La Calaca a Day - #17

(Image found here)

(Rebecca is hosting La Calaca a Day for the month of October.  You can participate here.).

Macbeth

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

                Enter the three Witches.

       1 WITCH.  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 

       2 WITCH.  Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd. 

       3 WITCH.  Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time! 

       1 WITCH.  Round about the caldron 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! 

       ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble; 

    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

       2 WITCH.  Fillet of a fenny snake, 

    In the caldron 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 caldron bubble. 

       3 WITCH.  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 

    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 chaudron, 

    For the ingrediants of our caldron. 

       ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble; 

    Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

       2 WITCH.  Cool it with a baboon's blood, 

    Then the charm is firm and good.

---

brinded - having obscure dark streaks or flecks on gray gulf - the throat drab - prostitute chaudron - entrails

The above appears at the beginning of Act IV, Scene 1 as found in:

Shakespeare, William. The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works Annotated. Howard Staunton ed. New York: Gramercy Books, 1993.