“Fair is Foul, as Foul is Fair
Hover through the Fog and Filthy air.”
I think what they are trying to say in this first scene is that they know what the future holds and they want to do something about it so that the people concerned know what is going to happen in advance and can be prepared. I think that they have some sort of power that enables them to know when Macbeth is going to cross paths with them.
The second time we see them is in Act 1 Scene 3,it is just after Macbeth and Banquo have been praised by the king for their great efforts in the battle, especially Macbeth who has just gained the title of Thane of Cowdor. The two of them meet up with the Witches on a heath some-where in Scotland.
When they enter the witches are chanting around the cauldron, after they have finished they tell Macbeth and Banquo some news. The three witches tell the two of them that Macbeth will be the Thane of Glamis as well as Thane of Cowdor and inform him that he will one day be the King of Scotland.
“All hail Macbeth, you will be king one day.”
In the end this is true, Macbeth does become the Thane of Glamis and he does become the King of Scotland, but the Witches also tell Banquo that he will not be king but he will be the father to a great line of kings.
“You shall father kings, yet not be one yourself.”
In my opinion, I think that Macbeth would have been a bit annoyed because if he was going to be King how could Banquo's children be kings also? At first the two of them think that the Witches were misleading them, so they ignore it. Later on Macbeth thinks about it too much and decides to take action, so he hires a couple of murderers to kill Banquo and his son one day when they were out on their horses, but the murderers fail and only kill Banquo, his son gets away.
The last time we see the Witches, they have a whole scene, which is quite long, to themselves. What happens is that Macbeth is now wondering so much what is going to happen in the future he goes to see the Withes. He wants to find out if Banquo’s son will be the next King. But when he finds the Witches they are making a potion that they want Macbeth to drink. They do this so that Macbeth can see for himself what is going to happen in the future.
Macbeth gets three different apparitions, the first is telling Macbeth to beware of Macduf. In the second apparition there is a child covered in blood and he tells Macbeth that no one born from woman shall kill Macbeth, so Macbeth thinks that this is good because he thinks that Macduf was born naturally, so he dismisses this apparition. The last apparition that he gets is one where the voice tells him that he will never be killed until the great wood of Birnam moves to his castle on the high hill of Dunsinane. After he comes out of the trance of the apparitions he finds that the Witches have gone, but he still wants to ask them some questions about his apparitions.
Throughout the play the Witches almost dictate in one way or another how the play is going to progress. In the first place, if they had not told Macbeth and Banquo what was going to happen Banquo would still be alive and Macbeth would not have to worry so much about what is going to happen to him. Also the Witches have a habit of making a riddle, and always have a sort of strange eerie feel about them. I have noticed that they never actually tell Macbeth to do anything, all that do is plant a seed into his mind that gets him thinking and he makes his own decisions from that.
