Image: Lady Macbeth – Macbeth’s wife, and later Queen of Scotland, representing Tragedy: Shakespeare Memorial by Lord Ronald Gower. 1888. Bancroft Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon.
From: The Tragedy of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, probably first performed in 1606:
“ACT I SCENE III
A heath near Forres.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
First Witch
Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch
Killing swine.
Third Witch
Sister, where thou?
First Witch
A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d:–
‘Give me,’ quoth I:
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.
Second Witch
I’ll give thee a wind.
First Witch
Thou’rt kind.
Third Witch
And I another.
First Witch
I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I’ the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se’n nights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost…”
