Hello everybody, and welcome to today's video. The presence of the three witches is one of
the most talked about elements in Macbeth, and yet they only appear on-stage four times.
In this video we’ll take a brief look at each appearance, considering what we learn
about these so called ‘weird sisters’. Shakespeare’s use of structure, with his
decision to open the play with the witches, suggests that they will take a significant
role in Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 1 is the first time the audience gets to see the witches,
and we are invited into a mysterious world made all the more enigmatic by the fact that
we arrive at the end of whatever it is they have been doing. The first line we hear is
‘When shall we three meet again?’ Their meeting is complete and whatever they were
up to, we can only guess. Shakespeare is clever in his construction here, prompting our curiosity
about what role the witches will take in the play. The structural decision to start with
the witches suggests that their role will be significant, but the fact that we have
missed the focus of their meeting leaves the audience unsure of what to think of them.
The witches introduce the theme of the supernatural which, in Jacobean times, would have been
a big draw for audiences because there was a huge amount of interest (and belief) in
witchcraft. Practising witchcraft was a crime punishable by death in Shakespeare’s time,
and during the Jacobean era King James is estimated to have been responsible for the
burning of 4,000 alleged witches in Scotland alone. King James actually wrote a book on
the subject (‘Daemonologie’), so beginning the play with this scene is therefore not
only a good way to grab the interest of the audience but also of the king, an important
source of revenue. Something interesting to note here is that
ideas about witchcraft changed quite rapidly in England. Macbeth was first performed in
1606. Writing in 1745 about the play, Samuel Johnson explained that:
‘In order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer, it is always
necessary to examine the genius of his age, and the opinions of his contemporaries. A
poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and
produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured
as transgressing the bounds of probability, he would be banished from the theatre to the
nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies.’
In other words, just under 140 years after the play was first produced, audiences found
the idea of witches and spells laughable – much like we do today. And the 1735 witchcraft
act reduced the penalty for practising witchcraft from death to a maximum of one year in prison.
This law change reflected a shift from actual belief in witchcraft to punishing those who
made a pretence of having special powers. That’s the genius of Shakespeare: he taps
into contemporary obsessions and ideas to make his work relevant to his audience. But
make no mistake: when it was first produced, the witches and their incantations would have
been shocking to an audience. Shakespeare also uses form to set the witches
apart from other characters. Whilst all of the nobles in Macbeth speak in iambic pentameter,
with unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables, the form used by the witches is
trochaic meter, with stressed syllables followed by unstressed syllables. For example:
Fair is foul, and foul is fair (I’ve put the stressed syllables in bold)
Now this use of trochaic meter heightens a sense of the witches’ otherworldliness and
makes them stand out from the rest of the characters, emphasising their wickedness.
Perhaps the biggest topic open for debate when it comes to the witches is just how much
power they possess – for example do they make Macbeth kill King Duncan, or was he was
going to do it anyway? This was a topic explored in a 2010 Oxford University lecture by Dr
Emma Smith. Smith points out that whilst In Act 1 Scene
1 the witches seem to know what is happening (‘When the battle’s lost and won’) and
also where to meet Macbeth, ‘upon the heath’. the question raised is does that mean they’re
able to draw him to them, or simply they know where he will be. Do they have the power of
direction, to make things happen, or the power of prophecy, to predict the future?
For Smith, Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony is key in suggesting that the witches
aren’t as powerful as they might first appear to be.
