ROSSE. God save the king! DUN. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane? ROSSE. From Fife, great king. Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky1 "Men judge by the complexion of the sky, &c. "So may you, by my dull and heavy eye, My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say." STEEVENS "That seems to speak things strange." i. e. that seems about to speak strange things. Our author himself furnishes us with the best comment on this passage. In Antony and Cleopatra we meet with nearly the same idea: "The business of this man looks out of him." MALONE. I-FLOUT the sky,] The banners may be poetically described as waving in mockery or defiance of the sky. So, in King Edward III. 1599: "And new replenish'd pendants cuff the air, "And beat the wind, that for their gaudiness Again, in King John: "Mocking the air, with colours idly spread." This passage has perhaps been misunderstood. The meaning seems to be, not that the Norweyan banners proudly insulted the sky; but that, the standards being taken by Duncan's forces, and fixed in the ground, the colours idly flapped about, serving only to cool the conquerors, instead of being proudly displayed by their former possessors. The line in King John, therefore, is the most perfect comment on this. MALONE. "Where The sense of the passage, collectively taken, is this: the triumphant flutter of the Norweyan standards ventilates or cools the soldiers who had been heated through their efforts to secure such numerous trophies of victory." STEEVENS. In Marston's Sophonisba, published in 1606, the second scene of the first act bears a great resemblance to the one now before us, and that which precedes it: "Carthelo enters, his sword drawne, his body wounded, his shield strucke full of darts." He gives an account of a battle between the Carthaginians and Romans, and this passage occurs: "When we the campe that lay at Utica, "From Carthage distant but five easie leagues, "Descride, from of the watch three hundred saile, 66 Upon whose tops the Roman eagles streach'd "Their large spread winges which fan'd the evening ayre "To us cold breath, for well we might discerne "Rome swam to Carthage." BOSWELL. Norway himself, with terrible numbers, The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict: Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, DUN. ROSSE. That now Great happiness! 2 And fan our people cold.] In all probability, some words that rendered this a complete verse have been omitted; a loss more frequently to be deplored in the present tragedy, than perhaps in any other of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. 3 Till that Bellona's BRIDEGROOM, lapp'd IN PROOF,] This passage may be added to the many others, which show how little Shakspeare knew of ancient mythology. HENLEY. Our author might have been influenced by Holinshed, who, p. 567, speaking of King Henry V. says: "He declared that the goddesse of battell, called Bellona," &c. &c. Shakspeare, therefore, hastily concluded that the Goddess of War was wife to the God of it; or might have been misled by Chapman's version of a line in the fifth Iliad of Homer: 66 Mars himself, match'd with his female mate, "The dread Bellona-." Lapp'd in proof, is, defended by armour of proof. STEEVENS. These criticisms are entirely founded in error. "Bellona's bridegroom," as Mr. Kemble and Mr. Douce have observed, does not mean the God of War, but Macbeth. So, in the scene quoted above, Marston's Sophonisba : "Scipio advanced like the God of blood, "Leads up grim war." BosWELL. 4 Confronted HIM with self-comparisons,] By him, in this verse, is meant Norway; as the plain construction of the English requires. And the assistance the thane of Cawdor had given Norway, was underhand; (which Rosse and Angus, indeed, had discovered, but was unknown to Macbeth ;) Cawdor being in the court all this while, as appears from Angus's speech to Macbeth, when he meets him to salute him with the title, and insinuates his crime to be "lining the rebel with hidden help and 'vantage." 66 with self-comparisons." i. e. gave him as good as he brought, shew'd he was his equal. WARBURTON. Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition; DUN. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest :-Go, pronounce his present death', And with his former title greet Macbeth. ROSSE. I'll see it done. DUN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath 5 That now won. [Exeunt. SWENO, the Norways' king,] The present irregularity of metre induces me to believe that-Sweno was only a marginal reference, injudiciously thrust into the text; and that the line originally stood thus: "That now the Norways' king craves composition." Could it have been necessary for Rosse to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway? STEEVENS. 