Horace Howard Furness, editor of the Variorum edition of the play chooses to think that he sees a difference between Middleton's witches and Shakespeare's.
The witches in IV, i. are just like Middleton's witches, only superior in quality. They are clearly the originals from whom his imitations were taken.1
The reference is to the second gathering of the witches. Furness thinks the version in Macbeth better than in Middleton's The Witch.
The first gathering, in Macbeth, gives us a much darker tone and threatening recipe. These are the “wierd sisters”2 of Shakespeare's main source for the play, Holinshed's Chronicles. But the common belief of those who first heard of the encounter, according to Holinshed, was that “these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries”.3
In a diary entry, by Simon Foreman, describing a performance of Macbeth, in 1611, the women are described as “3 women feiries or Nimphes” precisely as in Holinshed. In the Globe version of the play, at the time, it would appear there were no women described as “witches” but only as weird sisters, fairies and nymphes, precisely as in Holinshed. This strongly suggests a rewrite of the play after April of 1611 in which the nymphs or fairies were transformed into witches after the style of Middleton.
In the opinion of Clark and Wright, editors of the Clarendon Press edition of the play,
On the whole, we incline to think that the play was interpolated after Shakespeare's death, or at least after he had withdrawn from all connection with the theatre. The interpolator was, not improbably, Thomas Middleton; who, to please the "groundlings," expanded the parts originally assigned by Shakespeare to the weird sisters, and also introduced a new character, Hecate. The signal inferiority of her speeches is thus accounted for.4
No sign of Shakespeare here, for these editors, and both they and Furness (and a good many others) see Middleton as clearly the model from which the witches are drawn.
Well, hey! It's Hallowe'en. No need to follow the trail from Middleton to Shakespeare any farther than we have for now. The rest can wait its proper place. Time instead to have a little fun looking on at two of the better depictions of witches in Tudor and Early Stuart plays.
from Shakespeare's Macbeth
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
I. Thrice the brinded Cat hath mew'd.
2. Thrice, and once the Hedge-Pigge whin'd.
3. Harpie cries, 'tis time, 'tis time.
1. Round about the Caldron go:
In the poysond Entrailes throw
Toad, that under cold stone,
Dayes and Nights, ha's thirty one:
Sweltred Venom sleeping got,
Boyle thou first i'th'charmed pot.
All. Double, double, toile and trouble;
Fire burne, and Cauldron bubble.
2. Fillet of a Fenny Snake,
In the Cauldron boyle and bake:
Eye of Newt, and Toe of Frogge,
Wool of Bat, and Tongue of Dogge:
Adders Forke, and Blinde-wormes Sting,
Lizards legge, and Howlets wing:
For a Charme of powrefull trouble,
Like a Hell-broth, boyle and bubble.
All. Double, double, toyle and trouble,
Fire burne, and Cauldron bubble.
3. Scale of Dragon, Tooth of Wolfe,
Witches Mummey, Maw, and Gulfe
Of the ravin'd salt Sea sharke:
Roote of Hemlocke, digg'd i'th'darke:
Liver of Blaspheming Jew,
Gall of Goate, and Slippes of Yew,
Sliver'd in the Moones Ecclipse:
Nose of Turke,and Tartars lips:
Finger of Birth-strangled Babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a Drab,
Make the Grewell thicke, and slab.
Adde thereto a Tigers Chawdron,
For th'Ingredience of our Cawdron.
All. Double, double, toyle and trouble,
Fire burne,and Cauldron bubble.
2. Coole it with a Baboones blood,
Then the Charme is firme and good.
[Enter Hecat, and the other three Witches.
Hec. O well done: I commend your paines,
And every one shall share i'th'gaines:
And now about the Cauldron sing
Like Elves and Fairies in a Ring,
Inchanting all that you put in.
Musicke and a Song. Blacke Spirits, &c.
2. By the pricking of my Thumbes,
Something wicked this way comes:
Open Lockes, who ever knockes.5
from Middleton's The Witch
A Charm-Song about a Vessel.
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may!
Titty, Tiffin,
Keep it stiff in;
Firedrake, Puckey,
Make it lucky ;
Liard, Robin,
You must bob in.
Round, around, around, about, about!
All ill come running in, all good keep out !
First Witch. Here's the blood of a bat.
Hec. Put in that, O, put in that!
Sec. Witch. Here's libbard's-bane.
Hec. Put in again!
First Witch. The juice of toad, the oil of adder.
Sec. Witch. Those will make the younker madder.
Hec. Put in—there's all—and rid the stench.
Firestone. Nay, here's three ounces of the red-hair'd wench.
All the Witches. Round, around, around, &c.
Hec. So, so, enough: into the vessel with it.
There, 't hath the true perfection. I'm so light
At any mischief ! there's no villany
But is a tune, methinks.
Fire. A tune ? 'tis to the tune of damnation then I warrant
you, and that song hath a villanous burthen. [Aside.
Hec. Come, my sweet sisters; let the air strike our tune,
Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon,
[They dance the Witches' Dance, and exeunt.6
1 The New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Macbeth, 243.
2 Variorum, 387. Citing Holinshed's Chronicles, I.iii.59.
3 Ibid.
4 Variorum, 366, citing p. viii, 1869
5Variorum, 244 ff.
6Bullen, A. H. The Works of Thomas Middleton, V. 445-6.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
- Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
- A Model for Lady Macbeth. July 12, 2020. “In Macbeth, the Lady of the castle would also seem to be her Lord’s indomitable will. She will see the deeds done that need be done in order for him to pass the daunting tests and wear the crown.”
- The Nymphs of Doctor Foreman’s Macbeth. October 21, 2018. “How did Foreman make the mistake of describing them precisely as Holinshed? But differently from the text we have of Macbeth? To consider Foreman’s account a simple mistake would require an astronomically improbable coincidence.”
- Account of a Performance of Macbeth: April 20, 1611. September 30, 2018. “One detail of this account, in particular, promises to go a long way toward understanding the date of composition and a key detail as to the state of the text in 1611.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Hyperlinked Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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