Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2. Macbeth commands the night to come quickly in order to conceal his evil actions and facilitate the murder of Banquo and his boy. Both night and day are personified in the passage. A hawking metaphor is used to describe the night, seeling is stitching the bird’s eyelids shut for training. In another metaphor Macbeth calls on the night to use its “bloody and invisible hand” to destroy Banquo. In his speech there is much made of darkness and light, one representing evil and the other good. Macbeth is calling on the forces of darkness and evil to cancel out the good.