Macbeth by Harold Bloom

Author:Harold Bloom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

CHAPTER 7

What, Will the Line Stretch Out to th’ Crack of Doom

The subsequent scene of the Witches and Hecate seems to me Shakespeare’s, though there is an ongoing argument that assigns its composition to Thomas Middleton. Either way, it is rather less impressive than the earlier and later manifestations of the Weird Sisters. Hecate is rather petulant as she scolds the Witches:

Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.

1 Witch: Why how now, Hecate? You look angerly.

Hecate: Have I not reason, beldams as you are,

Saucy and over-bold? 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 called to bear my part

Or show the glory of our art?

Hecate characterizes the witches as hags and scolds them as amateurs, compared to her glorious professionalism.

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.

To call Macbeth wayward or perverse, following only his own will, seems relevant enough to me.

But make amends now; get you gone,

And at the pit of Acheron

Meet me i’th’ morning; thither he

Will come, to know his destiny.

Your vessels and your spells provide,

Your charms, and every thing beside.

She summons them to meet her in hell, where Acheron runs as one of seven rivers. They are to bring their vessels or utensils, and all that is necessary for their dark art:

I am for th’air: this night I’ll spend

Unto a dismal and a fatal end.

Hecate is goddess of witchcraft, the night, and the moon. Evidently she is capable of flying, and intends to devote this particular night to malignity.

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, distilled by magic sleights,

Shall raise such artificial sprites

As by the strength of their illusion

Shall draw him on to his confusion.

The “vaporous drop” is a foam emanating from the moon that transfigures herbs into spells. Hecate will seize it before it touches earth and refine it by her magic tricks. She will raise up cunning spirits and employ their hallucinatory power to entrap Macbeth into a false security:

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace and fear;

And you all know, security

Is mortals’ chiefest enemy Music, and a song

Hark, I am called: my little spirit, see,

Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. [Exit.]

[Sing within.] ‘Come away, come away, etc.’

1 Witch: Come, let’s make haste, she’ll soon be back again.

act 3, scene 5, lines 1–36

A strangely ambiguous scene follows, in which Lennox and another lord exchange ironic observations on the murderous tyranny of Macbeth:

Lennox: My former speeches have but hit your thoughts

Which can interpret farther. Only I say

Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan

Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.

And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late,

Whom you may say, if’t please you, Fleance killed,

For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.

Lennox remarks on his prior agreement with the other thane.

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