_All._ Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
3 _Witch_. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches' mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat; and slips of yew, Silver'd in the moon's eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch delivered by a drab,-- Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron.
_All._ Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
2 _Witch_. Cool it with a baboon's blood; Then the charm is firm and good.
_Hecate._ O, well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i' the gains. And now about the cauldron sing, Like elves and fairies in a ring, Enchanting all that you put in.
'Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey; Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may.'
2 _Witch_. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes:-- Open, locks, whoever knocks."
Macbeth appeared and demanded what the midnight hags were about. The reply was, "A deed without a name." He entreated them, by that which they professed, to answer him. One of the witches asked whether he would rather have his answer from their mouths or from their masters'. On Macbeth desiring to see the masters, witch No. 1 directed that the blood of a sow that had eaten her nine farrow, and grease that had been sweaten from the murderer's gibbet, should be thrown into the flame. Accompanied by a clap of thunder, an armed head rose, and admonished Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Another demon, more potent, in the shape of a bloody child, rose and bade Macbeth be courageous; to laugh to scorn the power of man, for none born of woman could harm him. A second child, after the first had descended into the bowels of the earth, told the king that he would not be vanquished till great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill should come against him. The monarch was admonished to ask no more, but he disregarded the warning. "Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?" he asked. Eight kings, and Banquo following, appeared to Macbeth's vision. The whole vision, if such it could be called, surprised him greatly; but no part of it so much as the spirit of Banquo, whom he had cruelly put to death with the intention of frustrating destiny, as revealed to him by the weird sisters, when he first met them on the heath. Seeing the king dejected, the witches, to cheer him, danced and sang for a time, and then suddenly disappeared.