By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…

category: Music, Site, Writing
by Soph,

I’ve added two more essays to the site; one is a comparison of two poems (one English, one French) and the other is an essay I wrote for my French Imagination module about Racine’s play Phèdre. I’ve written lots of other essays in my term-and-a-bit here so far, but these are the ones I’m most happy with. I got a first on the critical comparison.

The music centre here has a different ‘theme’ each term - last term it was ‘MC at the Movies’, so lots of the things we sang/played were from films. This term the theme is ‘Shakespeare’, so in Orchestra we’re doing Suite 2 from Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (which is AWESOME) and the whole of Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’. In choir today we started learning four songs from different Shakespeare plays that have been arranged for eight-part choral ensembles. They’re great fun; I especially love the one which is taken from ‘Macbeth’ and sung by the witches:

A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. 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.

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 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 cauldron bubble.

THIRD WITCH
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ 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 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
Oh well done! I commend your pains,
And every one 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,” &c. HECATE retires

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

Here the song ends suddenly as we give one stamp of the foot in unison. Only Shakespeare could have thought up such fantastic lyrics! I also take my hat off to Jaakko Mantyjarvi, the composer, who has used a brilliant mixture of jazz and dissonance to create a really spooky arrangement of the song. Great fun!

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Comments

6 Comments so far

Diane | 17 January 2008, 22:33
Hope you had a good break! You seem to be enjoying uni life! The witches song is fantastic, I’ve heard it performed - I love the lines you have chosen for this post title
John | 17 January 2008, 22:42
I want to hear it! Sounds very good indeed! Spookiness
strugglingwriter | 18 January 2008, 20:46
Yeah, that song is pretty awesome. Not many people say it, but that Shakespeare was a pretty good writer
Rob | 21 January 2008, 08:42
Love that scene. I’ve never heard it sung, though, unfortunately.

The Macbeth witches are fantastic. Whenever I read of them, I can’t help but think of Terry Pratchett’s take on them in his book Wyrd Sisters, where he parodies the first scene of the play.

“As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again?’

There was a pause.

FInally another voice said, in far more orginary tones: ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday.’”
Soph | 21 January 2008, 18:23
Rob: Yes, I started reading Wyrd Sisters a while ago - I didn’t finish it, but that opening scene did make me laugh
Suzie | 23 January 2008, 00:42
Good ol’ Shakespeare. You can always rely on him to come up with something decent

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