Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

341

SCENE III.

A Heath.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

1. WITCH. Where haft thou been, sister?

2. WITCH. Killing fwine."

3. WITCH. Sifter, where thou??

1. WITCH. A failor's wife had chefnuts in her

lap,

And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd:Give me, quoth I:

Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon' cries."

66

2 Killing frwine.] 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. Sifter, where thou?] Thus the old copy; yet I cannot help fuppofing that thefe three fpeeches, 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 reason for preferving the ufeless thou in the first line, as the repetition of fifter, in the third. STEEVENS.

4 Aroint thee, witch!] Aroint, or avaunt, be gone. POPE.

In one of the folio editions the reading is-Anoint thee, in a fenfe very confiftent with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many fupernatural acts by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the

Her husband's to Aleppo gone, mafter o'the Tiger:

places where they meet at their hellish feftivals. In this fenfe, 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 published, in which St. Patrick is reprefented vifiting hell, and putting the devils into great confufion 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 last is evidently the fame with aroint, and used in the fame sense 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 abject ftate, as not being able to procure better provifion than offals, which are confidered 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 heades, the rumpes 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;
"Fat flaps of mutton, kidneys, rumps," &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 thoulder 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 haukes, it is faid: "The hauke tyreth upon rumps." STEEVENS. ronyon cries.] i. e. fcabby or mangy woman. Fr. rogneux, royne, fcurf. Thus Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rafe, p. 551:

6

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Shakspeare ufes the word again in The Merry Wives of Windfor. STEEVENS.

7-in a fieve I'll thither fail,] Reginald Scott, in his Dif covery of Witchcraft, 1584, fays it was believed that witches" could fail in an egg fhell, a cockle or muscle fhell, through and under the tempestuous feas." Again, fays SirW. Davenant, in his Albovine, 1629:

He fits like a witch failing in a fieve."

Again, in Newes from Scotland: Declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian a notable forcerer, who was burned at Edinbrough in Januarie laft, 1591; which Doctor was register to the Devill, that fundrie times preached at North Baricke Kirke, to a number of notorious Witches. With the true examination of the faid Doctor and Witches, as they uttered them in the prefence of the Scottish king. Discovering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majeftie in the fea comming from Denmarke, with other fuch wonderful matters as the like hath not bin heard at anie time. Publifhed according to the Scottish copie. Printed for William Wright.- " and that all they together went to fea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went in the fame very fubftantially with flaggons of wine, making merrie and drinking by the way in the fame riddles or cives," &c. Dr. Farmer found the title of this fcarce pamphlet in an interleaved copy of Maunjells catalogue, &c. 1595, with additions by Archbishop Harfenet and Thomas Baker the Antiquarian. It is almoft needlefs to mention that I have fince met with the pamphlet itself. STEEVENS,

8 And, like a rat without a tail,] It should be remembered (as it was the belief of the times), that though a witch could affume the form of any animal fhe pleafed, the tail would ftill be wanting.

The reafon given by fome of the old writers, for fuch a deficiency, is, that though the hands and feet, by an easy change, might be converted into the four paws of a beaft, there was ftill no part about a woman which correfponded with the length of tail common to almoft all our four-footed creatures. STEEVENS.

[blocks in formation]

-] As I cannot help fuppofing this

2. WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.*

1. WITCH. Thou art kind.

3. WITCH. And I another.

1. WITCH. I myself have all the other; And the very ports they blow,3

All the quarters that they know

fcene to have been uniformly metrical when our author wrote it, in its prefent ftate I fufpect it to be clogged with interpolations, or mutilated by omiffions.

Want of correfponding rhymes to the foregoing lines, induce me to hint at vacuities which cannot be fupplied, and intrufions which (on the bare authority of conjecture) must not be expelled.

Were even the condition of modern transcripts for the stage understood by the public, the frequent accidents by which a poet's meaning is depraved, and his measure vitiated, would need no illuftration. STEEVENS.

I'll give thee a wind.] This free gift of a wind is to be confidered as an act of fifterly friendship, for witches were fuppofed to fell them. So, in Summer's laft Will and Teftament, 1600:

[ocr errors]

in Ireland and in Denmark both, "Witches for gold will fell a man a wind, "Which in the corner of a napkin wrap'd,

"Shall blow him fafe unto what coaft he will.”

Drayton, in his Moon-calf, fays the fame.-It may be hoped, however, that the conduct of our witches did not refemble that of one of their relations, as described in an Appendix to the old tranflation of Marco Paolo, 1579-" they demanded that he fhould give them a winde; and he fhewed, fetting his handes behinde, from whence the wind fhould come," &c. STEEVENS.

3 And the very ports they blow,] As the word very is here of no other ufe than to fill up the verfe, it is likely that Shakspeare wrote various, which might be eafily mistaken for very, being either negligently read, haftily pronounced, or imperfectly heard.

JOHNSON.

The very ports are the exact ports. Very is ufed here (as in a thousand inftances which might be brought) to exprefs the declaration more emphatically.

Inftead of ports, however, I had formerly read points; but erroneously. In ancient language, to blow fometimes means to blow upon. So, in Dumain's Ode in Love's Labour's Loft:

"Air, quoth he, thy checks may blow;"

I' the fhipman's card."

I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep fhall, neither night nor day,
Hang upon his penthoufe lid;"
He fhall live a man forbid:7

i. e. blow upon them. We ftill fay, it blows East, or Weft, without a prepofition. STEEVENS.

The fubftituted word was firft given by Sir William Davenant, who, in his alteration of this play, has retained the old, while at the fame time he furnished Mr. Pope with the new, reading: "I myself have all the other.

"And then from every port they blow,

"From all the points that seamen know." MALONE.

the shipman's card.] The card is the paper on which the winds are marked under the pilot's needle; or perhaps the fea-chart, fo called in our author's age. Thus, in The Loyal Subject, by Beaumont and Fletcher :

"The card of goodnefs in your minds, that fhews you "When you fail false."

Again, in Churchyard's Prayfe and Reporte of Maifter Martyne Forboifher's Voyage to Meta Incognita, &c. 12mo. bl. 1. 1578: There the generall gaue a fpeciall Card and order to his captaines for the paffing of the ftraites," &c. STEEVENS.

c. ix:

dry as bay:] So, Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, B. III,

"But he is old and withered as hay." STEEVENS.

6 Sleep ball, neither night nor day,

Hang upon his penthoufe lid;] So, in The Miracles of Mofes, by Michael Drayton :

"His brows, like two fteep pent-houses, hung down
"Over his eye-lids."

There was an edition of this poem in 1604, but I know not whether thefe lines are found in it. Drayton made additions and alterations in his pieces at every re-impreffion. MALONE.

7 He fhall live a man forbid :] i. e. as one under a curfe, an interdiction. So, afterwards in this play:

66

By his own interdiction ftands accurs'd."

So among the Romans, an outlaw's fentence was, Aque Ignis interdictio; i. e. he was forbid the ufe of water and fire, which imply'd the neceffity of banishment. THEOBALD.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »