performed by Rosalind Atkinson, Jill Bacon, Rachel Roberts
recording by The Shakespeare Recording Society (1960)

FIRST WITCH:
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

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 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 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 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 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 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 Hecate, and the other three Witches.]

HECATE:
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone shall share i’ the 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.

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

(Macbeth: IV.i 1-47. 1606)