The scene with the witches in Act 4.1 of Shakespeare's Macbeth is an amplification of the first two times the witches are featured. Each time they appear in the play their presence and activities grow. In this scene, the witches are preparing a brew, we assume for Macbeth to drink (and that's how it is usually acted out when the play is performed). The witches are presented as even more unnatural, morbid, and grotesque than previously. Their words and their additions to the pot contribute to the blood and animal imagery in the play, as well as the theme of the unnatural. The brew enables Macbeth to see visions.
Shakespeare reserves the use of rhyme in the play for certain situations, and this is one of them. Just before Macbeth arrives, the Second Witch announces:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks. (Act 4.1.44-47)
Of course, the mystique of the witches is added to here, since she appears to have been informed that Macbeth has arrived before he enters, by some sensation she experiences in her thumbs. Macbeth's entry leads to his visions and more predictions by the witches.
The connection between the witches and Macbeth, and the Second Witch's ability to sense him before he enters, should not come as much of a surprise by this point in the play. Macbeth and the witches have been connected since Act 1.3 when Macbeth echoes their fair is foul line.
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