Of noble bearing, and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal; to me you speak not:
If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg, nor fear,
Your favours nor your hate.

1st Witch. Hail! 2d Witch. Hail! 3d Witch. Hail!
1st Witch. Lesser than Macbeth and greater!
2d Witch. Not so happy, yet much happier!
3d Witch. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be

none:

So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

1st Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
Macb. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more;
By Sinel's death, I know I am Thane of Glamis ;
But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman: and, to be king,
Stands not within the prospect of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence, or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?"

All this, including Banquo's remonstrance, is from Holinshed* and Boethius. Holinshed, after mentioning the threefold address of the witches, gives this speech to Banquo :—

"What manner of women are you, that seem so little favourable to me, whereas to my fellow here, * Hol., 268.

besides high offices, ye assign also the kingdom, appointing forth nothing for me at all."

And the witch answers

:

"Yes, we promise greater benefits unto thee than unto him, for he shall reign indeed, but with an unlucky end neither shall he leave any issue behind him to succeed in his place, where certainly thou in deed shall not reign at all, but of thee there shall be born which shall govern the Scottish kingdom by long order of continual descent."

Then we have the mutual banterings of the two chiefs,

Banquo would call Macbeth, in jest, king of Scotland, and Macbeth again would call him in sport likewise, the father of many kings."

Elaborate remarks have been made* upon the belief of Shakspeare's age in witchcraft, whereby his use of this preternatural machinery is justified. It is enough that Shakspeare found the witches in his text-book, and fortunate for us that he used them to diversify his tragedy, if indeed that can be styled a variety which, in truth, constitutes the epic of the play.

Inferences have also been drawn as to Shakspeare's intentions with respect to Macbeth's

* See Bosw., xi. 3.

character,* from the circumstance of Banquo being the first to speak to the weird sisters. My quotation from Holinshed shews that the poet has copied the chronicler.

But it is remarkable that the Chronicle of Andrew Wyntown† has nothing beyond nature in this story, but places in a dream the phantasies by which Macbeth was deluded. I will attempt a translation of the chapter (ch. xviii.), which is headed,

When Macbeth-Finlay arose, and reigned in

Scotland.

In this time, as you heard me tell of treason that occurred in England, in Scotland nearly the like was practised by Macbeth, when he murdered his own uncle, through the hope which he had in a dream. that he had when young and dwelling in the house of the king, who treated him fairly and well, in every little matter that belonged to him. For he was his sister's son, and he caused every thing to be done for him that he desired.

One night he thought, in his dreaming, that he was sitting beside the king on a hunting party, he accordingly had two greyhounds in his leash. He

* Whateley's Remarks, p. 47, Kemble, 41. See Coleridge's Lit. Rem., ii. 239.

He was born, according to Macpherson, in the reign of David II. which began in 1329.

thought the while he was so sitting, he saw three women going by, and these three women, he thought, were most like to three weird sisters. The first he heard say, as she went by, "Lo, there is the Thane of Cromarty." The other woman said, "I see the Thane of Moray." The third said, "I see the king." All this he heard in his dream.

Macbeth had recently become Thane of Glamis, by the death of his father Sinel (or Finel); and he is now greeted equally in Holinshed and in Shakspeare as the Thane of Cawdor. Finding the witches right in two particulars, Macbeth begins to contemplate the accomplishment of the more splendid prediction, and sees no way to it but the commission of a murder. So in Wyntown ;

"Soon after this, in his youth, he was made thane of these thanedoms; moreover, he now thought to be king, after Duncan's days should come to an end. Thus the fantasies of his dream excited him to slay his uncle, as in fact he did forthwith."

And in the play,

"Macb. Two truths are told,

As happy preludes to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.

This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good if ill,

Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,

And make my sealed heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings :

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is,

But what is not."

The idea of the murder, we see, came into Macbeth's head before he was urged to it by his wife.*

His apprehensions lest he should not obtain the third and most splendid prize is strongly excited, when the king, after conferring the thanedom of Cawdor upon Macbeth, makes his own son, Malcolm, Prince of Cumberland, which as Holinshed tells us

was thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdom immediately after his decease. Macbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he saw by this means his hope sore hindered, (where by the old laws of the realm the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of blood unto him should be admitted,) he began to take counsel how he might

* See Mrs. Jameson, ii. 305.