The famous spell

[mike thomas]

Hi all.

In Macbeth act 4 scene 1 witch number 3 says

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches mummy, maw, and gulfe

Of the ravin'd salt sea shark:

Root of hemlock, digg'd i'th' dark:


Liver of blaspheming jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of Yew,


Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse:

Nose of turk, and tartars lips:


Finger of birth-strangled Babe,
????????

Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,

Make the gruel thick, and slab.


Add thereto a tigers chawdron,

For th' ingredience of our cauldron



It seems to me that something is wrong with the verse: or is there something I am not understanding?


regards

[Charles Darnay]

It is not that there is something wrong with the verse, but you are right to notice that it is not the usual iambic pentameter that we expect from Shakespeare.

If you look at the various songs throughout his plays, you will find that they are mostly in iambic tetrameter (four feet instead of five.) This comes from a long tradition of faerie songs written in this meter. Incidentally, children's stories also tend to be in iambic tetrameter.

The witches spell is in this meter to compliment the supernatural nature of the weird sisters. But if you look closely, these lines are not quite iambic tetrameter - they are missing half a foot. All this is intentional to create the weird, something is off, feeling that the witches provoke.

[mike thomas]

It is not that there is something wrong with the verse, but you are right to notice that it is not the usual iambic pentameter that we expect from Shakespeare.

If you look at the various songs throughout his plays, you will find that they are mostly in iambic tetrameter (four feet instead of five.) This comes from a long tradition of faerie songs written in this meter. Incidentally, children's stories also tend to be in iambic tetrameter.

The witches spell is in this meter to compliment the supernatural nature of the weird sisters. But if you look closely, these lines are not quite iambic tetrameter - they are missing half a foot. All this is intentional to create the weird, something is off, feeling that the witches provoke.

Thanks again Charles. As always, an astute and very interesting reply.

I agree with you on the measure thing: each line contains 7 'beats', tempo wise, thus 3 1/2 feet. But what I am concerned with is the line "Finger of birth-strangled Babe," as this seems not to have a matching line. Compare the two lines before and after:

Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse:
Nose of turk, and tartars lips:

Finger of birth-strangled Babe,
( . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . )

Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick, and slab.

If WS meant 'babe' to sound like 'slab' why not write 'bab'?
Then there is another problem: "Make the gruel thick, and slab." rhymes with 'drab',
so it seems to me that those two lines were meant to be together, this, to me, means only one logical answer: a line which rhymes with 'babe' is missing. But what word rhymes with babe?

The 3rd witch speaks the most lines, in fact 13 in all. I think perhaps there should have
been 14 lines, but one is missing. Unless something about the number 13 was implied.

Regards

[mike thomas]

I went back and did another foot count of the witches spell:

Witch #1 says: "Toad, that under cold stone,"

I read three feet in this line, not three and a half.

The only way to squeeze half a foot out is to read 'cold' as 'co - eld'

therefore making the correct measure: "Toad, that under cold co - ld,".

What do you think Charles?