8 Swelter'd venom fleeping got, ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;' 2. WITCH. Fillet of a fenny fnake, 5 Round about the cauldron go;] Milton has caught this image in his Hymn on the Morning of Chrift's Nativity: 6 "In difmal dance about the furnace blue." STEEVENS. -coldeft ftone,] The old copy has-" cold ftone." The modern editors, " -the cold ftone."-The flighter change I have made, by substituting the fuperlative for the pofitive, has met with the approbation of Dr. Farmer, or it would not have appeared in the text. STEEVENS. The was added by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 7 Days and nights haft-] Old copy-has. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE. 8 Swelter'd venom-] This word feems to be employed by Shakfpeare, to fignify that the animal was moiftened with its own cold exfudations. So, in the twenty-fecond fong of Drayton's Polyolbion: "And all the knights there dub'd the morning but before, "The evening fun beheld there welter'd in their gore." In the old tranflation of Boccace's Novels, [1620] the following fentence alfo occurs:-" an huge and mighty toad even weltering (as it were) in a hole full of poifon." "Sweltering in blood" is likewife an expreffion ufed by Fuller in his Church Hiftory, p. 37. And in Churchyard's Farewell to the World, 1593, is a fimilar expreffion : "He fpake great thinges that fwelted in his greace." STEEVENS. 9 Double, double toil and trouble;] As this was a very extraordinary incantation, they were to double their pains about it. I think, therefore, it should be pointed as I have pointed it: Double, double toil and trouble; otherwise the folemnity is abated by the immediate recurrence of the rhyme. STEEVENS. 2 Adder's fork, and blind-worm's fting,* ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; 3. WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; Root of hemlock, digg'd i'the dark; blind-worm's fting,] The blind-worm is the flow-worm. So Drayton in Noah's Flood: "The fmall-eyed flow-worm held of many blind." STEEVENS, 3 maw, and gulf,] The gulf is the fwallow, the throat. STEEVENS. In The Mirror for Magiftrates, we have "monftrous mawes and gulfes." HENDERSON. 4 ravin'd falt-fea fhark ;] Mr. M. Mafon obferves that we fhould read ravin instead of ravin'd. So, in All's well that ends well Helena fays, Better it were "I met the ravin lion, when he roar'd And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid of the Mill, Gillian fays "When nurfe Amaranta "Was feiz'd on by a fierce and hungry bear, "She was the ravin's prey." However, in Phineas Fletcher's Locufts, or Appollyonifts, 1627, the fame word, as it appears in the text of the play before us, occurs: "But flew, devour'd and fill'd his empty maw; "But with his raven'd prey his bowells broke, Ravin'd is glutted with prey. Ravin is the ancient word for prey btained by violence. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, fong 7: but a den for beafts of ravin made." The fame word occurs again in Measure for Measure. STEEVENS. 6 Liver of blafpheming Jew; ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; To ravin, according to Minfheu, is to devour, or eat greedily. See his DICT. 1617, in v. To devour. I believe, our author, with his ufual licence, ufed ravin'd for ravenous, the paffive participle for the adjective, MALONE. 5 Sliver'd in the moon's eclipfe ;] Sliver is a common word in the North, where it means to cut a piece or a flice. Again, in King Lear: "She who herself will liver and disbranch." Milton has tranfplanted the fecond of thefe ideas into his Lycidas: perfidious bark "Built in th' eclipfe." STEEVENS. 6 Nofe of Turk, and Tartar's lips;] Thefe ingredients in all probability owed their introduction to the deteftation in which the Turks were held, on account of the holy wars. So folicitous indeed were our neighbours the French (from whom moft of our prejudices as well as cuftoms are derived) to keep this idea awake, that even in their military fport of the quintain, their foldiers were accustomed to point their lances at the figure of a Saracen. STEEVENS. Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,] Chaudron, i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common ufe in the books of cookery, in one of which, printed in 1597, I meet with a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron. Again, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: "Sixpence a meal wench, as well as heart can wish, with calves' chauldrons and chitterlings." At the coronation feaft of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. among other dishes, one was " a fwan with chaudron," meaning fauce made with its entrails. See Ives's Select Papers; N°. 3. p. 140. See alfo Mr. Pegge's Forme of Cury, a roll of ancient English Cookery, &c. 8vo. 1780, p. 66. STEEVENS. 2. WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good. Enter HECATE, and the other three Witches." HEC. O, well done! I commend your pains; Enchanting all that you put in. [Mufick. 7 SON G. Black Spirits and white, You that mingle may. the other three Witches.] The infertion of these words (and the other three Witches) in the original copy, must be owing to a mistake. There is no reafon to fuppofe that Shakspeare meant to introduce more than three witches upon the scene. RITSON. 8 O, well done!] Ben Jonfon's Dame, in his Mafque of Queens, 1609, addreffes her affociates in the fame manner: "Well done, my bags." The attentive reader will obferve, that in this piece, old Ben has exerted his ftrongest efforts to rival the incantation of Shakfpeare's Witches, and the final addrefs of Profpero to the aerial fpirits under his command. It may be remarked alfo, that Shakspeare's Hecate, after delivering a fpeech of five lines, interferes no further in the business of the fcene, but is loft in the crowd of fubordinate witches. Nothing, in short, is effected by her affistance, but what might have been done without it. STEEVENS. 9 SONG.] In a former note on this tragedy, I had obferved, that the original edition contains only the two first words of the fong before us; but have fince difcovered the entire ftanza in the Witch, a dramatic piece by Middleton, already quoted. The fong is there called "a Charme-fong, about a veffel."-I may add, that this invocation, as it firft occurs in the Witch, is-" White fpirits, black spirits, gray fpirits, red fpirits."-Afterwards, we find it in its prefent metrical shape. 2. WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs,' Something wicked this way comes :Open, locks, whoever knocks. Enter MACBETH. MACB. How now, you fecret, black, and midnight hags? you do? What is't ALL. A deed without a name. MACB. I conjure you, by that which you profefs, (Howe'er you come to know it,) answer me: Though you untie the winds, and let them fight Against the churches; though the yefty waves 3 Confound and fwallow navigation up; Though bladed corn be lodg'd,+ and trees blown down; The fong was in all probability a traditional one. The colours of fpirits are often mentioned. So, in Monfieur Thomas, 1639: "Be thou black, or white, or green, "Be thou heard, or to be seen.' Perhaps, indeed, this mufical fcrap (which does not well accord with the ferious bufinefs of the fcene) was introduced by the players, without the fuggestion of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. Reginald Scot in his Difcovery of Witchcraft, 1584, enumerating the different kinds of fpirits, particularly mentions white, black, grey, and red fpirits. See also a paffage quoted from Camden, ante, P. 499, n. 8. The modern editions, without authority, readBlue fpirits and grey. MALONE. 2 By the pricking of my thumbs, &c.] It is a very ancient fuperftition, that all fudden pains of the body, and other fenfations which could not naturally be accounted for, were prefages of fomewhat that was fhortly to happen. Hence Mr. Upton has explained a paffage in The Miles Gloriofus of Plautus: "Timeo quod rerum gefferim hic, ita dorfus totus prurit." STEEVENS. 3 -yefty waves -] That is foaming or frothy waves. JOHNSON. Though bladed corn be lodg'd,] So, in K. Richard II: "Our fighs, and they, fhall lodge the fummer corn." |