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] |