Macbeth: A Verse Translation
My verse translation of Macbeth has the same sentence complexity and vocabulary range as Shakespeare's original. All blank verse lines remain in verse with accurate and authentic iambic pentameter. Songs and rhymes are translated but maintain the same rhythm and rhyme patterns.
Play Statistics
Unique words in Shakespeare's original: 3,255
Unique words in Richmond's translation: 3,290
Excerpt
from Act Four
Scene One. A Dark Cave with a Cauldron
[Thunder. Enter the three WITCHES]
FIRST WITCH
Thrice the banded cat’s meowed.
SECOND WITCH
Thrice, and once the hedge-hog whined.
THIRD WITCH
The harpy cries “It’s time, it’s time.
FIRST WITCH
Round and round, you cauldron, spin;
Throw the poisoned entrails in.
Toads, that under cold stone lay,
Thirty nights and one more day
Till the sweated venom’s got,
Boil it first in this charmed pot!
ALL THREE
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Fillet of swamp-bred snake,
In the caldron 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 brew 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 mutt,
Witch’s mummy, jaw and gut
Of the salty, ravenous shark,
Root of hemlock dug in dark,
Spleen of unbelieving Jew,
Gall of goat, and twigs of yew
Sliced off in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger from a fetus which
Whores left stillborn in a ditch,
Make the gruel as thick as pitch.
Then we add a tiger’s colon,
To the mixture in our cauldron.
ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Cool it with a báboon’s blood,
Then the hex is fixed and good.
[Enter HECATE with three of her WITCHES]
HECATE
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone will share the gains.
And now around the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
ALL
Song: Black Spirits
Black spirits and white
Red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle
You that mingle may.
[Exit HECATE and her three WITCHES]
Around, around, about, about
The bad run in, the good keep out.
SECOND WITCH
There's a tingling in my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes,
Open, locks, whoever knocks!
[Enter MACBETH]
MACBETH
What’s this, you secret, spooky, midnight hags?
What are you doing?
ALL THREE
A deed without a name.
MACBETH
I call on you and all you claim to know
(No matter how you learned it)—answer me.
Though you unleash the winds and let them fight
Against the steeples, though the frothy waves
Destroy and swallow up armadas whole,
Though ripened corn’s knocked flat and trees blown down,
Though castles topple on their masters’ heads,
Though tops of palaces and pyramids
Collapse on their foundations, though the seed
All nature springs from tumbles all at once
Till devastation sickens of itself,
I need an answer.
FIRST WITCH
Speak.
SECOND WITCH
Demand.
THIRD WITCH
We’ll answer.
FIRST WITCH
Say if you’d rather hear it from our mouths,
Or from our masters.
MACBETH
Call them, let me see them.
FIRST WITCH
Pour in sow’s blood, one that’s eaten
Her nine offspring; grease that‘s beaten
From a murderer’s carcass—fling
Upon the flame.
ALL THREE
From far or near
You and your function now appear!
[Thunder. The first APPARITION, a helmeted head, rises]
MACBETH
Tell me, you unknown power….
FIRST WITCH
He knows your thoughts.
Hear his speech, but do not speak....
© 2010 by Kent Richmond