8 Weary fev'n-nights, nine times nine, Mr. Theobald has very juftly explained forbid by accurfed, but without giving any reafon of his interpretation. To bid is originally to pray, as in this Saxon fragment: He ir pir bir y bore, &c. He is wife that prays and makes amends, As to forbid therefore implies to prohibit, in oppofition to the word bid in its prefent fenfe, it fignifies by the fame kind of oppofition to curfe, when it is derived from the fame word in its primitive meaning. JOHNSON. A forbedin fellow, Scot. fignifies an unhappy one. STEEVENS. It may be added that " bitten and Verbieten, in the German, fignify to pray and to interdict.” S. W. 8 Shall be dwindle, &c.] This mifchief was fuppofed to be put in execution by means of a waxen figure, which represented the perfon who was to be confumed by flow degrees. So, in Webster's Duchefs of Malfy, 1623: 66 it weftes me more "Than wer't my picture fashion'd out of wax, So Holinfhed, fpeaking of the witchcraft practifed to deftroy king Duff: 66 found one of the witches roafting upon wooden broch an image of wax at the fire, resembling in each feature the king's perfon, &c. for as the image did wafte afore the fire, fo did the bodie of the king break forth in fweat. And as for the words of the inchantment, they ferved to keep him ftill waking from fleepe," &c. This may ferve to explain the foregoing paffage: "Sleep fhall neither night nor day "Hang upon his penthoufe lid." Sce Vol. III. p. 215, n.2. STEEVENS. 9 Though his bark cannot be loft, 66 Yet it shall be tempeft-tft.] So, in Newes from Scotland, &c. a pamphlet already quoted. Againe it is confeffed, that the faid chriftened cat was the caufe of the Kinges Majeflies Shippe, at his 2. WITCH. Show me, fhow me. 1. WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd, as homeward he did come. 3. WITCH. A drum, a drum; Macbeth doth come. [Drum within. ALL. The weird fifters, hand in hand,2 Posters of the sea and land, coming forthe of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of his Shippes then beeing in his companie, which thing was moft ftraunge and true, as the Kinges Majestie acknowledgeth, for when the reft of the shippes had a faire and good winde, then was the winde contrarie and altogether againft his Majeftie. And further the fayde witch declared, that his Majeftie had never come fafely from the fea, if his faith had not prevayled above their ententions." To this circumstance perhaps our author's allufion is fufficiently plain. STEEVENS Ha 2 The weird fifters, hand in hand,] Thefe weird fifters, were the Fates of the northern nations; the three hand-maids of Odin. nominantur Valkyriæ, quas quodvis ad prælium Odinus mittit. Hæ viros morti deftinant, & victoriam gubernant. Gunna, & Rota, & Parcarum minima Skullda: per aëra maria equitant femper ad morituros eligendos; cædes in poteftate habent. Bartholinus de Caufis contemptæ à Danis adhuc Gentilibus mortis. It is for this reafon that Shakspeare makes them three; and calls them, Pofters of the fea and land; and intent only upon death and mischief. However, to give this part of his work the more dignity, he intermixes, with this northern, the Greek and Roman fuperftitions; and puts Hecate at the head of their enchantments. And to make it ftill more familiar to the common audience (which was always his point) he adds, for another ingredient, a fufficient quantity of our own country fuperftitions concerning witches; their beards, their cats, and their broomsticks. So that his witch-fcenes are like the charm they prepare in one of them; where the ingredients are gathered from every thing shocking in the natural world, as here, from every thing abfurd in the moral. But as extravagant as all this is, the play has had the power to charm and bewitch every audience from that time to this. WARBURTON. Wierd comes from the Anglo-Saxon pýrð, fatum, and is used as a fubftantive fignifying a prophecy, by the tranflator of Hector Boethius Thus do go about, about; Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. MAC. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BAN. How far is't call'd to Fores? What are these, in the year 1541, as well as for the Definies by Chaucer and Holinfhed. Of the weirdis gevyn to Makbeth and Banqhuo, is the argument of one of the chapters. Gawin Douglas, in his tranflation of Virgil, calls the Parce the weird fifters; and in Ane verie excellent and delectabill Treatife intitulit PHILOTUS, qubairin we may perfave the greit inconveniences that fallis out in the Mariage betweent Age and Zouth, Edinburgh, 1603, the word appears again: "How dois the quheill of fortune go, Again: 66 Quhat wickit wierd has wrocht our wo." "Quhat neidis Philotus to think ill, Or zit his wierd to warie ?" The other method of fpelling, [weyward] was merely a blunder of the tranfcriber or printer. The Valkyrie, or Valkyriur, were not barely three in number. The learned critick might have found, in Bartholinus, not only Gunna, Rota, et Skullda, but alfo, Scogula, Hilda, Gondula, and Geirofcogula. Bartholinus adds that their number is yet greater, according to other writers who fpeak of them. They were the cupbearers of Odin, and conductors of the dead. They were distinguished by the elegance of their forms; and it would be as juft to compare youth and beauty with age and deformity, as the Valkyria of the North with the Witches of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. The old copy has-weyard, probably in confequence of the tranfcriber's being deceived by his ear. