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Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes' inch",
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

DUN. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest :-Go, pronounce his present death",

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

ROSSE. I'll see it done.

DUN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath

5 That now

won.

[Exeunt.

SWENO, the Norways' king,] The present irregularity of metre induces me to believe that-Sweno was only a marginal reference, injudiciously thrust into the text; and that the line originally stood thus:

"That now the Norways' king craves composition." Could it have been necessary for Rosse to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway? STEEVENS.

6 Saint COLMES' INCH,] Colmes' is to be considered as a dissyllable.

Colmes'-inch, now called Inchcomb, is a small island lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to St. Columb; called by Camden Inch Colm, or The Isle of Columba. Some of the modern editors, without authority, read

"Saint Colmes'-kill Isle:

but very erroneously; for Colmes' Inch and Colm-kill, are two different islands; the former lying on the eastern coast, near the place where the Danes were defeated; the latter in the western seas, being the famous Iona, one of the Hebrides.

Holinshed thus relates the whole circumstance: "The Danes that escaped, and got once to their ships, obteined of Makbeth for a great summe of gold, that such of their friends as were slaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' Inch. In memorie whereof many old sepultures are yet in the said Inch, there to be seene graven with the armes of the Danes." Inch, or Inshe, in the Irish and Erse languages, signifies an island. See Lhuyd's Archæologia. STEEVENS.

7-pronounce his death,] The old copy, injuriously to metre,

reads

pronounce his present death." STEEVENS.

Thunder.

SCENE III.

A Heath.

Enter the three Witches.

1 WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister?

2 WITCH. Killing swine.

3 WITCH. Sister, where thou??

1 WITCH. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd :— Give me, quoth I:

Aroint thee, witch1

the rump-fed ronyon 2 cries 3.

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-

8 Killing swine.] So, in A Detection of Damnable Driftes practized by Three Witches, &c. Arraigned at Chelmisforde in Essex, 1579, bl. 1. 12mo: - Item, also she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie &c. who dislyking her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure, his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie."

91 Witch. Where hast THOU been, sister? 2 Witch. Killing swine.

STEEVENS.

3 Witch. SISTER, where thou?] Thus the old copy; yet I cannot help supposing that these three speeches, collectively taken, were meant to form one verse, as follows:

"1 Witch. Where hast been, sister?

"2 Witch.

66 3 Witch.

Killing swine.

Where thou?

If my supposition be well founded, there is as little reason for preserving the useless thou in the first line, as the repetition of sister, in the third. STEEVENS.

I AROINT thee, witch !] Aroint, or avaunt, be gone. POPE. In one of the folio editions the reading is-" Anoint thee," in a sense very consistent with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural 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 assembly." 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 pub

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Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger: But in a sieve I'll thither sail *,

lished *, in which St. Patrick is represented visiting hell, and putting the devils into great confusion 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 same with aroint, and used in the same sense as in this passage. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson's memory, on the present occasion, appears to have deceived him in more than a single instance. The subject of the above-mentioned drawing is ascertained by a label affixed to it in Gothick letters. "Iesus Christus, resurgens a mortuis spoliat infernum." My predecessor, 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 instrument he grasps in his left hand was meant for a prong, it is of singular make. Ecce signum.

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Satan is not driving the damned before him ; nor is any other dæmon present to undertake that office. Redemption, not punishment, is the subject of the piece.

This story of Christ'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.

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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.

It has been ingeniously suggested, (originally, as I understand,

* See Ectypa Varia, &c. Studio et cura Thomæ Hearne, &c. 1737. STEEVENS.

And, like a rat without a tail 5,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do".

by Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle,) that "aroynt ye, witch," may be a corruption for a rowan tree, i. e. the mountain ash, which is said to be considered in Scotland to this day as a preservative against witchcraft. My friend Mr. Talbot has pointed out to me a passage in Evelyn's Sylva, which shows that the same superstition prevailed in Wales: "This tree is so sacred (scil. in Wales), that there is not a churchyard without one of them planted in it (as, among us, the yew); so, on a certain day in every year, every body religiously wears a cross made of the wood; and the tree is by some authors called Fraxinus Cambro-Britannica, reputed to be a preservative against fascinations and evil spirits; whence, perhaps, we called it witchen." Millar, adds Mr. Talbot, gives this account of it: "In Scotland, and the North of England, it is called roan tree, and the name is variously spelt rowen, radden, and rantry." The sailor's wife, being in possession of this charm, is safe; and therefore the witch wreaks her vengeance upon her husband, who has no such talisman to protect him. If the phrase Aroynt ye, had occurred but once, we might be disposed to adopt this explanation; but it is not likely that the same mistake should have occurred twice, supported as the text is by the Cheshire proverb. If we were even to suppose that a rowan tree was the origin of the phrase, it is probable that Shakspeare adopted the corruption as he found it; as he has done handsaw, for hernshaw, in Hamlet. BosWELL.

There is no doubt that aroint signifies away! run! and that it is of Saxon origin. The original Saxon verb has not been preserved in any other way; but the glossaries supply ryne for running; and, in the old Islandic, runka signifies to agitate, to move.

DOUCE.

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 sold to the poor. The weird sister in this scene, as an insult on the poverty of the woman who had called her witch, reproaches her poor abject state, as not being able to procure better provision than offals, which are considered 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:

2 WITCH. I'll give thee a wind 7. 1 WITCH. Thou art kind.

"And then remember meat for my two dogs;
"Fat flaps of mutton, kidneys, rumps," &c.

Again, in Wit at Several Weapons, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "A niggard to your commons, that you're fain "To size your belly out with shoulder fees,

"With kidneys, rumps, and cues of single 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 said: "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 :

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"Withouten bleine, or scabbe, or roine."

Shakspeare uses the substantive again in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the adjective-roynish, in As You Like It.

STEEVENS.

4 — in a sieve I'll thither sail,] Reginald Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, says it was believed that witches "could sail 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 sits like a witch sailing in a sieve."

Again, in Newes from Scotland: Declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough in Januarie last, 1591; which Doctor was Register to the Devill, that sundrie Times preached at North Baricke Kirke, to a Number of notorious Witches. With the true Examinations 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 such 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 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," &c. Dr. Farmer found the title of this scarce pamphlet in an interleaved copy of Maunsell's Catalogue, &c. 1595, with additions by Archbishop Harsenet and Thomas Baker the Antiquarian. It is almost needless to mention that I have since met with the pamphlet itself. STEEVENS.

5 And, like a rat without a tail,] It should be remembered,

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