Act I, Scene iii A heath Thunder Enter the three witches Where hast thou been, sister? Killing swine. Sister, where thou? A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, And mounch'd and mounch'd and mounch'd. "Give me," quoth I. "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries. 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. "killing swine" = The poisoning of livestock was thought to be a common mischief practiced by witches. "mounch'd" = munched; chewed. Note that the verb is uttered three times. "quoth" = said "aroint thee" = be off with you "rump-fed" = fat-bottomed "ronyon" = a mangy, scabby creature Aleppo = today a city in Syria, and traditionally a major trading location "master o' th' Tiger" = The sailor married to the "rump-fed ronyon" captains a merchant ship named the Tiger (a common name for ships in Shakespeare's time). "thither" = there. The word "thither" is often paired with "hither," meaning here. In saying that she will "thither sail," the First Witch declares that she will follow the sailor aboard the Tiger, there to do and do and do what mischief she may. Note the triplet of "I'll do." "in a sieve I'll thither sail" = A witch, as was believed, might use magic to sail in a sieve (a strainer). "like a rat without a tail" = The belief was also held that a witch or demon who took on a familiar's form could never perfectly imitate one of God's creations and that some absent or deformed part of the animal (such as the missing tail of a rat) would be a sign that it was actually a familiar. I'll give thee a wind. "I'll give thee a wind... And I another. / I myself have all the other" = Witches were thought to have the power to raise and control winds. Thou'rt kind. And I another.
"the very ports they blow" = the exact seaports that the winds blow upon I myself have all the other. And the very ports they blow, All the quarters that they know I' th' shipman's card. I'll drain him dry as hay. Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid. He shall live a man forbid. Weary sev'n-nights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd. Look what I have. Show me, show me. "shipman's card" = a circular piece of stiff paper on which were marked thirty-two points of the compass (a navigation aid) "drain him dry as hay" = sap him of energy "penthouse lid" = eyelid (for the eyelid slopes like the roof of a penthouse) "forbid" = used here as an adjective meaning under a curse "dwindle, peak, and pine" = lose vitality ("dwindle"), lose weight ("peak"), and lose joy ("pine") "bark" = ship "lost" = sunk "tempest-toss'd" = buffeted or tossed about ("toss'd") by a storm ("tempest") It is particularly important to note here the degree to which a witch can actually harm a person and, as it happens, that's not much. According to the Elizabethan view (and the view of many moderns), the universe is a designed, ordered, and ultimately benevolent place, created and controlled by God. In this universe, God has not authorized the Devil and his minions (including witches, of course) to take the lives of his most prized creatures, human beings. The most that the agents of evil can do is to create the conditions and offer the temptations that might lead humans to take their own lives. For, also according to the belief of the age, God created us with the faculty of free will the power and the responsibility to choose our "fates." And when others appear to choose them, it is only that we have, in effect, chosen to let them do so. Therefore, the witch in this case can cause the master o' th' Tiger to suffer a hell of a case of insomnia, one so extreme that he might wish himself dead (note, by the way, that the condition of ruined sleep will become an important motif also). And she can stir up the winds enough to seriously rock the ship, thereby frightening its sailors almost to death, but she cannot sink the ship ("his bark cannot be lost") and so drown the people aboard. Those familiar with Dracula, or with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight series, will recognize that this idea is consistent with vampire lore, which asserts that a vampire cannot harm a person who does not invite the evil thing into his or her dwelling. As long as you resist the temptations and the wiles of the vampire, you are invulnerable to its harms. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wrack'd as homeward he did come. "a pilot's thumb" = That this witch has in her possession the body part of a pilot (a ship's navigator), an object she might use in the casting of a spell or the making of a potion, suggests the possible fate of the sailor referred to in the speech above and foreshadows certain cauldron activity later in the play. Drum within A drum! A drum! Macbeth doth come.
