Table of Contents
ACT 3, SCENE 5
Setting: A heath.
[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants ]
[Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting HECATE]
First Witch | Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly. | |
HECATE | Have I not reason, beldams as you are, | |
Saucy and overbold? How did you dare | ||
To trade and traffic with Macbeth | ||
In riddles and affairs of death; | ||
And I, the mistress of your charms, | ||
The close contriver of all harms, | ||
Was never call'd to bear my part, | ||
Or show the glory of our art? | ||
And, which is worse, all you have done | 10 | |
Hath been but for a wayward son, | ||
Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, | ||
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 | ||
Will come to know his destiny: | ||
Your vessels and your spells provide, | ||
Your charms and every thing 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; | ||
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 | ||
Shall draw him on to his confusion: | ||
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear | 30 | |
He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear: | ||
And you all know, security | ||
Is mortals' chiefest enemy. | ||
[ Music and a song within: 'Come away, come away,' &c ] | ||
Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see, | ||
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. | ||
[Exit] | ||
First Witch | Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again. | |
[Exeunt] |