Other historic witches proved vengeful and much more evil then the witch of Endor, In Greek mythology Circe, the trapped lover of Odysseus, turned men into pigs. Her niece, Medea, who seduced Jason and helped him escape with the Golden Fleece, did so by killing her brother and scattering his limbs over the sea. When Jason abandoned her she took revenge by killing her and Jason’s children and then his new wife and father-in-law. In Macbeth, Hecate, a Greek godess of the moon, and later witchcraft, commands the three witches.
It is not surprising then, that Shakespeare’s witches are also vengeful. In act 1 scene 3, the first witch is getting revenge on the captain of a ship, The Tiger, whose wife wouldn’t give her any chestnuts. She plans to summon up winds, which will blow in every direction, making the sailor throw up and never sleep. This scene would have especially entertained Jacobean audiences, because in 1606 a ship so called The Tiger put in at Milford harbour, after a disastrous voyage during which the captain was lost. It was the subject of gossip in London for weeks, and many theories about witchcraft were discussed as culprits for the Captains untimely end.
The witches in Macbeth are described as typical Jacobean Anti-Christ’s, ugly, weather-beaten, badly dressed, and bearded. In Act 1 Scene 3 Banquo gives a description; “So withered, and wild in their attire…You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.” If the witches were to be modernised, I would probably portray them as being beautiful, secretive, and enigmatic because to a modern audience witches with warts and beards are stereotypical and wouldn’t be as effective or provocative as witches who were outwardly attractive but inwardly evil.
In Scotland between 1590 and 1680 an estimated 4400 witches were executed. The best known case is that of the North Berwick witches, who amongst other things were accused of worshipping the devil, flying in sieves, raising storms, and attempting to murder king James I by melting a wax image of him in a fire. The king, who was a very strong believer in the supernatural, took the threat very seriously and interrogated them himself. Eventually they confessed and were all executed. The Kings interest in witchcraft later resulted in a book of Demonology, which he wrote himself, warning the public of evil and the occult.
Jacobeans fervently believed in the ‘Divine right of kings.’ James I assumed God had placed him on the throne. Macbeth illustrates how, because Macbeth wasn’t chosen to be king by God, but by evil prophecy, he failed in the end. I think that King James I probably approved of the play Macbeth, because it proves how evil ambition is defeated by divine power.
Linked closely to the Supernatural are the elements, the weather is constantly mentioned in Macbeth. The play opens with the lines: “When shall we three meet again, in thunder lightening or in rain.” The weather is also used as a dramatic device in Act 2 Scene 3, when Duncan is found dead. Lennox describes his restless night, “The night has been unruly…I’ th’ air, strange screams of death…some say the earth was feverous, and did shake.” Although he knows nothing of Duncan’s murder his speech acts as a prelude to the discovery about to come. Disturbances in the weather on the night the king died would have been seen as premonitions of evil acts, so king James I would have related this to supernatural forces.
The play starts with the witches entering in the midst of thunder and lightening, which immediately sets the scene for a frightening plot. The three weird sisters plan to meet again “When the hurlyburly’s done, when the battles lost and one,” which we find is a rebellion in Scotland. Their familiars, Greymalkin and Paddock, summon the witches, and the scene ends with a paradoxical statement, “Fair is foul and foul is fair; hover through the fog and filthy air.” This line is chanted to call upon evil to come and overturn the ideas of good and bad, and to twist and distort nature. I think it also hints that the human soul, which is both fair and foul due to human conscience and immoral ambition is about to be assaulted, because we soon learn that a brave war hero; Macbeth, is going to be the witches unsuspecting victim.
The next scene that the witches appear in is Act 1 scene 3, where Macbeth and Banquo are told that Macbeth is to become the Thane of Cawdor, and then the king, and that Banquo’s descendants are to become kings. As soon as Macbeth enters, his first line is “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” This example of dramatic irony suggests that supernatural influences are already beginning to take over Macbeth, and later in the scene Banquo describes him as being ‘rapt,’ meaning that he seems to be in a trance, implying that the witches have put a spell on Macbeth. Already he seems obsessed with the witches and their prophecies, and it appears they have struck a chord, or touched on some hidden thought deep in Macbeth’s mind.
I think it’s likely that Macbeth had been imagining ways of becoming king or gaining power before, and this new prophecy of the witches managed to tip the balance between what he knew to be fantasy, and what was possible in reality. Macbeth’s actions in this scene are quite contradictory, before the witches vanish he commands them to: “stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more.” But after the news of his knew title from Ross and Angus he seems frightened and panicky, “whose horrid image doth unfix my hair.”
Macbeth’s introduction to the witches leaves him perplexed and unsure of whether or not to believe them. He seems overwhelmed by the thoughts of murder he’s been imagining, and he feels confused about reality and imagination. “…nothing is but what is not.” At the end of Act 1 scene 3 he has morbid thoughts about regicide.
