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Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.

Double

Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn; and caldron bubble.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act IV. Scene 1. (All the Witches.)

Double, double toil and trouble; literally, trouble brings trouble to trouble.
Buckley’s Sophocles.—Ajax, Page 267.

War he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble.
Dryden.—Alexander’s Feast.