ALL 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. "Weird" = Here scholars question Shakespeare's original word choice. Some early editions of the text use wayward, an adjective we still use to mean lost, often with the suggestion of one's having chosen to be lost, of having meant to behave in opposition to the norms of one's community. We may speak of a delinquent youth, for example, as a "wayward son." Later editions of the text showing the word wayward print it as weyard, reflecting its common pronunciation (and sounding, obviously, similar to weird). As for the word weird, it is derived from the Old English wyrd, meaning fate. In either case whether Shakespeare intended wayward or weird the meaning is well suited to the witches. "posters" = persons who travel ("post") swiftly "Thrice to thine and thrice to mine / And thrice again to make up nine" = Odd numbers, especially multiples of three and nine, were thought to be favored by witches. In performance, the actors playing the witches (not always women, incidentally) will often incorporate "magical" gestures to accompany theses lines. "Peace!" = Be silent! "wound up" = set in readiness for action Enter and So foul and fair a day I have not seen. How far is't call'd to Forres? [Seeing the witches] What are these, So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth And yet are on't? Live you? Or are you aught That man may question? You seem to understand me, By each at once her choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips. You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so. "So foul and fair a day" = From Macbeth's point of view, the day is foul for its weather, but fair for the success he has had in the day's battles. Note that the first utterance by Macbeth not necessarily a paradox in this case, but an expression of even-handed contrast all the same identifies him immediately with the witches he is about to encounter and to whom he will be most responsive. "aught" = anything "choppy" = bony "By each at once her choppy finger laying / Upon her skinny lips" = Observe here first that the witches do not initiate the dialogue between themselves and the two thanes. This suits with the belief of the time that evil spirits or agents could not speak unless first addressed by those whom they sought to harm. And this is consistent with the commentary in the sidenote above, namely that vampires and other devilish creatures cannot destroy humans. They can only coax and trick people into their own self-destruction. Second, observe the image of the witches where they stand, according to Banquo's depiction. Each stands with a vertical finger laid over her lips in what would appear a signal to hush, as though they do not wish the men to speak. But a better reading of the image is as a signal of equivocation. Equivocation and the witches, we shall see, are equivocators is a form of verbal irony in which one makes a statement that from one perspective is true but that is meant nevertheless to deceive the hearer. In this way, the equivocator has, as it were, two voices one that speaks a truth, one that speaks a lie. In fact, the word equivocation is based on roots that mean equal (equi) and voice (vocare) two equal voices (again, the even-handedness motif). A witch's hushing finger, then, can appear as a symbol of the means by which her voice is split into two voices, true and false, fair and foul, both issuing from the same mouth. "forbid me to interpret / That you are so" = prevent me from supposing that you are actually women
"Speak, if you can" = It is subtly important that Macbeth, not Banquo, is first to command the witches to speak to, so to speak, invite them in. Speak, if you can. What are you? All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter. "All hail to thee, Thane of Glamis... Thane of Cawdor... that shalt be king hereafter" = In commenting on this scene, many readers speak mistakenly about the witches' "three prophecies." In fact, only one of the lines "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter" can, technically, be called a prophecy, and even that line, one may argue, is not a prophecy either. First, Macbeth already is the thane of Glamis. He knows it, others know it, and the witches themselves could certainly know it. No magical foresight is needed to declare him thane of Glamis. Second, Macbeth is already the thane of Cawdor too. True, he doesn't know that yet, and we would have to wonder how the witches could have knowledge of it, given that Duncan has only recently announced Macbeth's new assumption of that thaneship. Nevertheless, they could know it, and it is an established condition. Again, to prophesy a state that already stands, even if it is not widely known to stand, is not to prophesy at all. As for being "king hereafter," yes, that sounds like the declaring of a state that, as a fortuneteller avers, will exist in the future. But I could tell you that you will one day be rich. And it may come to pass or it may not. More to the point, it may come to pass because you choose to work hard or invest wisely or rob a bank or whatever. But my saying it will happen does not mean my words are prophetic. It's more likely that I'm planting a suggestion in your mind and you are the one who will cause your "fate" to be fulfilled. Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? I' th' name of truth, Are ye fantastical or that indeed Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner You greet with present grace and great prediction Of noble having and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate. "start" = appear startled "Are ye fantastical or that indeed / Which outwardly ye show" = Are you magical beings, or are you what you seem to be (mere mortals). As the play progresses, we will have cause to see Banquo as cautious and thoughtful, a man not easily deceived by illusions. This is suggested in his questioning of whether the witches are what they wish him to think they are: tellers of fate. "of noble having and of royal hope" = regarding the possession of a nobleman's estate and achievement of the throne "rapt withal" = entirely ("withal") amazed ("rapt," a clipped form of enraptured) Hail! Hail! Hail! Lesser than Macbeth and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo! Note that each of the prophecies regarding Banquo is expressed as a paradox. How, we wonder, could he be lesser than Macbeth and greater at the same time? How could be both less happy and more happy than Macbeth? And how could he "get" (beget be the sire of) kings if he is never to be a king himself? Consider, too, that in hailing the men together, the witches first say "all hail, Macbeth and Banquo," then reverse the terms and say, "Banquo and Macbeth, all hail" a rhythm and a balanced structure (in chiasmus) that echoes the play's central paradox, "fair is foul, and foul is fair."
