SCENE V. The Heath. Thunder. Enter the Three Witches, meeting HECATE. 1 Witch. Why, how now, Hecate ! you look angerly. Hec. Have I not reason, beldams 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 call'd 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 Great business must be wrought ere noon. There hangs a vaporous drop profound; He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear Is mortals' chiefest enemy. Song. [Within.] Come away, come away, &c. Hark! I am call'd: my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. [Exit. 1 Witch. Come, let's make haste: she'll soon be back again. [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 farther: only, I say, Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Dun can Was pitied of Macbeth :-marry, he was dead; To kill their gracious father? damned fact ! That were the slaves of drink, and thralls of sleep? (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 fail'd Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell Lord. The son of Duncan', From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth, Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights, 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 Len. Lord. I'll send my prayers with him! 7 The son of Duncan,] The old copies, sons, obviously wrong. 8 ACT IV. SCENE I. A dark Cave. In the middle, a Cauldron. Thunder. Enter the Three Witches. 1 Witch. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. All. Double, double toil and trouble; All. Double, double toil and trouble; 3 Witch. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf; 9 HARPER cries,] In all the old folios this name is spelt Harpier. It may be doubted whether it was not a misprint for Harpy, then spelt Harpie. In Marlowe's "Tamberlaine," 1590, Harpie is misprinted Harper. 1 Toad that under THE cold stone,] The line in the original copies is, “Toad, that under cold stone:" and laying only due and expressive emphasis upon "cold," it may be doubted whether the line be defective. Pope introduced "the" to complete the metre, and Mr. Amyot thinks that he was right. We unwillingly yield to authority on this point. Steevens read coldest for "cold;" but there seems no reason for preferring the superlative degree, and it is more likely that the definite article dropped out in the printing. Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark ; Gall of goat, and slips of yew, All. Double, double toil and trouble; 2 Witch. Cool it with a baboon's blood; Enter HECATE, and other Witches3. Hec. O, well done! I commend your pains, And now about the cauldron sing, Enchanting all that you put in. "Black spirits," &c. 2 Witch. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks, whoever knocks. 2 Add thereto a tiger's CHAUDRON,] i. e. a tiger's entrails. [Knocking. Enter Hecate and other Witches.] The old stage-direction is, "Enter Hecate, and the other three Witches." What other three Witches" are intended does not appear: perhaps we ought to read only, "Enter Hecate, and other three Witches;" but that some addition was meant to the three Witches who had been engaged in the incantation is highly probable, if only for the purpose of the song which is given immediately afterwards. Music and a Song. "Black spirits," &c.] The following, taken from "The Witch," by Thomas Middleton, (Works, by the Rev. A. Dyce, vol. iii. p. 328,) is probably the song intended:- "Black spirits, and white, Red spirits and grey; Doubtless, it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare; but it was inserted in both dramas, because it was appropriate to the occasion. |