ACT I.

SCENE I.-An open Place. Thunder and lightning.

Enter three Witches. 1 WITCH. When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain ?

2 WITCH. When the hurly-burly's a done, When the battle's lost and won.

3 WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.
1 WITCH. Where the place.
2 WITCH.

Upon the heath.
3 WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.b
1 WITCH. I come, Graymalkin!

ALL. Paddock calls :-anon!-
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Witches vanish.

SCENE II.-A Camp near Forres. Alarum without.
Enter KING DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with

Attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain.
King. What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
MAL.

This is the sergeant, * When the hurly-burly's done,–] The word “ hurly-hurly,” explained by Henry Peacham in “The Garden of Eloquence,” 1577, to signify uprore and tumultuous stirre, occurs in a much earlier work, More's Utopia, translated by Ralphe Robinson, 1551 :" Furthermore, if I should declare unto them, that all this busy preparance to war, whereby so many nations for his sake should be brought into a troublesome hurleyburley, when all his coffers were emptied, his treasures wasted, and his people destroyed."

b. 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 with
1 Witch.

Whom?
3 Witch.

Macbeth." 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, –

“6 2 Witch. Paddock calls :-anon.-
AU. Fair is foul, and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air," -is certainly preferable. The dialogue throughout, with the exception of the two lines, "I come, Graymalkin!” and “ Paddock calls:

-anon!-"was probably intended to be sung or chaunted.

This is the sergeant,-) Sergeants were not formerly the non-commissioned 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.”

a

с

Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity.--Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil,
As thou didst leave it.
CAP.

Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling 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 kernes and gallowglasses is supplied ;
And Fortune, on his damned quarrel a 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.

KING. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman !

CAP. As whence the sun ’gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;c
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark!
No sooner justice had, with valour arm’d,
Compellid these skipping kernes to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
KING.

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 ;d
So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,

* And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, &c.] The old text has, “— damned Quarry,” &c.; but the fact that quarrel, a most appropriate word, occurs in the corresponding passage of Holinshed, is almost certain proof that the latter term is the genuine reading :-“Out of the westerne Iles there came unto him (Makdowald) a great multitude of people, offering themselves to assist him in that rebellious quirell.”Ilistory of Scotland.

b Which ne'er shook hands, &c.] “Which” has been altered, and perhaps rightly, to And.

-- direful thunders break; &c.] The word break is wanting in the folio 1623, and was supplied by Pope out of the subsequent folios, which read, breaking.”.

b

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 him 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 seemsa to speak things 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
The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal confict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point, against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
KING.

Great happiness !
Ross. That now
Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition ;
- Nor would we deign him burial of his men,

Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes'-inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

King. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest.—Go, pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Ross. I'll see it done.
KING. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. [E.ceunt.

60

(*) old text, Enter Rosse and Angus.
that seems to speak things strange.] Johnson proposed, " that teems to speak
things strange;" and Mr. Collier's annotator, with characteristic vapidity," that comes
to speak," &c.; but compare, Scene 5,-

“ Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.”
– with terrible numbers,–] Pope's transposition, "numbers terrible,” is, prosodi-
cally, an improvement.

Bellona's bridegroom, -- By, “Bellona's bridegroom” is meant, not Mars, as
Steevens too hastily concluded, but the leader of the royal host, Macbeth.

- proof,–] Armour.
• Saint Colmes'-inch, -] Inch or inse is Erse and Irish for island, and Colmes'-inch
now Inchcomb, is a small island in the Frith of Forth, near Edinburgh, with an abbey
upon it, dedicated to St. Columb. See note by Steevens ad l. in the variorum edition.

b

C

d

1