon cries.] i. e. scabby or mangy woman. Fr. rogneux, royne, scurf. Thus Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rose, p. 551: But in a fieve I'll thither fail,4 "her necke "Withouten bleine, or scabbe, or roine." Shakspeare uses the substantive again in The Merry Wives of Windfor, and the adjective-roynish, in As you like it. STEEVENS. * in a fieve Ill thither fail,] Reginald Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, says it was believed that witches " could fail in an egg shell, a cockle or muscle shell, through and under the tempestuous seas." Again, says Sir W. D'Avenant, in his Albovine, 1629: "He fits like a witch failing in a fieve." Again, in Newes from Scotland: Declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edinbrough in Januarie last, 1591; which Doctor was Register to the Devill, that fundrie Times preached at North Baricke Kirke, to a Number of notorious Witches. With the true Examination of the said Doctor and Witches, as they uttered them in the Presence of the Scottish King. Discovering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestie in the Sea comming from Denmarke, with other fuch wonderful Matters as the like hath not bin heard at anie Time. Published according to the Scottish Copie. Printed for William Wright: "-and that all they together went to fea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the fame very substantially with flaggons of wine, making merrie and drinking by the way in the fame riddles or cives," &c. Dr. Farmer found the title of this scarce pamphlet in an interleaved copy of Maunfells Catalogue, &c. 1595, with additions by Archbishop Harsenet and Thomas Baker the Antiquarian. It is almost needless to mention that I have fince met with the pamphlet itself. STEEVENS. - And, like a rat without a tail,] It should be remembered, (as it was the belief of the times,) that though a witch could affume the form of any animal she pleased, the tail would still be wanting. The reason given by some of the old writers, for fuch a deficiency, is, that though the hands and feet, by an easy change, might be converted into the four paws of a beast, there was still no part about a woman which corresponded with the length of tail common to almost all our four-footed creatures. STEEVENS. 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, • F'll do, I'll do, and I'll do. Show me, Show me. Thus do go about, about; ] As I cannot help fuppofing this scene to have been uniformly metrical when our author wrote it, in its present state I fufpect it to be clogged with interpolations, or mutilated by omiffions. Want of corresponding rhymes to the foregoing lines, induce me to hint at vacuities which cannot be supplied, and intrufions which (on the bare authority of conjecture) must not be expelled. Were even the condition of modern transcripts for the stage understood by the public, the frequent accidents by which a poet's meaning is depraved, and his measure vitiated, would need no illustraton. STEEVENS. I'll give thee a wind.] This free gift of a wind is to be confidered as an act of sisterly friendship, for witches were supposed to fell them. So, in Summer's last Will and Testament, 1600: "-in Ireland and in Denmark both, Drayton, in his Mooncalf, fays the fame. It may be hoped, however, that the conduct of our witches did not resemble that of one of their relations, as described in an Appendix to the old tranflation of Marco Paolo, 1579: "-they demanded that he should give them a winde; and he shewed, setting his handes behinde, from whence the wind should come," &c. STEEVENS. * And the very ports they blow,] As the word very is here of no other use than to fill up the verse, it is likely that Shakspeare wrote various, which might be easily mistaken for very, I'the shipman's card.9 being either negligently read, hastily pronounced, or imperfectly heard. JOHNSON. The very ports are the exact ports. Very is used here (as in a thousand inftances which might be brought) to express the declaration more emphatically. Instead of ports, however, I had formerly read points; but erroneously. In ancient language, to blow fometimes means to blow upon. So, in Dumain's Ode in Love's Labour's Loft : "Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;-." i. e. blow upon them. We still say, it blows East, or West, without a preposition. STEEVENS. The substituted word was first given by Sir W. D'Avenant, who, in his alteration of this play, has retained the old, while at the fame time he furnished Mr. Pope with the new, reading: و "I myself have all the other. " And then from every port they blow, "From all the points that seamen know." MALONE. -the Shipman's card.] So, in The Microcosmos of John Davies, of Hereford, 4to. 1605: "Befide the chiefe windes and collaterall " (Which are the windes indeed of chiefe regard) " All which are pointed out upon the carde." The card is the paper on which the winds are marked under the pilot's needle; or perhaps the sea-chart, so called in our author's age. Thus, in The Loyal Subject, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "The card of goodness in your minds, that shews you "When you fail false." Again, in Churchyard's Prayse and Reporte of Maister Martyne Forboisher's Voyage to Meta Incognita, &c. 12mo. bl. 1. 1578: "There the generall gaue a speciall card and order to his captaines for the paffing of the straites," &c. STEEVENS. I -dry as hay :) So, Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, B. III. c. ix: "But he is old and withered as hay." STEEVENS, |