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A Heath. | |
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Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting HECATE. | |
| First Witch. Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly. | |
| Hec. Have I not reason, beldams as you are, | |
| Saucy and overbold? How did you dare | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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, | |
| Loves for his own ends, not for you. | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| Your charms and every thing beside. | |
| I am for the air; this night I’ll spend | |
| Unto a dismal and a fatal end: | |
| Great business must be wrought ere noon: | |
| Upon the corner of the moon | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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 | |
| Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. [Song within, ‘Come away, come away,’ &c. | 35 |
| 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. | |
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