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Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes' inch,

8

Ten thousand dollars to our general ufe.

DUN. No more that thane of Cawdor fhall de

ceive

Our bofom intereft:-Go, pronounce his death, 9
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSSE. I'll fee it done.

DUN. What he hath loft, noble Macbeth hath

won.

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That now the Norways' king craves compofition.

Could it have been neceffary for Roffe to tell Duncan the name of his old enemy, the king of Norway? STEEVENS.

8

-Saint Golmes' inch,] Colmes is to be confidered as a diffyllable.

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Colmes-inch, now called Inchcomb, is a small ifland lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to St. Columb; called by Camden Inch Colm, or The Ifle of Columba. Some of the modern editors, without authority, read

Saint Colmes'-kill fle:

but very erroneously; for Colmes' Inch, and Colm-kill, are two different iflands; the former lying on the eastern coaft, near the place where the Danes were defeated; the latter in the western seas, being the famous Iona, one of the Hebrides.

Holinfhed thus relates the whole circumftance: " The Danes that efcaped, and got once to their fhips, obteined of Makbeth for a great fumme of gold, that fuch of their friends as were flaine, might be buried in Saint Colmes' Inch. In memorie whereof many old fepultures are yet in the faid Inch, there to be feene graven with the armes of the Danes." Inch, or Infhe, in the Irish and Erfe languages, fignifies an island. See Lhuyd's Archæologia. STEEVENS. pronounce his death,] The old copy, injuriously to metre,

9

reads

pronounce his present death. STEEVENS.

SCENE III.

A Heath.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

1. WITCH. Where haft thou been, fifter?

2. WITCH. Killing swine."

3. WITCH. Sifter, where thou?3

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! 4 the rump-fed ronyon5 cries. 6

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Killing fwine. So, in a Detection of damnable Driftes pralized by three Witches, &c. arraigned at Chelmisforde in Effex, &c. 1579. bl. 1. 12mo. "Item, also she 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.

3 1. 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 these three fpeeches, collectively taken, meant to form one verfe, as follows:

were

1. Witch. Where haft been, fifter!

2. Witch.

3. Wilch.

Killing fwine.

Where thou?

If my fuppofition be well founded, there is as little reafon for preferving the ufeleis 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 feufe very confiftent with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many, fupernatural ads by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the

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

places where they meet at their hellish feftivals. In this fenfe, anoint thee, witch, will mean, Away, witch, to your infernal affembly. This reading I was inclined to favour, because I had met with the word aroint in no other author; till looking into Hearne's Colle&ions 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 confulion 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 thefe words OUT OUT ARONGT, of which the laft is evidently the fame with aroint, and used in the same 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, hospitals, &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 state, 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 the following fees are allowed: every beefe &c. Again, in George Duke of Clarence: " with the rumpe, to be feable.

government of Prince Edward, 1474,

-

"mutton's heades, the rumpes of The Ordinances of the Household of the binder fhankes of the mutton,

Agai in Ben Jonfon's Staple of News, old Penny-boy fays to the Cook:

and then remember meat for my two dogs;

Fat Haps 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 fhoulder fees,
"With kidneys, rumps, and cues of fingle beer. '

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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 6 - ronyon cries. 1 i. e. fcabby or mangy woman. Fr. rogneux, royne, fcurf. Thus Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rofe, p. 551:

But in a fieve I'll thither fail,'
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.'

her necke

"Withouten bleine, or fcabbe, or roine."

Shakspeare uses the word again in The Merry Wives of Windfor,

STEEVENS.

7 in a fieve I'll thither Jail,] 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 shell, through and under the tempeftuous feas." Again, says Sir W. 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 presence of the Scotish 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. Published 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 substantially 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 Maunfells 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 itfelf. 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 eafy charge, 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 four-footed creatures. STEEVENS.

9 I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.-

I' the fhipman's card.

Look what I have..

Show me, show me.

Thus do go about, about;——] 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

scene to have been uniformly metrical when our author wrote it, in its prefent ftate I suspect 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 conje&ure) must not be expelled.

Were even the condition of modern tranfcripts 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 ad of fisterly friendship, for witches were fuppofed to fell them. So, in Summer's laft Will and Teftament, 1600:

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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 resemble that of one of their relations, as described in an Appendix to the old translation of Marco Paolo, 1579-" they demanded that he should give them a winde; and he fhewed, fetting his handes behinde, from whence STEEVENS.

the wind fhould come," &c.

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 easily mistaken for very, being either negligently read, haftily pronounced, or imperfectly heard.

JOHNSON.

The very ports are the exa& 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 erroneoully. 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 cheeks may blow ;

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