Macbeth: Act 3, Scene 5 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 3, Scene 5 of Macbeth from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate. FIRST WITCH Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.	The witches again meet at an open place, this time with Hecate, the goddess of witches, who looks pretty angry.
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, 5 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? 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 15 Meet me i’ th’ morning. Thither he Will come to know his destiny. Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms and everything beside. I am for th’ 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 vap’rous drop profound. I’ll catch it ere it come to ground, 25 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. He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear 30 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. Hecate exits. 35 Sing within “Come away, come away,” etc.	That's because she is. Hecate lays into the weird sisters in a lengthy speech that sounds a bit like a nursery rhyme. She's super irritated that they were meddling in the affairs of Macbeth without consulting her first, as she could've done a better job. Also, she points out, Macbeth isn't devoted to them—only to himself. But, fine, Hecate will clean up this mess. She tells them to all meet in the morning, when Macbeth will come to know his destiny, whatever that means.
FIRST WITCH Come, let’s make haste. She’ll soon be back again. They exit.	Hecate leaves, and the First Witch says, "Let's get out of here." Brain Snack: Some literary critics believe that this scene is way too hokey to be Shakespeare's work, so it must have been added to the play some time between when the play was first written (1606) and its publication in the first folio (1623), which was after Shakespeare's death (1616). A fellow playwright, Thomas Middleton, may have written the snazzy songs in this scene.