Hec. Come my sweet sisters, let the air strike our tune; Whilst we shew reverence to yon peeping moon. 58 (The Witches dance, et exeunt. 58 Though some resemblance may be traced between the Charms in Macbeth, and the Incantations in this Play, which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakspeare. His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional consultation. Those originate deeds of blood, and begin bad impulses to men. From the moment that their eyes first meet with Macbeth's, he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny. He can never break the fascination. These Witches can hurt the body; those have power over the soul. - Hecate in Middleton has a Son, a low buffoon: the bags of Shakspeare have neither child of their own, nor seem to be descended from any parent. They are foul Anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music. This is all we know of them. Except Hecate, they have no names; which heightens their mysteriousness. The names, and some of the properties, which Middleton has given to his Hags, excite smiles. The Weird Sisters are serious things. Their presence cannot co-exist with mirth. But, in a lesser degree, the Witches of Middleton are fine creations. Their power too is, in some measure, over the mind. They raise jars, jealousies, strifes, like a thick scurf o'er life. THE WITCH OF EDMONTON. A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, &c. MOTHER SAWYER, (before she turns Witch) alone. Saw. And why on me? why should the envious world Throw all their scandalous malice upon me? 'Cause I am poor, deform'd, and ignorant, And like a bow buckled and bent together By some more strong in mischiefs than myself; Must I for that be made a common sink For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues To fall and run into? Some call me Witch, And being ignorant, of myself, they go About to teach me how to be one: urging That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse: This they enforce upon me; and in part Make me to credit it.59 Banks, a Farmer, enters. Banks. Out, out upon thee, Witch. Saw. Dost call me Witch? Banks. I do, Witch, I do: And worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. What makest thou upon my ground? Suw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me. Banks. Down with them when I bid thee, quickly; I'll make thy bones rattle in thy skin else. Saw. You wont? churl, cut-throat, miser: there they be. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff. 59 This Soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator. Banks. Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. [Exit. May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased? I am shunn'd And hated like a sickness: made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appear'd; and suck'd, some say, their blood. Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, To be a witch as to be counted one. She gets a Familiar which serves her in the likeness of MOTHER SAWYER. Familiar. Saw. I am dried up With cursing and with madness; and have yet Stand Let's tickle. Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy; My little pearl. No lady loves her hound, Monkey, or parakeet, as I do thee. Famil. The maid has been churning butter nine hours, but it shall not come. Saw. Let 'm eat cheese and choak. Famil. I had rare sport Among the clowns in the morrice. Saw. I could dance Out of my skin to hear thee. That jade, that foul-tongued But, my curl-pate, Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow, Struck, and had almost lamed it: did not I charge thee To pinch that quean to the heart? * * * Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes him. Saw. Not see me in three days? I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come; Revenge to me is sweeter far than life: Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings Revenge comes flying to me: Oh, my best love, I am on fire (even in the midst of ice) Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them. In darling, Come then, my If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me Art thou i'the sea? Muster up all the monsters from the deep, Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world, Though I lay ruin'd in it. Not yet come? I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiccter nomen tuum. He comes in White. Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love? Fumil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to torment thee, My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding sheet. Saw. Am I near death? Famil. Be blasted with the news. Whiteness is day's footboy, a fore-runner to light, which shews thy old rivel'd face: villainies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? 60 Mother Sawyer differs from the hags of Middleton or Shakspeare. She is the plain traditional old woman Witch of our ancestors; poor, deformed, and ignorant; the terror of villages, herself amen able to a justice. That should be a hardy sheriff, with the power of the county at his heels, that would lay hands on the Weird Sisters. They are of another jurisdiction. But upon the common and received opinion the author (or authors) have engrafted strong fancy. There is something frightfully earnest in her invocations to the Familiar. THE |
