The New England Tragedies

SCENE I. -- The woods near Salem Village. Enter TITUBA, with a basket of herbs.

TITUBA. / Here's monk's-hood, that breeds fever in the blood; / And deadly nightshade, that makes men see ghosts; / And henbane, that will shake them with convulsions; / And meadow-saffron and black hellebore, / That rack the nerves, and puff the skin with dropsy; / And bitter-sweet, and briony, and eye-bright, / That cause eruptions, nosebleed, rheumatisms; / I know them, and the places where they hide / In field and meadow; and I know their secrets, / And gather them because they give me power / Over all men and women. Armed with these, / I, Tituba, an Indian and a slave, / Am stronger than the captain with his sword, / Am richer than the merchant with his money, / Am wiser than the scholar with his books, / Mightier than Ministers and Magistrates, / With all the fear and reverence that attend them! / For I can fill their bones with aches and pains, / Can make them cough with asthma, shake with palsy, / Can make their daughters see and talk with ghosts, / Or fall into delirium and convulsions; / I have the Evil Eye, the Evil Hand; / A touch from me and they are weak with pain, / A look from me, and they consume and die. / The death of cattle and the blight of corn, / The shipwreck, the tornado, and the fire, -- / These are my doings, and they know it not. / Thus I work vengeance on mine enemies / Who, while they call me slave, are slaves to me!