Macbeth

Act 1 Scene 3

Location: A heath near Forres.

Characters: Three witches, Macbeth, Banquo, Ross and Angus.

The dramatic action in the scene: The three witches chant ritualistically in their trochaic
tetrameter and discuss what they have been doing since they last met. The language is very
colourful indeed.

One witch is very angry with a sea captain’s wife for denying her some nuts – the well-fed
woman had said to her:

‘Aroint thee, witch’, the rump-fed runnion cries . . . (Line 5, Page 9)

Because the well-fed, upper class woman was very rude to her, the witch speaks of revenge,
claiming that she will magically board the sailor’s ship (‘The Tiger’) in a sieve. She says
darkly that she will ensure that the woman’s husband (her source of income, comfort,
security in life etc) will meet a very bitter end, on a very rough sea.

The rough sea is a metaphor that foreshadows the world of the play and what becomes of
Scotland. It also suggests the notion of fate – the witch pledges to interfere with the sailor’s
fate and hints at the power of free will – the well-fed lady could have been nice to her and
just given her some nuts, but she didn’t, so she will pay the price. Note the use of assonance,
rhyme and repetition – these qualities of the spoken word used together evoke ritual.

The witch will punish the woman:

Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th Tiger:

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do. (Lines 6-9, Page 9)

The witch says that she will make the sailor suffer at sea for 81 weeks, until he wastes away.
His suffering will be long and painful:

He shall live a man forbid.

Weary sennights nine times nine,
shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. (Lines 20-22, Page 9)

In the world of the play, vengeance is a feature of life – the sailor’s ship will be tempest-
tossed and the harsh alliteration of the witch’s language foreshadows the civil war and fate
of Scotland under the rule of Macbeth.

At the end of her promise of interference with the fat lady’s sea-faring husband, she tells us
that she has in here possession a pilot’s thumb – the severed thumb of a guide who steers
ships to safe harbour in port! It is a gruesome image, suggesting violence and pain and a
world in which human life has little value.

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Suddenly the witches refer to the sound of a drum, which indicates the sound of soldiers
approaching – specifically, Macbeth. At this point they move and speak in unison,
ritualistically, inverting the rhythms of speech of the high-born (iambic pentameter) before
we meet the ‘titular’ subject of the play:

The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go, about, about,
thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again ,to make up nine,
Peace, the charm’s wound up. (Lines 30-35, Page 11)

After their short, incantatory ritual they stop abruptly – theatrically.

Note: The witches are already aware that Macbeth and Banquo are returning victorious
from the battlefield. Dramatically, this can be interpreted (by a director, or the audience) in
two ways. One way to account for the knowledge of the witches about the events of the
battlefield is to assume that they really have supernatural powers, demon advisers,
information from the devil and the like. On the other hand, they are also in Forres – they
might well have been spying on the King’s camp and seen and heard the army captain and
the thanes returning from battle and reporting on the bloody events of the day.

As a man of enormous intellect and knowledge, Shakespeare knew that both interpretations
of the witches having knowledge about the battle was possible for the audience. As a
dramatist, he makes deliberate use of the ambiguity that is inherent in the scene.

What are Macbeth’s first lines – the very first thing he says in the play?

So fair and foul a day I have not seen. (Line 36, Page 11)

His opening line echoes the sentiment of the witches in the first scene of the play. It is a
paradox, a contradiction; the world is upside-down – order and chaos have been reversed.
And just as we gained knowledge about the character of Macbeth from others, we now
receive a perspective of the witches from Macbeth and Banquo:

What are these

So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’inhabitants of the earth,
and yet are on’t? (Lines 38-40, Page 11)

Also note the alliteration, consonance and assonance that Shakespeare uses to evoke the
colour and character of Macbeth’s Scottish speech. Banquo is quite taken aback by the
witches and says to them:

I’th’ name of truth

Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? (Lines 50-52, Page 11)

Imagine this language with a Scottish accent!

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What do the witches predict for Macbeth?
They prophesy that Macbeth (who is already the Thane of Glamis) will become the Thane of
Cawdor as well – and that he will be King of Scotland soon enough:

First Witch: All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.

Second Witch: All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.
Third Witch: All hail Macbeth, that shall be king hereafter. (Lines 46-48, Page 11)

Banquo tells us something about Macbeth’s state-of-mind and his character upon hearing
these dramatic greetings from the witches:

My noble partner
you greet with present grace and great prediction
of noble having and of royal hope
that he seems rapt withal. (Lines 52-55, Page 11)

Macbeth is rapt withal – he is completely entranced by the idea, which makes us wonder
about what has been awakened in him. This description foreshadows the dramatic
development that the man who has been spoken of as brave, loyal and true is corruptible.
Ambition has been awakened in him – the ambition to be King of Scotland – for power;
more power than he is rightfully owed, because we know that King Duncan has a dutiful son
and heir in Malcolm. Macbeth’s friend Banquo is an entirely different character. The witches
tease him with promises of greatness through their inversions, rhymes and riddles, as well:

First Witch: Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Second Witch: Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third Witch: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
So all hail Macbeth and Banquo.
First Witch: Banquo and Macbeth, all hail. (Lines 63-67, Page 13)

However much Banquo might be impressed by the witches, he dismisses their powers and
predictions as a kind of drunken vision – a madness of sorts, perhaps as a result of the
trauma of battle, even though he discusses it with Macbeth:

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

And these are of them. (Lines 77-78, Page 13)

His reference to ‘bubbles’ suggests that their words are nothing but air; that the good
fortune that they speak of has no substance or lasting significance.

After these predictions, the witches disappear ‘into the air’. They vanish into the ‘fog and
filthy air’ of battle, corruption and ambition; the latter two items being things unseen,
hidden and secret:

Banquo: . . . Whither are they vanished?

Macbeth: Into the air, and what seemed corporal,
Melted, as breath into the wind. (Lines 78-80, Page 13)
Notice how the consistent use of assonance and consonance makes the language that
describes the witches like the wind itself, playing into the superstition that the witches
control the winds.

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Very little discussion follows their mysterious disappearance, when the thanes Ross and
Angus arrive to deliver the news to Macbeth that he has been named Thane of Cawdor (in
addition to Thane of Glamis) because he disposed of the traitor Macdonald in battle.

Banquo is shocked by this development:

What, can the devil speak true? (Line 105, Page 15)

Yet, he has not been corrupted. He still considers the witches to be manipulative, rather
than truth-tellers, even though they told him his children would be kings.

Macbeth though, is an entirely different man. He says in an internal moment, a dramatic

aside, meant only for the audience:

Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:

The greatest is behind. (Lines 115-116, Page 15)

Thus, acknowledging the hope and lust for power that has been awakened in him to be king.
And before the scene ends he confirms his developing and inherently evil ambition for the
audience, even if he is also horrified by it:

I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seared heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature? (Lines 132-136, Page 17)

The ‘unnatural’ image that he refers to, is that of King Duncan dead. He has allowed himself
to imagine a dead king, perhaps a murdered king. It is an image of treachery and of high
treason, the crime of regicide being the greatest crime of all. A crime that is worthy of the
most ferocious punishment – like a crucifixion, like the image of Golgotha that was evoked in
the description of the battlefield in the previous scene.

Writing Task
In Act 1 Scene 3 in the tragedy of Macbeth, Shakespeare cleverly draws upon a wealth of
dramatic and literary devices to build towards a revelation of the twin awakening of
ambition and corruption.

Comment, using textual evidence.