Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned.

Lady M. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
Macb. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self

abuse

Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use.

We are yet but young in deed.2

SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder.

[Exeunt.

Enter HECATE, meeting the three Witches.

1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate? you look angerly.

Hec. Have I not reason, beldames, as you are, Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth,

In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?
And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful, and wrathful; who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now. Get you gone,

And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i' the morning; thither he

Will come to know his destiny.

"You stand in need of the time or season of sleep which all natures require."

2 The editions previous to Theobald's read—

"We're but young indeed.”

The initiate fear is the fear that always attends the first initiation into guilt, before the mind becomes callous and insensible by hard use or frequent repetition of it.

Your vessels, and your spells, provide,
Your charms and every thing beside ;
I am for the air; this night I'll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.

Great business must be wrought ere noon:
Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vaporous drop profound;"
I'll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprights,
As, by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
you all know, security

And

Is mortal's chiefest enemy.

Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c.2 Hark, I am called; my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

back again.

1 Witch. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Enter LENOx and another Lord.

Len. My former speeches have but hit your

thoughts,

Which can interpret further: only, I say,

Things have been strangely borne.

Duncan

The gracious

Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead.— And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late; Whom you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed,

1 The vaporous drop profound seems to have been meant for the same as the virus lunare of the ancients, being a foam which the moon was supposed to shed on particular herbs, or other objects, when strongly solicited by enchantment.

2 This song is to be found entire, in The Witch, by Middleton.

For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
Who cannot1 want the thought, how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and Donalbain,

To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,
In pious rage, the two delinquents tear,

That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For, 'twould have angered any heart alive,
To hear the men deny it. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well; and I do think,
That, had he Duncan's sons under his key,

(As, an't please Heaven, he shall not,) they should find
What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
But peace!-for from broad words, and 'cause he
failed

His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?

Lord.

The son of Duncan,

From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
Lives in the English court; and is received
Of the most pious Edward with such grace,
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid

Is

To wake Northumberland, and warlike Siward;
That, by the help of these, (with Him above
To ratify the work,) we may again

2

Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights;
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives;
Do faithful homage, and receive free honors,
All which we pine for now. And this report
Hath so exasperate3 the king, that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.

1 "Who cannot want the thought," &c. The sense requires "who can want the thought;" but it is probably a lapse of the Poet's pen. 2 It has been shown that free sometimes meant pure, chaste, consequently unspotted, which may be its meaning here. Free also meant noble. 3 Exasperate, for exasperated.

Len.

Sent he to Macduff?

Lord. He did; and with an absolute, Sir, not I,
The cloudy messenger turns me his back,

And hums; as who should say, You'll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.

Len.
And that well might
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England, and unfold
His message ere he come; that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accursed!

Lord. I'll send my prayers with him!

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron,

1 Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed. 2 Witch. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whined. 3 Witch. Harper cries:-'Tis time, 'tis time.

1 Witch. Round about the caldron go;

In the poisoned entrails throw.
Toad, that under coldest1 stone,
Days and nights hast thirty-one
Sweltered venom, sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

All. Double, double toil and trouble
Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.

1 "Coldest stone." The old copy reads "cold stone;" the emendation is Steevens's. Mr. Boswell thinks that the alteration was unnecessary. 2 Sweltered. This word is employed to signify that the animal was moistened with its own cold exudations.

2 Witch. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's' sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.

;

3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf;
Witch's mummy; maw and gulf 2
Of the ravined salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock, digged i' the dark
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat; and slips of yew,
Slivered in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-delivered by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,5
For the ingredients of our caldron.

All. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble.

2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

1 The blind-worm is the slow-worm. 2 Gulf, the throat.

3 To ravin, according to Minshew, is to devour, to eat greedily. Ravined, therefore, may be glutted with prey; unless, with Malone, we suppose that Shakspeare used ravined for ravenous, the passive participle for the adjective. In Horman's Vulgaria, 1519, occurs "Thou art a ravenar of delycatis."

4 Sliver is a common word in the north, where it means to cut a piece or slice.

5 i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common use in books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1597, is a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaudron.