All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,' Posters of the sea and land,

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

Thus do go about, about;

And thrice again, to make up

nine :

Peace!-the charm's wound up.

Enter MACBETH and BANQUO.

Macb. So foul and fair a day I have not seen. Ban. How far is't call'd to Fores ?-What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire

;

That look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth,

And yet are on't?-Live you? or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips :-You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

Macb. Speak, if you can ;-What are you?

1 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis !

2 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

3 Witch. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter.

Ban. Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear

[1] These weird sisters were the Fates of the northern nations; the three handmaids of Odin. "Hæ nominantur Valkyriæ, quas quodvis ad prælium Odinus mittit. Hæ viros morti destinant, et victoriam gubernant. Gunna, et Rota, et Parcarum minima Skullda: per aera et maria, equitant semper ad morituros eligendos; et cædes in potestate habent." Bartholinus de Causis contemptæ a Danis adhuc Gentilibus mortis. It is for this reason that Shakespeare makes them three ; and calls them

Posters of the sea 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 superstitions; and puts Hecate at the head of their enchantments. And to make it still more familiar to the common audience (which was always his point,) he adds, for another ingredient, a sufficient quantity of our own country superstitions concerning witches; their beards, their cats, and their broomsticks. So that his witch-scenes 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 absurd 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.

The Valkyrie or Valkyriur, were not barely three in number. The learned cri tic might have found, in Bartholinus, not only Gunna, Rota, et Skullda, but also, Scogula, Hilda, Gondula, and Geiroscogula. Bartholinus adds, that their number is yet greater, according to other writers who speak of them. They were the cupbearers of Odin, and conductors of the dead. They were distinguished by their elegance of forms; and it would be as just to compare youth and beauty with age and deformity, as the Valkyrie of the North with the Witches of Shakespeare. STEEVENS.

Things that do sound so fair?-I' th' name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace, and great prediction
Of noble having, and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not:
If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say, which grain will grow, and which will not;
Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear,
Your favours, nor your hate.

1 Witch. Hail! 2 Witch. Hail! 3 Witch. Hail!
1 Witch. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

2 Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier.

3 Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none : So, all hail, Macbeth, and Banquo !

1 Witch. Banquo, and Macbeth, all hail!
Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more :
By Sinel's death, I know, I am thane of Glamis
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king,
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say, from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

With such prophetic greeting?-Speak, I charge you.
[Witches vanish
Ban. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them :-Whither are they vanish'd?
Macb. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted

As breath into the wind.-'Would they had staid !

Ban. Were such things here, as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten of the insane root,*

That takes the reason prisoner ?

Macb. Your children shall be kings.

Ban. You shall be king.

Macb. And thane of Cawdor too; went it not so?

Ban. To the self-same tune, and words: Who's here ? Enter Rosse and ANGUS.

Rosse. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth, The news of thy success: and when he reads

[2] By fantastical, he means creatures of fantasy or imagination: the question is, Are these real beings before us, or are we deceived by illusions of fancy?

[3] The father of Macbeth. POPE.

JOHNSON

14] Shakespeare alludes to the qualities anciently ascribed to hemlock.

STEEVENS,

Thy personal venture in the rebel's fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend,

Which should be thine, or his: Silenc'd with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' th' self-same day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as tale,
Came post with post ;" and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
And pour'd them down before him.

Ang. We are sent,

To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
To herald thee into his sight, not pay thee.

Rosse. And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane !

For it is thine.

Ban. What, can the devil speak true?

Macb. The thane of Cawdor lives; Why do you dress me

In borrow'd robes ?

Ang. Who was the thane, lives yet;
But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was
Combin'd with Norway; or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage; or that with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess'd, and prov'd,
Have overthrown him.

Macb. Glamis, and thane of Cawdor :

The greatest is behind.-Thanks for your pains.-
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me,
Promis'd no less to them?

Ban. That, trusted home, 6

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange :
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths;

[5] Meaning that the news came as thick as a tale can travel with the post.

JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson's explanation is perfectly justifiable. As thick, in ancient language, signified as fast. To speak thick, in our author, does not therefore mean, to have a cloudy indistinct utterance, but to deliver words with rapidity. STEEVENS. [6] i. e. entirely, thoroughly relied on. STEEVENS.

7 Enkindle, for stimulate you to seek. WARBURTON.

Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.-
Cousins, a word,"I pray you.

Mach. Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.
-This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good:-If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man,' that function
Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is,

But what is not.2

Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt.

Macb. If chance will have me king, why, chance may

crown me,

Without my stir.

Ban. New honours come upon him

Like our strange garments; cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use.

Macb. Come what come may;

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."
Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
Macb. Give me your favour :-my dull brain was
wrought

[8] Smelling is used in the same sense in the prologue to King Henry V:

"princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."
." STEEVENS.

[9] i. e. fixed, firmly placed. STEEVENS.

[1] The single state of man seems to be used by Shakespeare for an individual, in opposition to a commonwealth, or conjunct body. JOHNSON.

[2] All powers of action are oppressed and crushed by one overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me but that, which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. JOHNSON.

[3]"By this, I confess I do not, with his two last commentators, imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allusion to time painted with an hour-glass, or an exhortation to time to hasten forward, but rather to say tempus et hora, time and occasion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to some determined point and end, let its nature be what it will." This note is taken from an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu. STEEVENS.

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are register'd where every day I turn

The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.—
Think upon what hath chane'd; and, at more time,
The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

Ban. Very gladly.

Macb. Till then, enough.-Come, friends.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Fores. A Room in the Palace. Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

Dun. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Those in commission yet return'd?

Mal. My liege,

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die : who did report,
That very frankly he confess'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Dun. There's no art,

To find the mind's construction in the face :"
He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.-O worthiest cousin!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.

The sin of my ingratiude even now

Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

[4] My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. JOHNSON. [5] The behaviour of the thane of Candor corresponds, in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian. Such an allusion could not fail of having the desired effect on an audience. many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS.

[6] Studied-instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. JOHNSON.

[7] The construction of the mind is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to Shakespeare it implies the frame or disposition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or i JOHNSON.