The very first scene in the first act of Macbeth opens strongly with the staff-rime:
1st Witch. When shall we three meet again—
In thunder, lightning or in rain?
2d Witch. When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
3d Witch. That will be ere set of sun.
1st Witch. Where the place?
2d Witch.Upon the heath.
3d Witch. There to meet with Macbeth.
1st Witch. I come, Graymalkin!
All. Paddock calls. Anon.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Not less marked is the adoption of the fullest staff-rime—together (as above) with the end-rime—in the third scene, when the Weird Sisters speak. Again, there is the staff-rime when Banquo addresses them. Again, the strongest alliteration, combined with the end-rime, runs all through the Witches’ spell-song in Act iv, scene 1. This feature in Shakspeare appears to me to merit closer investigation; all the more so because a less regular alliteration, but still a marked one, is found in not a few passages of a number of his plays. Only one further instance of the systematic employment of alliteration may here be noted in passing. It is in Ariel’s songs in the Tempest, Act i, scene 2. Schlegel and Tieck evidently did not observe this alliterative peculiarity. Their otherwise excellent translation does not render it, except so far as the obvious similarity of certain English and German words involuntarily made them do so. But in the notes to their version of Macbeth the character of the Weird Sisters is also misunderstood, though Warburton is referred to, who had already suggested their derivations from the Valkyrs or Norns.