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Upon the heath.

SWIE Tier to meet with Macbeth.

1 WIRE. I Come. Graymalkin!

A' Fajaock elis:—anon!

For as it and fall is fair:

Høver tirugh the fog and nithy air.

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This is the sergeant, Whi, like a good and hardy soldier, fought Gainst my captivity-Hs, brave friend! Say to the king the knowledge of the broil, As thou didst have it.

Doubtful it stood;

CAP.
As two spent swimmers, that do eling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonald
(Worthy to be a rebel-for, to that,
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him) from the western isles
Of kertes and gallowglasses is supplied;
And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth, (well he deserves that name)
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smok'd with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion,

Carv'd out his passage till he fac'd the slave ;
Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

There to meet with Macbeth.] Pope, to remedy the defective verse, reads, "There I go to meet Macbeth;" Capell, "There to meet with great Macbeth;" and Steevens,

"3 Witch. There to meet with1 Witch.

3 Witch.

Whom?

Macbeth."

b ALL. Paddock calls: &c.] The folio prints these lines as if spoken in chorus by the three witches; but the distribution commonly adopted by modern editors,

"2 Witch. Paddock calls:-anon.

All. Fair is foul, and foul is fair,

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Hover through the fog and filthy air,"is certainly preferable. The dialogue throughout, with the exception of the two lines, "I come, Graymalkin!" and calls:-anon!" was probably intended to be sung or chaunted. 'Paddock This is the sergeant,-] Sergeants were not formerly the noncommissioned officers now so called, but a guard specially appointed to attend the person of the king; and, as Minsheu says, to arrest Traytors or great men, that doe, or are like to contemne messengers of ordinarie condition, and to attend the Lord High Steward of England, sitting in judgement upon any Traytor, and such like," And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, &c.] The old text has, damned Quarry," &c.; but the fact that quarrel, a

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Dismay'd not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
CAP.

Yes:

As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks: 8
So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the for:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking would,
Or memorize another Golgotha,

I cannot tell:—

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

KING. So well thy words become thee as thy
wounds;

They smack of honour both.-Go, get Lim
surgeons. [Exit Captain, attended
Who comes here?
MAL.
The worthy thane of Ross.
LEN. What a haste looks through his eyes!
So should he look that seems to speak thing
strange.

Enter Ross.*

Ross. God save the king!
KING. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?
Ross.
From Fife, great king
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,
And fan our people cold.

Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor

(*) Old text, Enter Rosse and Angus.

most appropriate word, occurs in the corresponding pastare
Holinshed, is almost certain proof that the latter term is th
genuine reading:-"Out of the westerne Iles there came on
him [Makdowald] a great multitude of people, offering them...HE.
to assist him in that rebellious quarell."-History of Sections.
e Which ne'er shook hands, &c.] "Which" has been altered, at
perhaps rightly, to And.

fdireful thunders break; &c.] The word break is want r: = the folio 1623, and was supplied by Pope out of the subsequen! folios, which read, "breaking."

As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks; &e.] Jah interprets this, "cannon charged with double thunders;" and serves truly that cracks was a word of such emphasis and die 2* that in this play the writer terms the general dissolution of machin the crack of doom.

h that seems to speak things strange.] Johnson prop "that teems to speak things strange; " and Mr. Collier's ann with characteristic vapidity, "that comes to speak," &; compare, Scene 5,

"Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal."

i with terrible numbers,-] Pope's transposition, "numbers terrible," is, prosodically, an improvement.

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1 WITH A kal. Marblech! hail to thee, thane of GlaER!

2 Warm Al Eai. Macbeth! bail to thee. thane of Cawde!

3 WITCH. All hi. Macbeth that shalt be King bereafter.

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

Things that de scand so fair?- the name of truth.

Are ve fantastical, or that indeed

Which outwardy ve 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
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow, and which will not
Speak, then, to me, who either beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.

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las uted that in Hakluyt's Voyages there a ant journa's of a voyage made to Aleppo in th of Lentre, in the year 1583. Forespoken, bewitched.

Ay verina Ward (in the old text weywords from The Sur eyes. signifies prophetic or fatal. Helinst Nasespeare flows, speaking of the witches who re LAMI, ses --But afterwards the common opinion was th the waren were either the weird sisters, that is (as re wen say the gablesses af destinie, or else some nymphes or fairies.

3.nd yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so

Virdes rerrting to the popular belief, were always bearden
The Best Nan's Fortune," Act II. Se. 1,-

"—and the women that
Come 19 18. for 2 sguises must wear heards;
And that's they say, a token of a wilch.”
Ancaster- Fionary: illusions of the fantasy.

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BAN. To the self-same tune and words.-Who's

here?

Enter Ross and ANGUS.

Ross. The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth,

The news of thy success: and when he reads
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' the 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.

a

We are sent To give thee, from our royal master, thanks; Only to herald thee into his sight,

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ANG. Who was the thane lives yet; But under heavy judgment bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whêr he was combin'd With those of 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. [Aside.] 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?

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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. [Aside.]

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 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 chanc'd; and, at more

time,

The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.

BAN.

Very gladly.

[Exeunt.

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

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

d Time and the hour-] Examples of this phrase may readily be found in the early writers of England. Mr. Dyce has shown that it was familiar also to those of Italy:

"Ferminsi in un momento il tempo e l'ore."

Michelagnolo,-Sɔn. xix.

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