Languages & literature > Key to the drama

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'even fongs- of drowfy birds, invited to re-
pofe: I had flumbered but a fhort while,
when methought, after a voice like diftant
thunder, not noify but awful, and a pro-
fped of lightening, not glancing nor fright¬
ful, but permanent and Ihining, there ap¬
peared before me three molt angelic female
figures, whole loofe garments refembled
the waving beams of the fun, and whofc
heads feemed encircled with crowns of ce-
leftial glory. The firft, in palling, fainted
'me with—All hail to Macbeth* Thane of
Murray! The fecond, All hail to Macbeth*
Thane of Glamis ! And the third, All hail
to Macbeth* King of Scotland!' Whether
there was any fuch vifion or no, no body
can determine, but his ambitious wife, to
whom, as to me, he had related it, quickly
raifed upon it the diabolic ftru&ure, which
from that moment Ihe prelfed him to exe¬
cute with fo much vehemence. It has been,
I imagine, upon the foundation of that
vifion, that the ridiculous ftory was invented
of his having been, in the fame language,
faluted by three witches, whom he vifibly
met in a foreft in the middle of a day; and
howfoever much the fidlion of the witches
may be better imagined, as better corre-
fponding with the tyrannical conduft which
followed it; yet I will vouch this dream,
as now told by me, to be as it was related
by