The first scene of Act IV is another one of spectacle and magic. The scene opens with the three witches standing around a large pot or cauldron. They are making a magical potion, a kind of soup, with all sorts of disgusting and creepy ingredients: animal guts, a poisonous toad, an eye from a newt (lizard), a toe from a frog, a tongue from a dog, a wing from an owl, and so on. From beneath the trap floor, the stage hands would send up smoke so that the pot actually looks like it is burning. Meanwhile, the witches chant and dance in a circle around the pot. This is how magic is created. At least, this is how magic is supposedly created according to the creative imagination of a poet. Shakespeare intends the scene to be amusing and entertaining. Renaissance audiences would certainly be laughing as the witches announced each ingredient of their potion. The scene would thus provide comic relief to balance the heavier and serious scenes of the tragedy. The opening chant also contains an often-quoted couplet:
Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
(10-11)
Again Shakespeare uses a simple rhyme that provides a light-hearted musical quality for the scene. Hecate joins in the fun (line 39) and is pleased with the witches’ activities this time. And the chanting turns into actual song (note the stage direction above line 44). The first 62 lines of the scene could actually last for many minutes, depending on how long the director would want the music and dancing to last. The opening, then, is like a musical comedy. It is purely entertainment.