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail! Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more. By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis, But how of Cawdor? The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman. And to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you. "imperfect" = incomplete; cryptic "By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis" = Sinel was Macbeth's father, the former thane of Glamis. And when he died, Macbeth (by natural course) became the next thane of Glamis. "The thane of Cawdor lives, / A prosperous gentleman" = Do these lines indicate an error on Shakespeare's part, or is another original passage missing, or has the text been inaccurately transcribed? We don't know. The point, though, is that Macbeth's declaration that "Cawdor lives, a prosperous gentleman" does not seem to suit with the information we have earlier received that this very day Macbeth has bested a most ungentlemanly Cawdor. As well, Macbeth would know that, even though he has not slain Cawdor, the traitor will certainly be tried and punished, no longer "prosperous," and not much longer to live. A possible argument may be made that the lines shown are just as Shakespeare intends them, but we'll come to that later. "Stands not within the prospect of belief" = seems hardly believable "owe" = own "intelligence" = information "blasted" = ruinous; degraded "charge" = command Witches vanish The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd? Into the air. And what seem'd corporal melted, As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd! Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner? Your children shall be kings. You shall be king. And thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so? "Witches vanish" and Banquo/Macbeth dialogue immediately following = This material must be handled carefully by a director of the play and by the actors playing Macbeth and Banquo. To have the witches literally vanish, and to show Macbeth and Banquo as naturally stunned by such magic, might seem to invest the weird sisters with more real supernatural power than Shakespeare intends them to have. On the other hand, to take "vanish" as a verb indicating merely that they walk away, and to have Macbeth and Banquo's dialogue played sarcastically as though they were scoffing at the idea that these silly hags should fancy themselves "fantastical" might dissipate the tension of the scene and cause it to fall flat. We will examine three different treatments of this moment and leave you to judge which one works best. "The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them" = just as water has bubbles (that pop and disappear), so the solid earth must have "bubbles" too, and these creatures are examples of such phenomena "what seem'd corporal melted, / As breath into the wind" = in the same way that our breath vanishes into the wind, these beings, who seemed solid, vanished "Would" = I wish "insane root" = a reference either to hemlock or henbane or to deadly nightshade, all botanicals that are poisonous if taken in sufficient quantity but which, when taken in small amounts, also produce hallucinogenic effects (a kind of insanity). This idea of being "stoned" or drunk and of the problems that go along with being intoxicated become more important later in the play. "selfsame" = exact
To th' selfsame tune and words. Who's here? Enter ROSS and ANGUS ROSS The king hath happily receiv'd, Macbeth, The news of thy success. And when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, His wonders and his praises do contend, Which should be thine or his. Silenc'd with that, In viewing o'er the rest o' th' selfsame day, He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, Strange images of death. As thick as hail Came post with post, and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense, And pour'd them down before him. ANGUS We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks, Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee. ROSS And, for an earnest of a greater honor, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor In which addition, hail, most worthy thane, For it is thine. [To ] What, can the devil speak true? The thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me In borrow'd robes? ANGUS Who was the thane lives yet, But under heavy judgment bears that life Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin'd With those of Norway or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage or that with both He labor'd in his country's wrack, I know not, But treasons capital, confess'd and prov'd, Have overthrown him. "His wonders and his praises do contend, / Which should be thine or his" = There is a conflict in Duncan's mind between his astonishment at the achievement of Macbeth and his admiration for Macbeth. "post with post" = messenger after messenger "earnest" = a relatively small amount of money given at the beginning or conclusion of a bargain ("good faith" money). The sense of Ross' announcement, then, is that this new thaneship is merely a token of greater rewards to come from Duncan to Macbeth. "addition" = a title conferred upon a person, apart from his given name and surname (in this case, "thane") "Why do you dress me / In borrow'd robes?" = Why are you (metaphorically) putting Cawdor's clothes on me (as though I were him)? Here is the first obvious use of the clothing motif. Again, Macbeth's response does not appear to jibe with what is supposed to be his knowledge of the current status of Cawdor (that of a captured traitor). And Angus' news that Cawdor's execution is imminent ("under heavy judgment [he] bears that life / Which he deserves to lose") should scarcely be news at all to Macbeth. Go figure! "line" = reinforce; strengthen "labor'd in his country's wrack" = worked to achieve the destruction ("wrack") of his own nation "treasons capital" = A "capital" crime (such as treason) is one that merits a death sentence.
