A discrepancy is charged between this and the report of Angus, in Scene 3 (acknowledged to be Shakspeare's), who enters with Ross, and says, concerning the thane of Cawdor,-- "Whether he was combin'd With those of Norway; or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage; or that with both He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not." Perhaps Ross did not either. But he knew that Cawdor "assisted." He did not say that he was personally engaged in the fight. The opening chant of the witches is denied to Shakspeare by one critic, because it seems to occupy the opening scene merely to inform us that they are to meet somewhere again; and by another it is attributed to Middleton because it does not flow in the usual trochaic manner of Shakspeare, and contains imperfect lines. Middleton may have Paddock and Graymalkin for his share in the attempt to spoil this grand chant, whose accent ought to have sung Shakspeare's feeling into the critic's ear; for so the foot of Fate would fall in order to pitch the key of the tragedy, and lead its crime into our presence. Its measured step seems to issue out of some foreboding by Macbeth of his ambition's purpose. The weird sisters are not merely enjoying a thunderstorm, and wondering when they shall meet again in similar favorable weather. Their lips put a stress of destiny upon every syllable. The poet's pen unconsciously follows in their traces. The same metre is employed in the "Tempest" and "Midsummer-Night's Dream," by Ariel, Oberon, and Puck, when they are on sublunary business. But they "Foot it featly here and there:" the lines skim or flutter, and do not tread. The accent is not so persistent: it does not sound like the hinge on which a pause swings open to admit the foot of a thing that is burdened with a solemn message. On the blasted heath of Macbeth, the verses of Ariel would be like a strayed butterfly:-- "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." He spurs the omen out of owls and bats, and rides them away from the chill of the evening, "after summer, merrily." Prospero, hearing him sing, says, "That's my dainty Ariel." Puck likewise, too mercurial for chanting, carols with a broom on his shoulder to make a clean sweep of mischief:-- "And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic." The lines go lilting like a little boat over the accent which can hardly raise a ripple. It is a supernature in the best of humor, beguiling or blessing men and women in a dulcet style. But the witches chant holding torches of the lightning while the thunder slowly scans their verse:-- 1 WITCH. When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 2 WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. 3 WITCH. That will be ere set of sun.