Spooky Sundays are all about reading, relaxing, and recharging our brooms.

Macbeth, Act 4 scene 1, is fondly referred as the song of the witches or even the witches’ sonnet. This charm is so simple we teach it to children, but few have actully read the whole spell in its entirety.

Song of the Witches from Macbeth, Act IV, scene 1
by William Shakespeare
(circa 1605-1606)

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

FIRST WITCH 
 Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.
SECOND WITCH 
 Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined.
THIRD WITCH 
 Harpier cries “’Tis time, ’tis time!”
FIRST WITCH 
 Round about the cauldron go;
 In the poisoned entrails throw.
 Toad, that under cold stone
 Days and nights has thirty-one
 Sweltered venom sleeping got,
 Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot.

⌜The Witches circle the cauldron.⌝

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 blindworm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’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.
THIRD WITCH 
 Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
 Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
 Of the ravined salt-sea shark,
 Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark,
 Liver of blaspheming Jew,
 Gall of goat and slips of yew
 Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,
 Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
 Finger of birth-strangled babe
 Ditch-delivered by a drab,
 Make the gruel thick and slab.
 Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron
 For th’ ingredience 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 Hecate ⌜to⌝ the other three Witches.

HECATE
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains.
And now about the cauldron sing
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.

Music and a song: “Black Spirits,” etc. Hecate exits.

SECOND WITCH
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.

Enter Macbeth.

There are many famous artworks depicting Macbeth’s visit to the Weird Sisters to learn of his future to secure his right to be king. This one by John Boydell shows Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, who appears later to chastise the witches for meddling in Macbeth’s fate without her unapproval.

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To learn more about the Bard of Avon William Shakespeare and read his other works, please visit https://www.shakespeare-online.com/