“A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, and munched, and munched, and munched,” said the first witch. “‘Give me,’ quoth I. ‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the pampered creature cried. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master of the _Tiger_; but in a sieve I’ll thither sail, and, like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do,” ended the witch spitefully. “I’ll give thee a wind,” said the second witch. “Thou art kind.” “And I another,” said the third witch. “I myself have all the other,” continued the first witch, gloating over the revenge she intended to take on the husband of the woman who had repulsed her, and she continued in a sort of chant: “And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know In the shipman’s card. I will drain him dry as hay; Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid; He shall live a man forbid: Weary seven-nights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost. Look what I have.” “Show me, show me!” cried the second witch eagerly. “Here I have a pilot’s thumb, Wrecked as homeward he did come.” At this moment across the heath came the roll of a drum and the tramp of marching feet. “A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!” cried the third witch. Then the three fearsome creatures, linking hands, solemnly performed a wild dance, waving their skinny arms in strange gestures, and uttering a discordant wail: “The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about; Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up.” Macbeth and Banquo, marching across the heath on their way home, after the campaign with the Norwegians, were startled at the sight of these three uncanny figures barring their path. “What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants of earth, and yet are on it?” said Banquo. “Are you alive? Or are you anything that man may question?” “Speak, if you can; what are you?” said Macbeth. And the three witches answered by saluting him, each in turn: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!” “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!” “All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be King hereafter.” “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?” said Banquo, for Macbeth stood as if rapt in a dream, amazed at what he heard. Then Banquo asked the witches, if indeed they could look into the future, to say something to him, who neither begged nor feared their favours nor their hate. The witches thereupon replied: “Hail!” “Hail!” “Hail!” “Lesser than Macbeth and greater!” “Not so happy, yet much happier!” “Thou shalt beget Kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!” “Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!”