When the witches prophesy to Macbeth, in Act 1 Scene 3, that he will become Thane of Cawdor,
it’s the first he’s heard of it, and so when he’s told of the promotion shortly
after by Ross, it could very well appear to Macbeth that the witches made it happen. However,
the audience is in a different position. We already know from Act 1 Scene 2 that Duncan
was going to promote Macbeth to Thane of Cawdor. As Smith puts it: To the audience, it seems
much more likely that the witches ‘interpose in a chain of human actions, rather than…direct
actions themselves’. Macbeth might see his promotion to thane of Cawdor as being linked
to the witches, but, Smith argues, an astute audience would judge that Macbeth’s promotion
is a result of a rational political reason- he has been a brave and loyal warrior whereas
Cawdor has been a traitor. This dramatic irony, then, allows the audience to view the witches
as not as powerful as they appear to Macbeth. As if to assist us in drawing this conclusion,
just before this happens, also In Act 1 Scene 3, we see the witches in discussion with each
other, a discussion which reveals the limitations of their power and influence. For example,
the audience finds out that one of the witches has been offended by a woman who wouldn’t
give her chestnuts, and has decided to take it out on the woman’s husband who is a sailor.
We learn that the witch has control over the winds and uses them to disrupt the ship’s
journey. It’s important to note, however, that the witch does not have the power to
take the sailor’s life ‘Though his bark cannot be lost, / yet it shall be tempest-tossed’.
Shakespeare’s use of structure is key here: he deliberately shows the audience the limits
of the witches’ power, so that when Macbeth arrives and is captivated by them, we can
see that his infatuation tells us more about him than it does about the witches.
The witches appear next in Act 3 Scene 5, but many scholars and editors believe that
this scene was not actually written by Shakespeare at all but inserted by actors either to give
themselves more lines or to excite the audience. Much of the evidence for this comes from the
fact that Hecate has so many lines despite not being introduced at any point previously.
It is also said that the witches appear different to when we first met them, even though they
don’t say much at all. Whatever the truth, we learn in this scene that the witches are
subordinate to Hecate, who is angry that they did not consult her first before speaking
to Macbeth. Hecate describes herself as ‘the mistress of your charms’, meaning ‘the
source of all your powers’. Again, the idea of the witches as powerful is undermined here,
as they are essentially reprimanded by their superior.
In Act 4 Scene 1, Macbeth has come looking for reassurance and comfort that what he has
done will keep him on the throne. The witches duly show him three apparitions, which Macbeth
interprets in his own way. These apparitions, while seeming to comfort him, are actually
entirely deceptive and symptomatic of how the witches speak - in riddles and half-truths.
The audience are shown a series of apparitions that are supposed to confirm one thing, but
in fact can be interpreted as the complete opposite. Shakespeare is flagging something
that becomes crucial to the final outcome of the play. He is, in a way, signposting
important details for his audience. The first of the apparitions is the ‘armed
Head’ which literally foretells Macbeth’s eventual decapitation at the hands of Macduff.
Macbeth, however, appears to believe that the head is representative of Macduff, and
seems thankful for having seen it, obviously misunderstanding its true meaning.
The second vision is of the ‘bloody child’, which is, in reality, Macduff. The advice
given to Macbeth is that he should feel completely safe and secure because no one who has been
‘born of woman’ can hurt him. The equivocation here is that the apparition is Macduff and
so clearly, he is alive despite not being born of woman. Macbeth fails to see the deception
here, and reads into the prophecy that he has nothing to fear.
The third vision is of ‘a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand’. This is Malcolm,
Duncan’s son, coming to Macbeth’s castle carrying a branch from a tree. The advice
here again is that Macbeth can’t be harmed until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane. Obviously
believing that it is impossible for a forest to move, Macbeth feels even more secure following
this prophecy. Essentially, he has come to the witches for reassurance; they’ve shown
him a vision of the future, and he has read into it what he wants to see.
Before he leaves, however, the witches, on Macbeth’s orders, show him a final vision.
Here he sees a line of ‘eight kings’ who are all descendants of Banquo. This leaves
him in an awful state considering that it means none of his own descendants will inherit
the throne. It’s very curious here that Macbeth sees this and, yet still doesn’t
doubt the earlier visions. It’s clear the witches are playing with him yet, in his state,
he either doesn’t seem to notice or care. And that’s the last time we see the witches
in the play, which in itself is worthy of analysis. If the witches are so powerful,
why do they not appear at all after Act 4 Scene 1? Their impact on-stage is unquestionable
when they do appear there, but the reality is that once the battle starts they are nowhere