Contrastingly, in Act 4 scene 1 Macbeth enters with confidence, “How now you secret black and midnight hags!” He is returning to the witches of his own accord for the first time, which could show he is dependent on them, and his self-assuring entrance is just concealing the fact that he’d been thinking about them and that he felt the need to return to them. In the previous act Macbeth had become increasingly malicious, and his language was pervaded with devilish animal to vent his anger. “We have scorched the snake,” “O full of scorpions is my mind.” This build up of tension and powerful imagery led him to command the witches with hard aggression; “I conjure you, by that which you profess.” It is as though he thinks he is the master of a supernatural power himself, and by the end of the preceding act he had seemed committed to evil; “We are but young in deed.”
The witches prophecies in Act 4 Scene 1 reassure Macbeth, because he doesn’t understand the riddles and metaphors the witches have concocted to show him what’s to come. In truth they are deliberately confusing him with the seemingly impossible predictions. The equivocatory and often vague nature of the prophecies are just ways of luring Macbeth into a false sense of security. He doesn’t understand the prophecies full meaning, but the witches do. All the way through the play, the witches are a step ahead of Macbeth, but he thinks he is ahead of them, he thinks the prophecies are telling him he’s invincible. He is doomed to failure, even when he thinks he is the one taking advantage of their riddles.
In my opinion the witches prophecies play a huge part in the downfall of Macbeth. Although, without his fatal character flaw, ambition, the witches would probably not have been capable of corrupting the ‘tragic hero.’ Duncan’s murder was the first in a downwards spiral of events that led to Macbeth’s death. I don’t think the witches are directly responsible for the death of King Duncan, because they never actually told him to murder anyone. Even though they planted the seed in Macbeth’s mind, he was the one who committed the crime.
When the consequences of the murders of Duncan and Banquo are too much for Macbeth to handle, his instinct is to go back to the witches (Act 4 Scene 1). He sees them as his only hope. It is an admission that he cannot control things any longer and from this point in the play, we know Macbeth will die.
Shakespeare uses the witches apparitions to demonstrate how the supernatural is able to control Macbeth. Deliberately left ambiguous they represent Macbeth’s most terrible fears, “Though hast harped my fear alright,” and at the same time his ambitious fantasies, “none of women born shall harm Macbeth.” Macbeth is weak compared to the witches, and acts as though he has no choice but to do what the witches prophesise, even though he knows they are not to be trusted.
Throughout the play the witches never actually command Macbeth in his evil deeds, but Macbeth is left with the apparitions of murder and betrayal, which he chooses to follow with little hesitation. In Act 2 Scene 3 I think that the ‘phantom dagger’ is a ‘false creation’ Macbeth’s mind, reflecting the witches influence over him and his conscience. His fantasies increase with the banquet in Act 3 Scene 4, where he sees the ghost of Banquo, and has outbursts of insanity with all his guests watching him.
Whenever Macbeth meets with the witches he tries to show prevailing authority by being rude and raising his voice. You still get the impression they are in control, by the way they taunt and irritate him.
Macbeth’s lack of authority and slightly immature disposition is displayed throughout the play, and in his whole purpose. He wants to become king so people will worship him, obey him, and so he can order people about, not so he can look after the countries best interests, or be trusted or respected. His unworthiness to be king proves to be his undoing, he’s a bad king, and so he is overthrown. Ironically, he never enjoys the power he most greatly desires.
Macbeth is blatantly disrespected by his wife, who is constantly taking advantage of him and using his childish fantasies of kingship as emotional blackmail in the early stages. She comes across as a much stronger character then the feeble minded Macbeth, she knows exactly what she wants and seems unable to comprehend Macbeth’s feelings of guilt and regret over Duncan’s murder. “Consider it not so deeply” seems to be her general philosophy and morality concerning murder at the beginning of Macbeth.
Included in the supernatural theme comes the notion of disturbed sleep and restlessness, an idea repeated through the play. In Act 2 Scene 2, after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth describes a voice he thought he heard cry; “Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.” Is the voice he was supposed to have heard the witches? With his overwhelming sense of guilt, and his growing paranoia he feels he’ll ‘sleep no more.’ Later on in the play Lady Macbeth suffers insomnia, and sleepwalks in a mysterious dream world, which eventually leads to her suicide, reflecting her secret inability to cope with the guilt; “who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him!” I think that the supernatural sleeplessness in Macbeth is connected to the witches and their reversal of good and evil. As Macbeth and lady Macbeth’s duplicity grows they pay the price by not being able to sleep without having nightmares, a penance which eventually results in death.
The first clue of pure evil in Macbeth comes when the witches announce it, with “Fair is foul and foul is fair” Macbeth’s first echoing words, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen” instantly link his destiny with their evil. Macbeth is a timeless play, because of its universality through the ages. Although themes such as the supernatural will be interpreted differently over time, because of people’s change in culture and belief, we can still relate back to Shakespeare’s day, because of what the witches and the supernatural symbolize. In the 21st century there is much more corruption and evil then the witches of King James I could ever have created, so in a way Macbeth is as relevant as contemporary plays. It stands for the age-old disaster of ambition and power, which is basic human nature, and could be the fatal flaw of any person, living in any century.
