The witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth occasionally speak in a pattern of trochaic tetrameter. Double, double toil, and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. This emphasis sounds unnatural in ...

For example, Shakespeare’s magical characters often speak in a different metre – trochaic tetrameter – dum de, dum de, dum de, dum de: Dou-ble dou-ble, toil and trou-ble (The Witches ...