Grimalkin

[Michael Joseph]

then of course there's the line from Yeats

when gong and conch declare the hour to bless
Grimalkin crawls to Buddha's emptiness


M


On Wed, 30 Jul 2003, Mary Krimmel wrote:

> In Act I, Scene !, one of the witches says at the end of the meeting of the
> three, "I come, Graymalkin." I believe that she is answering the call of
> her cat, her contact with the devil or with Hecate.
>
> Whether a cat's call is generally heard in productions of Macbeth I do not
> know.
>
> Mary Krimmel
>
> At 04:35 PM 7/29/03 -0500, you wrote:
> >Forgive me if this has been mentioned already, but isn't Grimalkin also the
> >name of one of the Weird Sisters in _Macbeth_?
> >
> >I seem to recall one of the sisters referring to another by that name,
> >although the stage directions always refer to them as "witch."
> >
> >Tim
> >
> >
> > > grimalkin - 1630, name given to a cat, hence any cat, especially an old
> > > she-cat; from gray + Malkin, dim. of fem. proper name Matilda or Maud.
> > >
> > > Gray + Maud = cat
> > >
> > > I know this is ludicrous, but there's just no accounting for taste.
> > >
> > >
>
>
>