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. The following paffage in Bellenden's Translation of Hector Boethius, fully fupports the emendation: "Be aventure Makbeth and Banquho were pafland to Fores, quhair kyng Duncane hapnit to be for ye tyme, and met be ye gait thre wemen clothit in elrage and uncouth weid. They wer jugit be the pepill to be weird fifters." So alfo Holinfhed. MALONE. 3 How far is't call'd to Fores?] The king at this time refided at So wither'd, and fo wild in their attire ; That look not like the inhabitants o'the earth, And yet are on't?-Live you? or are you aught That man may queftion? You feem to understand me, By each at once her choppy finger laying 6 Масв. Speak, if you can ;-What are you? 1. WITCH. All hail, Macbeth!' hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 8 Fores, a town in Murray, not far from Inverness. "It fortuned, (fays Holinfhed) as Macbeth and Banquo journeyed towards Fores, where the king then lay, they went fporting by the way, without other company, fave only themfelves, when fuddenly in the midft of a laund there met them three women in ftrange and wild apparell, refembling creatures of the elder world," &c. STEEVENS. The old copy reads-Soris. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 That man may question?] Are ye any beings with which man is permitted to hold converfe, or of whom it is lawful to ask questions? JOHNSON. 5-You should be women,] In Pierce Pennileffe his Supplication to the Divell, 1592, there is an enumeration of fpirits and their offices; and of certain watry fpirits it is faid-" by the help of Alynach a fpirit of the Weft, they will raife ftormes, caufe earthquakes, rayne, haile or fnow, in the clearest day that is; and if ever they appeare to anie man, they come in women's apparell." HENDERSON. 6 your beards- -] Witches were fuppofed always to have hair on their chins. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: Some women have beards, marry they are half witches." STEEVENS. 66 All hail, Macbeth!] It hath lately been repeated from Mr. Guthrie's Effay upon English Tragedy, that the portrait of Macbeth's wife is copied from Buchanan," whofe fpirit, as well as words, is tranflated into the play of Shakspeare: and it had fignifyed nothing to have pored only on Holinfhed for facts."-" Animus etiam, per fe ferox, prope quotidianis conviciis uxoris (quæ omnium 2. WITCH. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! confiliorum ei erat confcia) stimulabatur.". -This is the whole, that Buchanan fays of the Lady, and truly I fee no more spirit in the Scotch, than in the English chronicler. "The wordes of the three weird fifters alfo greatly encouraged him [to the murder of Duncan,] but fpecially his wife lay fore upon him to attempt the thing, as the that was very ambitious, brenning in unquenchable defire to beare the name of a queene." Edit. 1577, P. 244. This part of Holinfhed is an abridgment of Johne Bellenden's tranflation of the noble clerk, Hector Boece, imprinted at Edinburgh, in fol. 1541. I will give the paffage as it is found there. "His wyfe impacient of lang tary (as all wemen ar) fpecially quhare they are defirus of ony purpos, gaif hym gret artation to purfew the third weird, that fche micht be ane quene, calland hym oft tymis febyl cowart and nocht defyrus of honouris, fen he durft not affailze the thing with manheid and curage, quhilk is offerit to hym be beniuolence of fortoun. Howbeit findry otheris hes affailzeit fic thinges afore with maift terribyl jeopardyis, quhen they had not fic fickernes to fucceid in the end of thair laubouris as he had." p. 173. But we can demonftrate, that Shakspeare had not the story from Buchanan. According to him, the weird fifters falute Macbeth: "Una Angufiæ Thanum, altera Moravia, tertia Regem." Thane of Angus, and of Murray, &c. but according to Holinfhed, immediately from Bellenden, as it ftands in Shakspeare: "The first of them fpake and fayde, All hayle Makbeth Thane of Glammis, the second of them fayde, Hayle Makbeth Thane of Cawder; but the third fayde, All hayle Makbeth, that hereafter fhall be king of Scotland." p. 243. 1. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis ! 2. Witch. All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter! 3. Here too our poet found the equivocal predictions, on which his hero fo fatally depended: "He had learned of certaine wyfards, how that he ought to take heede of Macduffe:-and furely hereupon had he put Macduffe to death, but a certaine witch, whom he had in great truft, had tolde, that he should neuer be flain with man borne of any woman, nor vanquished till the wood of Bernane came to the caftell of Dunfinane." p. 244. And the scene between Malcolm and Macduff in the fourth act is almost literally taken from the Chronicle. FARMER. All hail, Macbeth!] All hail is a corruption of al-hael, Sax. i. e. ave, falve. MALONE. |