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 [PUBLISHED 1658: FIRST PERFORMED PROBABLY ABOUT 1622]. 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 That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Make me to credit it.1 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? Saw. 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 won't? churl, cut-throat, miser: there they be. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. This Soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator. VOL. IV.-10 Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. Banks. Cursing, thou hag? take that, and that. Saw. Strike, do: and wither'd may that hand and arm What is the name, where, and by what art learn'd? May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased?1 -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. Upon this churl, I'd go out of myself, Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, Revenge upon this miser, this black cur, That barks, and bites, and sucks the very blood Of me, and of my credit. "Tis all one To be a witch as to be counted one. [Exit. [Act ii., Sc. 1.2] She gets a Familiar which serves her in the likeness of a Black Dog. MOTHER SAWYER. Saw. I am dried up Familiar. With cursing and with madness; and have yet No blood to moisten these sweet lips of thine. Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy; By making my old ribs to shrug for joy Of thy fine tricks. What hast thou done? Let's tickle. 1[Two and a quarter pages omitted.] 2[Mermaid Series. Decker, ed. Rhys.] Famil. Yes, and nipt the sucking child. Saw. Ho, ho, my dainty, 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. But, my curl-pate, That jade, that foul-tongued--Nan Ratcliff, Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow, Struck, and had almost lamed it: did not I charge thee * [Act iv., Sc. 1.] Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes him. Saw. Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them. Come then, my darling. In some dark cloud; and, as I oft have seen Dragons and serpents in the elements, Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' the sea ? Muster up all the monsters from the deep, And be the ugliest of them: so that my bulch Shew but his swarth cheek to me, let earth cleave, And break from hell, I care not could I run Though I lay ruin'd in it.-Not yet come? I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiceter nomen tuum.1 He comes in White. Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love? Famil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to torment thee, My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding-sheet. [Nine lines omitted.] Saw. Am I near death? Famil. Be blasted with the news. Whiteness is day's footboy, a fore-runner to light, which shows thy old rivel'd face: villanies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit. Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? [Act v., Sc. 1.] 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 amenable 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 ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR, THE HONEST MAN'S REVENGE [PUBLISHED 1611]. BY CYRIL TOURNEUR [1575?-1626] D'Amville (the Atheist), with the aid of his wicked instrument, Borachio, murders his Brother, Montferrers, for his Estate. After the deed is done, Borachio and he talk together of the circumstances which attend the murder. D'Am. Here's a sweet comedy, begins with O dolentis, and concludes with ha, ha, he. Bor. Ha, ha, he. D'Am. O my echo! I could stand reverberating this sweet musical air of joy, till I had perished my sound lungs with violent laughter. Lovely night-raven, thou hast seized a car case? Bor. Put him out on's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the bank from whence he fell, that ere his faultering tongue could utter double O, I knocked out his brains with this fair ruby; and had another stone just of this form and bigness ready, that I laid in the broken scull upon the ground for his pillow, against the which they thought he fell and perished. D'Am. Upon this ground I'll build my manor house, And this shall be chiefest corner stone. Bor. This crown'd the most judicious murder, that The brain of man was e'er delivered of. D'Am. Aye, mark the plot. Not any circumstance That stood within the reach of the design, seem'd forced, [Here they reckon up the several circumstances.1 Bor. Then darkness did Protect the execution of the work Both from prevention and discovery. D'Am. Here was a murder bravely carried through Bor. And those that saw the passage of it, made Of sublunary creatures, when theirselves [Thunder and Lightning. What! dost start at thunder? Credit my belief, 'tis a mere effect of nature, an exhalation hot and dry, involved within a watry vapour in the middle region of the air, whose coldness congealing that thick moisture to a cloud, the angry exhalation shut within a prison of contrary quality, strives to be free; and with the violent eruption through the grossness of that cloud, makes this noise we hear. Bor. "Tis a fearful noise. D'Am. "Tis a brave noise; and, methinks, graces our accomplished project, as a peal of ordnance does a triumph. It speaks encouragement. Now nature shows thee how it favoured our performance: to forbear this noise when we set forth, because it should not terrify my brother's going home, which would have dashed our purpose: to forbear this lightning in our passage, lest it should ha' warned him of the pitfall. Then propitious nature winked at our proceedings; now, it doth express how that forbearance favour'd our success. Drowned Soldier. -walking upon the fatal shore, Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men, Which the full-stomach'd sea had cast upon [Act ii., Sc. 4.2] 1 1 [Twenty-one lines omitted.] [Ed. Churton Collins, 1878.] "["Next day" omitted.] |