[Aside] Glamis and thane of Cawdor! The greatest is behind. [To ROSS and ANGUS] Thanks for your pains. [To ] Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me Promis'd no less to them? "The greatest is behind" = the greatest title (king of Scotland) is to follow (in sequence after the titles thane of Glamis, then thane of Cawdor). Macbeth leaps quickly ahead in time to the idea of becoming king so quickly, indeed, that we might believe he has already thought about the possibility of kingship for himself, or at least entertained it as a toy of imagination. And Macbeth, as coming events will show, has a truly active imagination. "pains" = efforts (the efforts that Ross and Angus have made to bring this news) "home" = completely "enkindle you unto the crown" = excite you with the idea of being king (as in kindling being used to start a fire) That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence. [To ROSS and ANGUS] Cousins, a word, I pray you. "And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray's / In deepest consequence" = often, in order to trick us into destroying ourselves, the devil's minions do speak honestly, seducing us with real rewards, however trifling, but only for the purpose of damning our souls (the deepest of all consequences) "cousins" = The word cousin could be applied to any countryman and did not have to refer exclusively to blood relations. [Aside] Two truths are told, As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen See large text box below. [Aside] This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man, That function is smother'd in surmise, And nothing is but what is not.
Given that Shakespeare was a man of the theatre, it is natural that he should so often (in his plays generally, not only in Macbeth) resort to the theatre itself for his metaphors. Here is one such example. Macbeth's aside is introduced with a conceit (an extended metaphor) of himself as a character in a play about kingship one with an "imperial theme." This play, he imagines, begins with two prologues, which are represented by "two truths": the strange women's having correctly called him thane of Glamis and thane of Cawdor. And, like any interesting play, it must have a "swelling act" a story that builds climactically in detail and event in order to invite its viewers imaginatively in. "soliciting" = inviting (the witches' enticement) "Cannot be ill, cannot be good" = cannot be foul, cannot be fair. Again, see the "fair is foul" and even-handedness motifs. Note here too or, for that matter, at any point where a motif is used how it helps to reinforce a sense of unity in a work (in whatever kind of artwork, not just a work of literature), both by emphasizing significant ideas and by helping us to feel that the otherwise varied and separable elements of the work are building, in concert, toward a single, overarching effect. And speaking of single, overarching effects, this is a good place to mention the Great Chain of Being (or the Great Chain of Order), which is the name given to the Elizabethan philosophical conception of the universe. It is, in its multitudinous details, a single organizing principle that informs Shakespeare's work (and, really, the work of countless other artists in different times and cultures). Here is an excerpt from a reading I use in English 30-1 as part of an introduction to The Tragedy of King Lear, but its relevance to Macbeth is clear. For Shakespeare, humanity's home, the universe, was no less glorious than humanity itself, a divinely designed and regulated place. And of course, humanity's arrangement, its social structure, stood at its best when it reflected the concord and control of God's universe. As God was at the pinnacle of cosmic creation, so the king, by divine right, was at the pinnacle of the nation. Even the individual man was regarded in his anatomical structure as a reflector of the blessed universal structure, for his brain, which exerted all creative and therefore godlike power, was situated at the top of his body, just as God and the king were situated in their respective top spots. Below God, in descending power and function, were the archangels, angels, cherubs, and seraphs. Similarly, below the king were those who knew their degrees the princes, nobles, barons, clergymen, sergeants of the law, and so on. This was natural, and this was the way it must be, and woe betide the one who would change it by willful and unnatural behavior. Here was a vision of social perfection sustained even into the Victorian age, as a short verse blessing of that time suggests: "God bless the squire and his relations, / And keep us in our proper stations." It was this conception, too, of a universe, society, and creature properly arranged in their hierarchical appointments by God himself which assured people that their lives, rightly lived, were "whole as the rock, founded as the marble" (Macbeth III, iv). And it was