Three Kings Day

This day is also called the Epiphany or to many Three Kings Day.

The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large, and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,
Three caskets of gold with golden keys;
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,
Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.

And so the Three Kings rode into the West,
Through the dusk of night, over hill and dell,
And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast
And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,
With the people they met at some wayside well.

“Of the child that is born,” said Baltasar,
“Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;
For we in the East have seen his star,
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,
To find and worship the King of the Jews.”

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

One of my favorite plays for Shakespeare, Macbeth.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

from Macbeth

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

1 WITCH.  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

2 WITCH.  Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.

3 WITCH.  Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time!

1 WITCH.  Round about the caldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.—

Toad, that under cold stone,

Days and nights has thirty-one;

Swelter’d venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!

ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

2 WITCH.  Fillet of a fenny 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 charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

3 WITCH.  Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;

Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;

Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;

Liver of blaspheming Jew;

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse;

Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips;

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,—

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,

For the ingrediants of our caldron.

ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

2 WITCH.  Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.