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3 WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun 3.

1 WITCH. Where the place?

2 WITCH.

Upon the heath:

3 WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth".

Adagia Scotica, or a Collection of Scotch Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases. Collected by R. B. Very usefull and delightful, Lond. 12mo. 1668 :

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swyre:"

Little kens the wife that sits by the fire "How the wind blows cold in hurle burle that is, how the wind blows cold in the tempestuous mountain-top: for swyre is used either for the top of a hill, or the pass over a hill. This sense seems agreeable also to the Witch's answer: "When the hurlyburly's done," that is, the storm; for they enter in thunder and lightning. BOSWELL.

2 When the battle's lost and won:] i. e. the battle in which Macbeth was then engaged. WARBURTON.

So, in King Richard III. :

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while we reason here,

A royal battle might be won and lost."

So also Speed, speaking of the battle of Towton: "- by which only stratagem, as it was constantly averred, the battle and day was lost and won." Chronicle, 1611. MALOne.

3

reads

ere set of sun.] The old copy unnecessarily and harshly

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4 There to meet with Macbeth.] Thus the old copy. Mr. Pope, and, after him, other editors:

"There I go to meet Macbeth."

The insertion, however, seems to be injudicious. To "meet with Macbeth was the final drift of all the Witches in going to the heath, and not the particular business or motive of any one of them in distinction from the rest; as the interpolated words, I go, in the mouth of the third Witch, would most certainly imply.

Somewhat, however, (as the verse is evidently imperfect,) must have been left out by the transcriber or printer. Mr. Capell has therefore proposed to remedy this defect, by reading

"There to meet with brave Macbeth."

But surely, to beings intent only on mischief, a soldier's bravery, in an honest cause, would have been no subject of encomium.

Mr. Malone (omitting all previous remarks, &c. on this passage) assures us, that-" There is here used as a dissyllable." I wish he had supported his assertion by some example. Those,

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however, who can speak the line thus regulated, and suppose they are reciting a verse, may profit by the direction they have received.

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The pronoun "their," having two vowels together, may be split into two syllables; but the adverb "there can only be used as a monosyllable, unless pronounced as if it were written "the-re," a licence in which even Chaucer has not indulged himself.

It was convenient for Shakspeare's introductory scene, that his first Witch should appear uninstructed in her mission. Had she not required information, the audience must have remained ignorant of what it was necessary for them to know. Her speeches, therefore, proceed in the form of interrogatories; but, all on a sudden, an answer is given to a question which had not been asked. Here seems to be a chasm, which I shall attempt to supply by the introduction of a single pronoun, and by distributing the hitherto mutilated line among the three speakers: "3 Witch. There to meet with"1 Witch.

"2 Witch.

Whom?

Macbeth."

Distinct replies have now been afforded to the three necessary enquiries—When-Where-and Whom the Witches were to meet. Their conference receives no injury from my insertion and arrangement. On the contrary, the dialogue becomes more regular and consistent, as each of the hags will now have spoken thrice (a magical number) before they join in utterance of the concluding words, which relate only to themselves.-I should add that, in the two prior instances, it is also the second Witch who furnishes decisive and material answers; and that I would give the words"I come, Graymalkin!" to the third. By assistance from such of our author's plays as had been published in quarto, we have often detected more important errors in the folio 1623, which, unluckily, supplies the most ancient copy of Macbeth.

STEEVENS.

I have endeavoured to show in the Essay on Shakspeare's versification that this line is not defective, and that neither Mr. Steevens's supplemental whom, nor Mr. Malone's dissyllabical pronunciation of there, is required. BosWELL.

5- Graymalkin!] From a little black-letter book, entitled, Beware the Cat, 1584, I find it was permitted to a Witch to take on her a caltes body nine times. Mr. Upton observes, that, to understand this passage, we should suppose one familiar calling with the voice of a cat, and another with the croaking of a toad. Again, in Newes from Scotland, &c. (a pamphlet of which

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Fair is foul, and foul is fair":

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Witches vanish.

the reader will find the entire title in a future note on this play) : "Moreover she confessed, that at the time when his majestie was in Denmarke, shee being accompanied with the parties before specially mentioned, tooke a cat and christened it, and afterward bound to each part of that cat the cheefest part of a dead man, and several joyntes of his bodie, and that in the night following the said cat was convayed into the middest of the sea by all these witches sayling in their riddles or cives as is aforesaid, and so left the said cat right before the towne of Leith in Scotland. This donne, there did arise such a tempest in the sea, as a greater hath not bene seene," &c. STEEVENS.

6 Paddock calls: &c.] This, with the two following lines, is given in the folio to the three Witches. Some preceding editors have appropriated the first of them to the second Witch.

