NOTES

ACT I. SCENE I

Thunder and lightning attend every meeting of the witches, and symbolize their evil and destructive spirit.

3. hurly-burly: commotion, hullabaloo; the rebellion against Duncan's government. The original word was hurling; (burling was added for effect, and then the whole shortened. Compare holus-bolus and hocus-pocus).

4. lost and won: lost by the rebels, won by Macbeth. The paradox is typical of the weird talk of the witches. Compare line 10, below.

8. There to meet with Macbeth, the one person in whom the witches have a special interest. The name Macbeth was sometimes spelled MacBeeth; and in Shakespeare's time the last syllable would have been pronounced bayth, to rhyme with heath (hayth). Meet is to be read as two syllables, or prolonged, for the sake of the metre.

9. Graymalkin: a pet name for a cat (gray Mary, Molly). Every witch had some animal, usually a peculiar one, as her familiar, or spirit-comrade. Paddock: toad, one of the animals associated with witches, in the common superstitions of the times. anon; immediately. Servants used to cry "Anon!" where now they use 66 Coming!"

10. Fair is foul, and foul is fair: the keynote of the play. To the witches any good thing was bad, because their success lay in doing harm. (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil!-Isaiah, V, 20.)

SCENE II

9. Worthy to be: entitled to be called; to that: to that end, with that result.

II. multiplying: manifold, innumerable.

13. kerns and gallowglasses: Irish soldiers, light-armed and heavy-armed. damned: accursed.

15. Showed like, etc.: appeared to be the very mistress of the rebel.

17. Disdaining fortune: despising luck, and putting his faith in his sword (brandished steel); thus in sharp contrast to Macdonwald, who trusted all to " Fortune."

18. smoked: steamed (as we say a dinner is served smokinghot).

21. Which: who, as often in the Elizabethan period.

Shakespeare was not content with any mere phrase expressing haste, like "without an instant's hesitation." He makes a picture of the formalities which the combatants omitted. There was no handshaking; no time was given for farewells. Throughout the play this practice is followed,—of visualizing what a less active eye would see vaguely or not at all.

22. from the nave to the chaps: from the navel to the chops, or chin-an awful blow, given with the broadsword as the two hands swung it up at the close of the customary great circle. The broadsword was not a thrusting or parrying weapon, like a rapier, but ponderous, crushing or splitting the body of the foe, when not intercepted by another equally massive weapon, or by a shield.

24. cousin: in this instance literally true, for Duncan and Macbeth were sons of sisters who were daughters of King Malcolm. Frequently the word cousin was used among noblemen to suggest mere friendliness.

25. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection, etc.: As from the east rise not only the sun but also storms, so from the same battle rose not only hope but fear. Reflection: used in the rare sense of shining.

31. But: than. the Norweyan lord: the king of Norway, who with Macdonwald, assailed the power of Duncan. surveying vantage: seeing a good chance.

32. furbished: burnished.

34. Yes: ironical, as the next line shows. 36. sooth: truth.

37. double cracks: double charges (metonymy, the effect for the cause).

39. Doubly redoubled: an example of emphasis derived from the repetition of the explosive consonants, d and b. To produce such an effect in this way is almost instinctive, as may be seen from the words used in our daily speech for such a purpose. One of the most remarkable examples in modern poetry is the familiar close of Kipling's Fuzzy Wuzzy,

You big, black, bounding beggar,—

For you broke a British square!

40. bathe: the point of the line calls for the stressing of this word in reading.

41. memorize another Golgotha: make another place as memorable as the spot on which Jesus' blood was shed—“ a place named of dead mens skulles, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha "-Mark, XV, in the "Breeches " Bible, 1599.

48. seems: appears ready (going back to the root meaning of the word). This is the first remark of Lennox, and is, like everything else he says, discerning. He is, perhaps, the shrewdest observer in the play. God save the King: the regular greeting. 50. flout the sky: wave proudly, and, being hostile flags, insult the free air of Scotland.

51. fan our people cold: strike terror into their hearts.

54. dismal: ill-boding (dies mala).

55. Bellona's bridegroom: Macbeth, who is described as wedded to Bellona, the Roman Goddess of War; lapped in proof: clad in armor of steel proved good.

56. Confronted him with self-comparisons: challenged him to measure his skill.

57. point rebellious: the rebel's sword.

58. Curbing his lavish spirit: subduing his over-confidence. 61. composition: compromise, terms of peace.

62. Nor: but-not.

63. Inch: Island. Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth, was named for St. Columba, an Irish missionary who built a monastery there in the sixth century.

64. dollars: thalers (an anachronism). This term was ap

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parently first used five hundred years after the time of Macbeth, and even then not in Scotland, but in Bohemia. Shakespeare was not consistent in his references to chronology, or to geography.

65. deceive: betray.

66. bosom interest: my most intimate personal advantage (compare bosom-friend).

67. And with his former title greet Macbeth prepares the audience for the prophecy of the witches in the following scene, and raises Macbeth to a noble eminence as a military personage. This looks fair on the surface. What if, by some turn of fate, this fair fortune should prove foul!

SCENE III

6. Aroint thee: begone, (probably an old North Country term meaning, stand 'round, used to cows in their stalls). rump-fed ronyon: mangy woman, fed on scraps-a term of insult offered by the witch to the sailor's wife who would not share her chestnuts. (rump-fed may mean fed on the refuse of nuts. This was a recognized commercial use of the word rump in 1605. The scornful reference would then be equivalent to, "Keep your old chestnuts-they're not fit to eat, anyway!")

7. Aleppo: a Turkish trading city, in the Syrian sands, a hundred miles from the coast, and therefore to be reached only by the "ships of the desert." Tiger: a favorite name for ships ever since the time of Virgil; especially appropriate for a pirate-ship. in a sieve: the leakiest possible craft. Shakespeare was creating the witches out of very ordinary everyday superstitions. England, even London, was fast in the grip of popular belief in witches and in their power to work petty evils and do strange things, such as riding through the sky on broomsticks, or sailing on or under the sea in sieves. We shall see later that there was another and far different kind of power and deviltry in the "weird women," or "weird sisters," of this play.

9. like a rat without a tail: It was supposed that witches could change themselves instantly into whatever animals they wished, but always without the tail.

10. I'll do: I'll gnaw-perhaps the planks of the Tiger, per