Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

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Notes and Glossary
NOTES ACT 4 Scene I Line 1420 Thrice the brinded cat hath mew' d. Brinded has the meaning, 'tawny' , presumably a tabby cat different to the 'greymalkin'. It may be added, that among the death-obsessed Egyptians the cat was sacred to Isis, or the moon -their Hectate or Diana -and accordingly worshipped with great honour. ACT 4 Scene I Line 1420 Thrice. The magic number three recurs in various forms. ACT 4 Scene I Line 1421 Hedge-pig. Hedgehog. ACT 4 Scene I Line 1422 Harper. The Folio prints 'Harpier;' which some suppose to be a mistake for 'harpie,' or 'harpy.' In Marlowe's "Tamburlaine" 1590, "Harper" is printed for 'harpie,' or 'harpy.' The word, however, may be the name of some familiar or spirit known in the demonology of that period. ACT 4 Scene I Line 1424 Poisoned entrails. The charm is concocted out of fragments of animals tom from their natural organic life, and almost all the creatures mentioned were thought to be either dangerous or ominous -toads, newts, slow-worms and lizards were supposed to be poisonous. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1427 Swelter' d venom. Some toads are poisonous, the poison lying diffused over the body immediately under the skin.." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1429 Double. ..trouble. An incantation, suggesting that toil and trouble will be doubled. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1431 Fillet. Slice. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1431 Fenny. From the fens. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1435 Blind-worm. Slow-worm. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1436 Howlet. Owlet. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1442 Witches' mummy. The powder taken from a body mummified by witches was thought to have medicinal properties. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1442 Gulf 'Throat,' 'gullet.' ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1443 Ravin'd. Here used for 'ravining' or'ravenous.' See Act iv "Romeo and Juliet." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1447 Sliver 'd. 'Sliced.' ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1450 Drab. Whore. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1451 Slab. Coagulated. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1452 Chaudron. An old name for 'entrails.' Spelt also 'chawdron' and 'chauldron.' Enter Hectate. In the Folio this stage-direction runs thus: " Enter Hectate, and the other three witches,.6but it appears improbable that Shakespeare intended more than the three weird sisters already known to Macbeth to be upon the stage in his present interview with them. Moreover, it was frequently the custom in old plays to accompany the stage-direction, marking the entrance of a fresh personage upon the scene by a recapitulation of those already present. Black spirits. ...This song is also found entire in both Middleton's "Witch" and Davenant's version of"Macbeth". See Act iii. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1465 Open, locks. This might suggest that the setting is some hovel, with a door, but it may be only a conventional formula to admit someone into the magic circle. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1473 Yesty. 'Frothy,' 'foaming,' as yeast foams and works, forming a froth on its surface. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1475 Though bladed corn be lodg'd. See Act iii "Second Part Henry IV". In Scot's "Discoveries of Witchcraft" it is said of witches that "they can transferre corn in the blade from one place to another;" and, in the article on Husbandry in Comenius, "Janua Linguarum, " 1673, it is mentioned that ''as soon as standing corn shoots up to a blade, it is in danger of scathe by a tempest." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1479 Germins. 'Principles of germination, , 'seeds. ' Shakespeare uses the same word in Act iii sc 2 "King Lear." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1479 Tumble all together. The cosmos is reduced to the chaos out of which it was originally created. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1489 Her nine farrow. In Holinshed's "History of Scotland" 1577, among the laws of Kenneth II, it is stated that "if a sow eate her pigges, let hyr be stoned to deathe and buried, that no man eate of hyr flesh." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1493 Deftly. 'Dextrously,' 'skilfully.' An apparition of an armed head rises. These three apparitions could be symbolic: the first representing Macbeth's head cut off and brought to Malcolm by Macduff; the second, Macduff "untimely ripped" at the period of his birth; and the third, Malcolm's soldiers approaching Dunsinane Castle under the screen of boughs borne before them. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1496 Say thou naught. Silence was imposed during an incantation. See Act iv "Tempest." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1498 Dismiss me:-enough. It was believed that spirits summoned to appear were intolerant of questioning, and were impatient to be gone. See Act I "Second Part Henry VI." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1550 Thou hast harp , d my fear aright. 'Thou hast struck the right key-note of my fear ., ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1504 Had I three ears, I' d hear thee. Macbeth' s eager reply to the triple adjuration, "Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!" ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1516 The round and top of sovereignty. Meaning the portion of a crown that encircles the head and the ornament that rises above it. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1521 To high Dunsinane hill. In the present passage Shakespeare accents the word "Dunisinane" as it is usually pronounced (Dunsinnan); but in the six other passages of the play where he uses the word, he accents it as if it were pronounced Dunsinane. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1524 Impress. Here used in the sense of 'press into his service, , ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1499 Noise. Sometimes used by ancient writers to express 'musical sound. ' Spenser, in his "Faerie Queene" book I, canto xii, st.39, says, "During the which there was a heavenly noise. 6 And in the 47th psa]m of the Liturgy we find, "God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1547 The crack of doom. 'The disruption of universal Nature at doomsday. ' See Act I. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1549 A glass. One of the magic mirrors used by sorcerers. See Act ii "Measure for Measure." Among the penal laws against witches their is a passage which states that "they do answer either by the voice, or else set before their eyes in glasses, Crystal stones, &c, the pictures or images of the persons or things sought for." There is a description of one of these wondrous mirrors in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" book iii, canto ii; and in "The Squire's Tale" by Chaucer, there is "a brod mirrour of g1as," sent by "the King of Arabie and of Inde" to King Cambuscan, which possesses Many marvellous qualities. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1551 Two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry. The complimentary allusion to James I referred to in Act I. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1553 Blood-bolter'd. 'Blood-smeared,' 'blood-clotted,' Malone states that "in Warwickshire, when a horse, sheep, or other animal perspires much, and any of the hair or wool, in consequence of such perspiration, or any redundant humour, becomes matted into tufts with grim and sweat, he is said to be boltered,. and whenever the blood issues out and coagulates, forming the locks into hard clotted bunches, the beast is said to be blood-boltered. When a boy has a broken head, so that his hair is matted together with blood, his head is said to be boltered." The term is therefore appropriately applied to Banquo, who had "twenty trenched gashes on his head." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1558 Sprites. In Shakespeare's time 'spirits' was often thus written and pronounced. ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1574 Horse. Here used for horses. See Act ii "First Part Henry IV ." ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1582 Firstlings. Here used to express 'first imagined deeds, , and 'first enacted deeds; , while in the passage referred to in the Prologue of"Troilus and Cressida, " the word is employed for 'earliest deeds,' 'first acts.' ACT 4 Scene 1 Line 1588 Trace. 'Follow,' 'succeed.' See Act iii "Henry VIII'-

