ROSSE. God fave the king! DUN. Whence cam'ft thou, worthy thane? ROSSE. 4 He looks like one that is big with fomething of importance; a metaphor so natural that it is every day used in common discourse. JOHNSON. Mr. M. Mafon obferves that the meaning of Lenox is," So fhould he look, who feems as if he had ftrange things to fpeak. " The following paffage in The Tempeft feems to afford no unapt comment upon this: pr'ythee, fay on: "The fetting of thine eye and cheek, proclaim Again, in King Richard II: "Men judge by the complexion of the fky, &c. "My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say." STEEVENS. That seems to Speak things frange. ] i. e. that seems about to fpeak ftrange things. Our author himself furnishes us with the beft comment on this paffage. In Antony and Cleopatra, we meet with nearly the fame idea: "The business of this man looks out of him." MALONE. flout the sky,] The banners may be poetically described as waving in mockery or defiance of the fky. So, in K. Edward III. 1599: "And new replenish'd pendants cuff the air, "And beat the wind, that for their gaudin efs Struggles to kiss them.' The fenfe of the paffage, however, colle&ively taken, is this.Where the triumphant flutter of the Norweyan ftandards ventilates or cools the foldiers who had been heated through their efforts to fecure Juch numerous trophies of victory. STEEVENS, Again, in King John: The meaning Mocking the air with colours idly spread. This paffage has perhaps been misunderstood. feems to be, not that the Norweyan banners proudly infulted the fky; but that, the standards being taken by Duncan's forces, and fixed in the ground, the colours idly flapped about, ferving only to cool the conquerors, inftead of being proudly difplayed by their former poffeffors. The line in K. John, therefore, is the most perfea comment on this. MALONE. And fan our people cold. 5 Norway himself, with terrible numbers, 7 The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a difmal conflict: DUN. Great happiness! ROSSE. That now Sweno, the Norways' king, 8 craves compofition; Nor would we deign him burial of his men, And fan our people cold.] In all probability fome words that rendered this a complete verfe, have been omitted; a loss more frequently to be deplored in the present tragedy, than perhaps in any other of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof,] This paffage may be added to the many others, which fhow how little Shakfpeate knew of ancient mythology. HENLEY. Our author might have been misled by Holinfhed, who, p. 567, speaking of King Henry V. fays He declared that the goddefle of battell, called Bellona," &c. &c. Shakspeare, therefore, haftily concluded that the Goddefs of War was wife to the God of it. Lapt in proof, is, defended by armour of proof. STEEVENS. 7 Confronted him with self-comparisons,] By him, in this verse, is meant Norway; as the plain conftruction of the English requires. And the affiftance the thane of Cawdor had given Norway, was un, derhand; (which Roffe and Angus, indeed, had discovered, but was unknown to Macbeth;) Cawdor being in the court all this while, as appears from Angus's fpeech to Macbeth, when he meets him to falute him with the title, and infinuates his crime to be lining the rebel with hidden help and 'vantage. with felf-comparisons, brought, fhew'd he was his equal. • That now i. e. gave him as good as he WARBURTON. Sweno, the Norways' king,] The prefent irregularity of metre induces me to believe that Sweno was only a marginal reference, Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes' inch, DUN. No more that thane of Cawdor fhall de ceive Our bofom intereft:-Go, pronounce his death," And with his former title greet Macbeth. ROSSE. I'll fee it done. DUN. What he hath loft, noble Macbeth hath injudiciously thruft into the text; and that the line originally ftood thus: That now the Norways' king craves compofition. Could it have been neceffary for Roffe to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway? STEEVENS. 8 Saint Colmes' inch,] Colmes is to be confidered as diffyllable a 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 Ifle of Columba. Some of the modern editors, without authority, read. Saint Colmes'-kill Ifle: but very erroneoufly; for Colmes' Inch, and Colm-kill, are two different iflands; the former lying on the eaftern coaft, near the place where the Danes were defeated; the latter in the western feas, being the famous lona, one of the Hebrides. Holinfhed thus relates the whole circumftance: "The Danes that efcaped, and got once to their hips, obteined of Makbeth for a great fumme of gold, that fuch of their friends as were flaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' Inch. In memorie whereof many ola tepul tures are yet in the faid Inch, there to be fcene graven with the armes of the Danes." Inch, or Infhe, in the Irish and Erle languages, fignifies an island. See Lhuyd's Archæologia. STEEVENS. pronounce his death,] The old copy, injuriously to metre, 1 SCENE III. A Heath. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1. WITCH. Where haft thou been, fifter? 3. WITCH. Sifter, where thou?3 1. WITCH. A failor's wife had chefnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd:- Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyons cries. 6 Killing fwine.] So, in a Detection of damnable Driftes practized by three Witches, &c. arraigned at Chelmisforde in Effex, &c. 1579. bl. 1. 12mo. "Item, alfo fhe came on a tyme to the house of one Robart Lathburie &c. who diflyking her dealyng, fent, her home emptie; but prefently after her departure, his hogges fell ficke and died, to the number of twentie. STEEVENS. 31. Witch. Where haft thou been fifter? 2. Witch. Killing fwine. 3. Witch. Siller, where thou?] Thus the old copy; yet I cannot help fuppofing that these three speeches, collectively taken, were meant to form one verfe, as follows: 1. Witch. Where haft been, fifter! 2. Witch. 3. Witch. Killing fwine. Where thou? If my fuppofition be well founded, there is as little reafon tor preferving the ufelets thou in the firft line, as the repetiton of fijbr in the third. a STEEVENS. 4 Aroint thee, witch!] Aroint, or avauat, be gone. POPE. In one of the folio editions the reading is--4uaint thre, ia feufe very coufiftent with the common account of wiches, who are related to perform many fupernatural acts by the of unguents, and particularly to ly through the as Her husband's to Aleppo gone, mafter o'the Tiger: places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this fenfe, anoint thee, witch, will mean, Away, witch, to your infernal affem. bly. 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 confusion by his prefence, of whom one, that is driving the damned before him with a prong, has a label iffuing out of his mouth with these words, OUT OUT ARONGT, of which the laft is evidently the fame with aroint, and used in the fame fenfe as in this paffage. JOHNSON. Rynt you witch, quoth Beffe Locket to her mother, is a north country proverb. The word is ufed again in K. Lear: "And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee." Anoint is the reading of the folio 1664, a book of no authority, STEEVENS. 5 -the rump-fed ronyon] The chief cooks in noblemen's families, colleges, religious houfes, hofpitals, &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 fcene, as an infult on the poverty of the woman who had called her witch, reproaches her poor abje& ftate, as not being able to procure better provifion than offals, which are confidered as the refufe of the tables of others. COLEPIPER. So, in The Ordinance for the government of Prince Edward, 1474, the following fees are allowed: "mutton's heades, the rampes of every beefe, &c. Again, in The Ordinances of the Household of George Duke of Clarence: " the hinder fhankes of the mutton, with the rumpe, to be feable." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Staple of News, old Penny-boy fays to the Cook: "And then remember meat for my two dogs; &c. " Again, in Wit at feveral Weapons, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "A niggard to your commons, that you're fain "To fize your belly out with shoulder fees, "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 kaukes, it is faid: "The hauke tyreth upon rumps." STEEVENS. 6 ronyon cries.] i. e. fcabby or mangy woman. Fr. rogneux, Toyne, fcurf. Thus Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rofe, p. 551; |