A heath — the prophecy

The witches gather on the heath. The first describes a sailor's wife she has cursed; the second supplies a wind to drown his ship; the third sets the scene. Then a drum: Macbeth approaches. He arrives with Banquo, riding back from the battle, and his first line is one of the play's quietest and most ominous: "so foul and fair a day I have not seen." Banquo sees the witches and is unsettled — they look like inhabitants of the earth and yet are not.

The witches address Macbeth. "All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis." "All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor." "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter." Banquo, watching, asks them why they speak only to his companion. They turn and prophesy for him too: lesser than Macbeth, and greater; not so happy, yet much happier; he will not himself be king but his descendants will. They vanish into the fog the way they came.

Ross and Angus arrive within minutes with Duncan's message. The Thane of Cawdor has turned traitor and been condemned; his title has been transferred to Macbeth. The first prophecy has been confirmed in real time. Banquo, struck, warns: the instruments of darkness sometimes tell us truths to win us to our harm. But Macbeth is already elsewhere. In the soliloquy that follows — barely audible to the others — he is examining the horror of the third prophecy from the inside. "Why do I yield to that suggestion / whose horrid image doth unfix my hair?" The witches have suggested no murder. Macbeth has supplied the murder himself, in his head, before they have been gone five minutes. The play's machinery has begun.