_1 Witch_. Where hast thou been, sister?
_2 Witch_. Killing swine.
_3 Witch_. Sister, where thou?
_1 Witch_. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap,
And mouncht, and mouncht, and mouncht. Give me, quoth I.
(a) Aroint thee, witch!--the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' th' Tyger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And like a rat without a tail,
I'll do--I'll do--and I'll do.
_2 Witch_. I'll give thee a wind.
_1 Witch_. Thou art kind.
_3 Witch_. And I another.
_1 Witch_. I myself have all the other.
And the (b) very points they blow;
All the quarters that they know,
I' th' ship-man's card.--
I will drain him dry as hay,
Sleep shall neither night nor day,
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man (c) forbid;
Weary sev'n nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine;
Tho' his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look, what I have.
_2 Witch_. Shew me, Shew me.
(a) Aroint thee, witch!
In one of the folio editions the reading is _anoint thee_, in a sense
very consistent with the common accounts of witches, who are related to
perform many supernatural acts by the means of unguents, and
particularly to fly through the air to the place where they meet at
their hellish festivals.
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