By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips:—
Macb. Speak, I charge you.
Banq. The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them:—Whither are they vanish'd?
Macb. Into the air; and what seem'd corporal, melted
As breath into the wind."
Even when unattended by any human witnesses, when supporting the dialogue merely among themselves, Shakspeare has placed in the mouths of these agents imagery and diction of a cast so peculiar and mysterious, as to render them objects of alarm and fear, emotions incompatible with any tendency towards the ludicrous. But when, wheeling round the magic cauldron, in the gloomy recesses of their cave, they commence their incantations, chanting in tones wild and unearthly, and heard only during the intervals of a thunder-storm, their metrical charm, while flashes of subterranean fire obscurely light their haggard features, their language seems to breathe of hell, and we shrink back, as from beings at war with all that is good. Yet is the impression capable of augmentation, and is felt to have attained its acmé of sublimity and horror, when, in reply to the question of Macbeth,
"How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is't you do?"