Toad, that under the cold stone,
Days and nights hast thirty-one,
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
Toads have, likewise, long lain under the reproach of being by some means accessary to witchcraft, for which reason Shakespeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits Padocke, or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was seized at Tholouse, there was found at his lodgings, "ingens bufo vitro inclusus," a great toad shut in a vial, upon which those that prosecuted him "veneficium exprobrabant," charged him, I suppose, with witchcraft.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of frog;—For a charm, &c.
The propriety of these ingredients may be known by consulting the books
De Viribus Animalium and De Mirabilibus Mundi, ascribed to Albertus
Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover
very wonderful secrets.
Finger of birth-strangled babe,
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab—
It has been already mentioned, in the law against witches, that they are supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable, that Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstances of horrour. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth; the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the sow, whose blood is used, must have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius.
And now about the cauldron sing—
Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.
And, in a former part:
—weird sisters hand in hand,—
Thus do go about, about;
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine;