No Fear Shakespeare: Macbeth: Act 1, scene iii

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Thunder. Enter the three WITCHES

Thunder. The three WITCHES enter.

	FIRST WITCH
	Where hast thou been, sister?

FIRST WITCH

Where have you been, sister?

	SECOND WITCH
	Killing swine.

SECOND WITCH

Killing pigs.

	THIRD WITCH
	Sister, where thou?

THIRD WITCH

And you, sister?

	FIRST WITCH
	A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
5	And munched, and munched, and munched. “Give me,”
	quoth I.
	“Aroint thee, witch!” the rump-fed runnion cries.
	Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' th' Tiger;
	But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
	And like a rat without a tail,
10	I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

FIRST WITCH

A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap and munched away at them. “Give me one,” I said. “Get away from me, witch!” the fat woman cried. Her husband has sailed off to Aleppo as master of a ship called the Tiger. I'll sail there in a kitchen strainer, turn myself into a tailless rat, and do things to him—

	SECOND WITCH
	I'll give thee a wind.

SECOND WITCH

I'll give you some wind to sail there.

	FIRST WITCH
	Thou 'rt kind.

FIRST WITCH

How nice of you!

	THIRD WITCH
	And I another.

THIRD WITCH

And I will give you some more.

	FIRST WITCH
	I myself have all the other,
15	And the very ports they blow,
	All the quarters that they know
	I' th' shipman's card.
	I'll drain him dry as hay.
	Sleep shall neither night nor day
20	Hang upon his penthouse lid.
	He shall live a man forbid.
	Weary sev'nnights nine times nine
	Shall he dwindle, peak and pine.

FIRST WITCH

I already have control of all the other winds, along with the ports from which they blow and every direction on the sailor's compass in which they can go. I'll drain the life out of him. He won't catch a wink of sleep, either at night or during the day. He will live as a cursed man. For eighty-one weeks he will waste away in agony.


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