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Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witche's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab. ...
Add thereto a tiger's chauldron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood, '.!
Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter HECTATE

Hectate
O well done! I commend your pains;
And every one shall share i' the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' &c

Hectate retires

Second Witch
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

Enter MACBETH

MACBETH
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
What is't you do?

ALL
A deed without a name.

MACBETH
I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
(Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;)
(Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken;) answer me
To what I ask you.

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MACBETH
Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?
But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.

Thunder. Third Apparition:
a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand

What is this
That rises like the issue of a king,
And wears upon his baby-brow the round
And top of sovereignty?

ALL
Listen, but speak not to 't.

Third Apparition
Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

Descends

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Apparitions vanish

What, is this so?

First Witch
Ay, sir, all this is so: but why
Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
And show the best of our delights:
I'll charm the air to give a sound,
While you perform your antic round:
That this great king may kindly say,
Our duties did his welcome pay.

Music. The witches dance and then vanish, with HECTATE

MACBETH
Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar!
Come in, without there!

Enter LENNOX

LENNOX
What's your grace's will?

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MACBETH
Saw you the weird sisters?

LENNOX
No, my lord.

MACBETH
Came they not by you?

LENNOX
No, indeed, my lord.

MACBETH
Infected be the air whereon they ride;
And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear
The galloping of horse: who was't came by?

LENNOX
'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
Macduff is fled to England.

MACBETH
Fled to England!

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LENNOX
Ay, my good lord.

MACBETH
Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits:
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
Unless the deed go with it; from this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.
But no more sights!--Where are these gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.

Exeunt

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