6 Saint COLMES' INCH,] Colmes' is to be considered as a dissyllable. Colmes'-inch, now called Inchcomb, is a small island lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to St. Columb; called by Camden Inch Colm, or The Isle of Columba. Some of the modern editors, without authority, read— "Saint Colmes'-kill Isle: but very erroneously; for Colmes' Inch and Colm-kill, are two different islands; the former lying on the eastern coast, near the place where the Danes were defeated; the latter in the western seas, being the famous Iona, one of the Hebrides. Holinshed thus relates the whole circumstance: "The Danes that escaped, and got once to their ships, obteined of Makbeth for a great summe of gold, that such of their friends as were slaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' Inch. In memorie whereof many old sepultures are yet in the said Inch, there to be seene graven with the armes of the Danes." Inch, or Inshe, in the Irish and Erse languages, signifies an island. See Lhuyd's Archæologia. STEEVENS. 71 reads pronounce his death,] The old copy, injuriously to metre, pronounce his present death." STEEVENS. Thunder. SCENE III. A Heath. Enter the three Witches. 1 WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister? 2 WITCH. Killing swine". 3 WITCH. Sister, where thou?? 1 WITCH. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd:Give me, quoth I: Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon 2 cries 3. 66 8 Killing swine.] So, in A Detection of Damnable Driftes practized by Three Witches, &c. Arraigned at Chelmisforde in Essex, 1579, bl. 1. 12mo: Item, also she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie &c. who dislyking her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure, his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie." 91 Witch. Where hast THOυ been, sister? 2 Witch. Killing swine. STEEVENS. 3 Witch. SISTER, where thou?] Thus the old copy; yet I cannot help supposing that these three speeches, collectively taken, were meant to form one verse, as follows: 66 "1 Witch. Where hast been, sister? "2 Witch. "3 Witch. Killing swine. Where thou?' If my supposition be well founded, there is as little reason for preserving the useless thou in the first line, as the repetition of sister, in the third. STEEVENS. I AROINT thee, witch!] Aroint, or avaunt, be gone. POPE. In one of the folio editions the reading is-" Anoint thee," in a sense very consistent with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural acts, by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this sense, "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 pub Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger: But in a sieve I'll thither sail, lished, in which St. Patrick is represented visiting hell, and putting the devils into great confusion by his presence, of whom one, that is driving the damned before him with a prong, has a label issuing out of his mouth with these words, "out out Arongt," of which the last is evidently the same with aroint, and used in the same sense as in this passage. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's memory, on the present occasion, appears to have deceived him in more than a single instance. The subject of the above-mentioned drawing is ascertained by a label atfixed to it in Gothick letters. "Iesus Christus, resurgens a mortuis spoliat infernum." My predecessor, indeed, might have been misled by an uncouth abbreviation in the Sacred Name. The words" Out out arongt," are addressed to our Redeemer by Satan, who, the better to enforce them, accompanies them with a blast of the horn he holds in his right hand. "Tartareum intendit cornu." If the instrument he grasps in his left hand was meant for a prong, it is of singular make. Ecce signum. จ Satan is not driving the damned before him;' nor is any other dæmon present to undertake that office. Redemption, not punishment, is the subject of the piece. This story of Christ's exploit, in his descensus ad inferos, (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed in a note on Chaucer, 3512,) is taken from the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was called by our ancestors the harrowinge of helle, under which title it was represented among the Chester Whitsun Playes, MS. Harl. 2013. 66 Rynt you, witch! quoth Besse Locket to her mother," is a north country proverb. The word is used again in King Lear: "And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee." Anoint is the reading of the folio, 1664, a book of no authority. STEEVENS. It has been ingeniously suggested, (originally, as I understand, *See Ectypa Varia, &c. Studio et cura Thomæ Hearne, &c. 1737. STEEVENS. |