What is the rhyme scheme for the curse the witch's say in Macbeth?

Answer 1

The witches in Macbeth speak in Trochaic Tetrameter with rhymed couplets for the entirety of the play. This sounds complicated, but it's very simple indeed.

A trochee, the base of trochaic, means a group of two syllables in which the first syllable is accented.

Tetra means four, so tetrameter means four trochees per line, and therefore eight syllables.

The rhythm of such goes as follows:

DUM-dum, DUM-dum, DUM-dum, DUM-dum

For example:

"DOUble, DOUble, TOIL and TROUble,

FIre BURN and CAULdron BUBble"

4.1.10-11

Rhymed couplets are quite simple, the last word of a line (A) rhymes with the last word of the following line (A).

For example,

"Round about the cauldron GO A

In the poisoned entrails THROW A

Toad, that under cold STONE B

Days and nights has thirty-ONE' B

4.1.4-7

Only the witches speak in such ways, everyone else in Macbeth (except the commoners, they speak in prose) speaks in Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter.

I hope this answer was beneficial! Long live Shakespeare :)

Answer 2

Iambic Pentameter. The rhyme repeats 5 times in a line with ten sylables. For Shakespearian sonnets, the ryme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.