Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 7 Mar 2019, 00:52
This morning for some reason the word 'dwindle' popped into my head. It's a rather beautiful word, so I looked it up in the OED. It's a diminutive form of 'dwine', which means to waste away, but doesn’t seem very common today. The -indle form seems first attested in Shakespeare. In Macbeth the first witch issues this imprecation
I’ll drain him dry as hay. Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid. He shall live a man forbid. Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.
Although the target of this is not Macbeth, it does feel like a kind of foretelling. The weird sister have something in common with the Fates and indeed Old English 'wyrd' meant destiny.
After the murder of Duncan Macbeth cries
Still it cried, “Sleep no more!” to all the house.
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
Dwindle
This morning for some reason the word 'dwindle' popped into my head. It's a rather beautiful word, so I looked it up in the OED. It's a diminutive form of 'dwine', which means to waste away, but doesn’t seem very common today. The -indle form seems first attested in Shakespeare. In Macbeth the first witch issues this imprecation
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid.
He shall live a man forbid.
Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.