According to the late Dr. Goldsmith, and some other naturalists, a frog is called a paddock in the North: as in the following instance, in Cæsar and Pompey, by Chapman, 1607 :

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Paddoches, todes, and watersnakes." Again, in Wyntownis Cronykil, b. i. c. xiii. 55:

"As ask, or eddyre, tade, or pade."

In Shakspeare, however, it certainly means a toad. The representation of St. James in the witches' house (one of the set of prints taken from the painter called Hellish Breugel, 1566,) exhibits witches flying up and down the chimney on brooms; and hefore the fire sit grimalkin and paddock, i. e. a cat, and a toad, with several baboons. There is a cauldron boiling, with a witch near it, cutting out the tongue of a snake, as an ingredient for the charm. A representation somewhat similar likewise occurs in Newes from Scotland, &c. a pamphlet already quoted.

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STEEVENS.

Some say, they [witches] can keepe devils and spirits, in the likeness of todes and cats." Scol's Discovery of Witchcraft, [1584] book i. c. iv. Tollet.

7 Fair is foul, and foul is fair :] i. e. we make the sudden changes of the weather. And Macbeth, speaking of this day, soon after says:

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen." WARBURTON. The common idea of witches has always been, that they had absolute power over the weather, and could raise storms of any kind, or allay them, as they pleased. In conformity to this notion, Macbeth addresses them, in the fourth Act:

"Though you untie the winds, &c." STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

A Camp near Fores.

Alarum within. Enter King DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier 1.

DUN. What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

MAL.

This is the sergeant,

* First folio, Captain.

I believe the meaning is, that to us, perverse and malignant as we are, fair is foul, and foul is fair. JOHNSON.

This expression seems to have been proverbial. Spenser has it in the 4th book of The Fairy Queen:

"Then fair grew foul, and foul grew fair in fight."

FARMER.

8 This is the SERGEANT,] Holinshed is the best interpreter of Shakspeare in his historical plays; for he not only takes his facts from him, but often his very words and expressions. That historian, in his account of Macdowald's rebellion, mentions, that on the first appearance of a mutinous spirit among the people, the king sent a sergeant at arms into the country, to bring up the chief offenders to answer the charge preferred against them; but they, instead of obeying, misused the messenger with sundry reproaches, and finally slew him. This sergeant at arms is certainly the origin of the bleeding sergeant introduced on the present occasion. Shakspeare just caught the name from Holinshed, but the rest of the story not suiting his purpose, he does not adhere to it. The stage-direction of entrance, where the bleeding captain is mentioned, was probably the work of the player editors, and not of the poet.

Sergeant, however, (as the ingenious compiler of the Glossary to A. of Wyntown's Cronykil observes,) is "a degree in military service now unknown."

"Of sergeandys thare and knychtis kene

"He gat a gret cumpany." B. viii. ch. xxvi. v. 396. The same word occurs again in the fourth Poem of Lawrence Minot, p. 19:

"He hasted him to the swin, with sergantes snell,

"To mete with the Normandes that fals war and fell."

Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity :-Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil,
As thou didst leave it.

SOLD.

Doubtful it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald1 (Worthy to be a rebel; for, to that 2,

The multiplying villainies of nature

Do swarm upon him,) from the western isles
Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied3:

of

According to M. le Grand, (says Mr. Ritson) sergeants were a sort gens d'armes. STEEVENS.

9 DOUBTFULLY it stood;] Mr. Pope, who introduced the epithet long, to assist the metre, and reads

"Doubtful long it stood,"

has thereby injured the sense. If the comparison was meant to coincide in all circumstances, the struggle could not be long. .I read

"Doubtfully it stood;

The old copy has-Doubtfull-so that my addition consists of but a single letter. STEEVENS.

Yet the line but one preceding is left unaltered, though equally defective. BOSWELL.

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1 - Macdonwald-] Thus the old copy. According to Holinshed we should read-Macdowald. STEEVENS.

So also the Scottish Chronicles. However, it is possible that Shakspeare might have preferred the name that has been substituted, as better sounding. It appears from a subsequent scene that he had attentively read Holinshed's account of the murder of King Duff, by Donwald, Lieutenant of the castle of Fores; in consequence of which he might, either from inadvertence, or choice, have here written-Macdonwald. MALONE.

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To that, &c.] i. e. in addition to that. So, in Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. I. :

"The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, "Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant." The soldier who describes Macdonwald, seems to mean, that, ' in addition to his assumed character of rebel, he abounds with the numerous enormities to which man, in his natural state, is liable.' STEEVENS.

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To that I should rather explain as meaning to that end: multiplying villanies have fitted him to become a rebel.' MALONE. from the western isles

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OF Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied;] Whether sup

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