SCENE III. A Heath. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1. WITCH. Where haft thou been, fifter? 2. WITCH. Killing swine.2 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 1: Aroint thee, witch!4 the rump-fed ronyons cries. 2 Killing wine. So, in a Detection of damnable Driftes pradized 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 dislyking her dealyng, fent her home emptie; but presently after her departure, his hogges fell ficke and died, to the number of twentie. STEEVENS. 3 I. 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 speeches, 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 reafon for preferving the ufeleis thou in the first line, as the repetition of fifter in the third. SILEVENS. 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 content with the common account of witches, who are related to perform many fupernatural ads by the meaus of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the Her husband's to Aleppo gone, mafter o'the Tiger: In this fenfe, places where they meet at their hellish festivals. 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 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 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 used 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 houses, 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. COLFPIPER. 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 binder 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 Haps of mutton, kidneys, rumps, &c. Again, in Wit at feveral Weapons, by Beaumont and Fletcher: 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. ] i. e. fcabby or mangy woman. Fr. rogneux, royne, fcurf. Thus Chaucer, in The Romaunt of the Rofe, p. 551 1 But in a fieve I'll thither fail," 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 Difcovery of Witchcraft, 1584, fays it was believed that witches" could fail in an egg shell, a cockle or mufcle fhell, through and under the tempeftuous feas." Again, fays 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 Dolor 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 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 bir 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 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 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. And, like a rat without a tail,] It fhould be remembered (as it was the belief of the times), that though a witch could affume the form of any animal fhe pleased, 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 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 four-footed creatures. STEEVENS, 9 I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.- I the Jhipman'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.2 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 Atate 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 flage understood by the public, the frequent accidents by which a poet's meaning is depraved, and his meafure vitiated, would need no illuftration. STEEVENS. 2 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 fupposed to fell them. So, in Summer's laft Will and Testament, 1600: 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 coat he will." Drayton, in his Moon-calf, fays the fame.It may be hoped, however, that the conduct of our witches did not relemble that of one of their relations, as defcribed in an Appendix to the old tranflation of Marco Paolo, 1579-" they demanded that he should give them a inde; 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 imperfe&ly 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 ; I' the fhipman's card.4 I will drain him dry as hay:5 i. e. blow upon them. We ftill fay, it blows Eaft, or Weft, without a prepofition. STEEVENS. 1 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: 4 I myself have all the other. And then from every port they blow, "From all the points that feamen 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 goodness in your minds, that fhews you "When you fail falfe." 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 speciall Card and order to his captaines for the paffing of the ftraites," &c. STEEVENS. 5 -dry as hay: So, Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, B. III. c. ix : "But he is old and withered as hay." STEEvens. Sleep hall, neither night nor day, Hang upon his penthouse 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 hall live a man forbid : i. e. as one under a curfe, an interdiction. So, afterwards in this play: "By his own interdiction ftand accurs'd." Ignis So among the Romans, an outlaw's fentence was, Aque interdictio; i. e. he was forbid the ufe of water and fire, which imply'd the neceffity of banishment. THEOBALD. |