ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS to come to mind when you think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the witches. “Double, Double, toil and trouble” is quite cliche, isn’t it? But it’s also one of the archetypes for witches in the modern era.
Shakespeare’s play is full of the supernatural, from the witches and their prophecies to ghosts and of course, murder in a variety of forms, as well as revenge and retribution. An armored head summoned by the witches prophecies to Macbeth, as does a bloody child and a crowned child holding a tree.
One of Shakespeare’s sources for the witches came from the Daemonologie of King James published in 1597, which spoke of the North Berwick witch trials of 1590. These trials were held in Scotland, Macbeth’s home. Coming just a few years before Macbeth, it was a nod to the king’s interest in witchcraft and the persecution thereof. In fact, one accused witch confessed to trying to summon a storm to sink the ship carrying the King and his wife as the returned from Denmark. It seems however the witch missed her mark, as one of the ships in the fleet was sunk instead.
The witches speak early in the first act: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air” setting a mood of mystery and tension, which grows in intensity in the play. Things are turned upside down … good can be evil and evil seen as good. It is in this topsy turvy, fog shrouded world that Macbeth shuffles along, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
https://youtu.be/YYMzDgw-SyI
From the Tragedy of Macbeth
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
ACT IV SCENE I A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
[Thunder. Enter the three Witches]
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.
Double, double toil and trouble; 10
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.
Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ 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
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe 30
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
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.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
