| |
[ A heath] 1Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting H ECATE
1. Witch. Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly. | |
| Hec. Have I not reason, beldams 2 as you are, | |
| Saucy and overbold? How did you dare | |
| To trade and traffic with Macbeth | 4 |
| In riddles and affairs of death; | |
| And I, the mistress of your charms, | |
| The close 3 contriver of all harms, | |
| Was never call’d to bear my part, | 8 |
| Or show the glory of our art? | |
| And, which is worse, all you have done | |
| Hath been but for a wayward son, | |
| Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, | 12 |
| Loves for his own ends, not for you. | |
| But make amends now; get you gone, | |
| And at the pit of Acheron | |
| Meet me i’ the morning; thither he | 16 |
| Will come to know his destiny. | |
| Your vessels and your spells provide, | |
| Your charms and everything beside. | |
| I am for the air; this night I’ll spend | 20 |
| Unto a dismal and a fatal end; | |
| Great business must be wrought ere noon. | |
| Upon the corner of the moon | |
| There hangs a vaporous drop profound; | 24 |
| I’ll catch it ere it come to ground; | |
| And that distill’d by magic sleights | |
| Shall raise such artificial sprites | |
| As by the strength of their illusion | 28 |
| Shall draw him on to his confusion. | |
| He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear | |
| His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear; | |
| And, you all know, security 4 | 32 |
| Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. Music, and a song | |
| Hark! I am call’d; my little spirit, see, | |
| Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. [Exit.] (Sing within: “Come away, come away,” etc. | |
| 1. Witch. Come, let’s make haste; she’ll soon be back again. Exeunt. | 36 |