only those others who had foolishly taken the devil's bait from time to time that could shake the single state of the world. For all the elements of the universe were interconnected in a complete matrix, and a disruption in one of its parts could communicate disruption to the whole, much as a pebble tossed in a still pool creates a small splash but sends out ripples across the water's surface in widening rings. Eventually, though, calm returns to the water. The pool finds its serenity again. So it is with the plays of Shakespeare (and other dramatists), which typically see disturbances in the natural order being set right by Order itself. The universe vindicates itself, for God will not allow disorder to have its day for long. Disorder is devilish, after all, and the devil's proper place is deep down on the lowermost link of The Great Chain. But the devil is kept down, and the universe vindicated, partly by the agency of humans and not only by humans who happen to be tragic heroes but by vassals too whose function it is to be what they are meant to be. It is absolutely crucial that all people maintain their proper places and behaviors in their own stations in life. "Why do I yield to that suggestion / Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair / And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, / Against the use of nature?" = Why do I give in to the temptation to picture a scene (the dead body of Duncan) so terrifying that it should cause my hair to fall out and should make my heart beat so fiercely that it would seem to break through my ribs, being thoroughly unnatural? "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings" = anything in the real world that might frighten me in this moment couldn't be as frightening as the awful scene that I now imagine "function is smother'd in surmise" = the power to act ("function") is killed ("smother'd") by what is being thought about as a future event (or being "surmised" the murder of Duncan) "And nothing is but what is not" = In this paradox (for how can that which does not exist make up everything that does exist?), Macbeth says that, for the moment, he can focus on nothing but the awful scene in his imagination. Right now, nothing else exists. This is a good indication of just how powerfully his imagination can affect him. Interestingly, the state in which Macbeth currently exists is not so different from the feeling that many viewers of plays and films or readers of books report, that of being so absorbed in the "swelling act" before them that the rest of the world seems to slip away and "nothing is" but the story they are encountering, even participating in. More on this idea participating in the action later, when we consider the concept of culpability. Look, how our partner's rapt. "my stir" = my taking action. Consider that if Macbeth were to heed his own counsel that of doing nothing at all, but simply letting events unfold on their own well, the play would probably have to end here. There would be scarce a point in its continuing. But we haven't even come to the end of Act I, and there are four more acts after that. It seems pretty clear that Macbeth will stir. He will choose and he will act! [Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.
"New honors come upon him" = new honors (the king's forthcoming rewards) that have come to occupy his thoughts "cleave" = cling New honors come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use. "Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould / But with the aid of use" = clothes that are new to us don't feel as though they fit our bodies, and we have to wear them long enough to become used to them. Banquo implies that Macbeth is "rapt" (distracted) because he cannot get immediately used to the idea of great rewards coming his way. Note again the appearance of the clothing motif. [Aside] Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure. Give me your favor. My dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king. [To ] Think upon what hath chanc'd, and at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other. Very gladly. "Come what come may" = what will be will be "Time and the hour runs through the roughest day" = time never stops, and even the hardest day must come to its end "stay upon your leisure" = await your convenience "favor" = pardon "wrought" = overworked "My dull brain was wrought / With things forgotten" = my weak wit was working hard to recall something which is, of course, a lie, for Macbeth's mind is not "wrought" with thoughts of the past so much as it is rotten with thoughts of the future. "where every day I turn / The leaf to read them" = where, in the book of my mind, I daily turn a page ("leaf") to see them (his friends' "pains") recorded ("register'd") "the interim having weigh'd it" = having had time to reflect on what has happened here ("what hath chanc'd") Till then, enough. Come, friends. Exeunt