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.
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
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

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Notes and Glossary
NOTES This scene is generally included in the play, but it is probably not by Shakespeare. It is irrelevant to the plot and, while it was probably added because of the popularity of the witch scenes, it actually reduces their impact -Hectate speaks like an indignant schoolmistress. This scene has a tripping iambic metre, unlike the trochaic verse of Shakespeare's witches. ACT 3 Scene 5 Line 1331 Hectate. Reginald Scot, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft" mentions it as the common opinion of all writers, that witches were supposed to have nightly "meetings with Herodias and the Pagan Gods," and "that in the night-times they side abroad with Diana, the goddess of the Pagans". In Thomas Middleton's "Witch", Hectate is the name of one of his witches; and in Ben Johnson's "Sad Shepherd", Maudlin the witch calls Hectate the mistress of witches, "our dame Hectate." See Act v "Midsummer's Night's Dream." ACT 3 Scene 5 Line 1345 At the pit of Acheron. The witches are poetically made to give this name of one of the rivers in the infernal regions (see Act iii "Midsummer's Night's Dream) to some foul tarn or gloomy pool in the neighbourhood of Macbeth's castle, where they habitually assemble. ACT 3 Scene 5 Line 1354 A vaporous drop profound. "Profound" is here used to express 'possessed of occult properties' . ACT 3 Scene 5 Line 1362 Security. Here used in the sense of 'over confidence,' 'rash assurance,' 'too great self-reliance.' See Act ii "Henry v." Come away, come away,. ...The entire song, of which this forms the commencing line, is to be found both in Middleton's "Witch" and in Davenant's version of "Macbeth" therefore it could be of Shakespeare's composition, adopted by Middleton and Davenant from some stage copy of the song, as preserved either by itself or in a more complete transcript of the tragedy than the one from which the Folio was printed.

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Shall draw him on to his confusion:
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
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

Sing within: 'Come away, come away', etc.

First Witch
Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.

Exeunt

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