The Witches show they are evil both when they make their heathen brews and when they give accounts of what they have done in a day. The Witches make references throughout the play to their “familiar spirits”. These are demons that have taken the form of animals, and are supposed to assist witches in performing their evil deeds. At the end of Act 1 Scene 1, after their meeting on the heath, the Witches are called away by “Graymalkin” (grey little Mary) and “Paddock”. Graymalkin is the Witches’ cat and a paddock is a toad. As the Witches wait for Banquo and Macbeth following the “hurlyburly” of the battle, they regale each other with stories of their evil acts. One Witch announces that she has been “killing swine”. Witches would often be blamed
for the deaths of animals, and the act of destroying someone’s livelihood (in the form of their livestock) is another example of the inherent evil of the Witches. Another Witch tells of how a “rump-fed ronyon” refused to give her some chestnuts, and to punish her the Witch plans to sail “in a sieve” (which it was believed Witches had the power to do) to Aleppo where the woman’s husband has gone as “master o’ the Tiger” (the “Tiger” being a merchant vessel). There, the Witch vows to use “all the quarters that they know I’ the shipman’s card” (all the winds) to keep the “Tiger” from landing at port. “I’ll drain him dry” she exclaims, and says that “He shall live a man forbid…sev’n-nights nine times nine.” This fiendish act makes it only clearer what a devilish force the Witches are, and would have alarmed an original audience greatly, as a ship called the “Tiger” returned from Aleppo after a journey lasting a terrifying 567 days (sev’n-nights nine times nine”). This would have either made people believe that witches were responsible for the “Tiger’s” disastrous voyage, or perhaps that the evil of the Three Witches is so great that it can influence events outside the ‘magic circle’ of Shakespearean theatre.
When the Witches cook up their magic brew before their meeting with Macbeth, they add ingredients all designed to reveal their evil characters. They are assisted by three of their “familiar spirits”, a “brinded cat” (a tabby cat), a “hedge-pig” (hedgehog) and a “harpy” (the mythological harpies of Ancient Greece). They add different parts of animals, ranging from “tongue of dog” to “maw, and gulf Of the ravined sea shark” (stomach and gullet of the gluttonous shark). These words indicate the torture the Witches must have put the animals through to remove these internal organs, once again showing how thoroughly evil they are. They also add the organs of humans: “liver of blaspheming Jew”, “Nose of Turk”, “Tartar’s lips” and “Finger of birth-strangled babe, Ditch-delivered by a drab”. All of these would appeal to the Witches as they were not baptised, and therefore could add evil to the Witches’ broth. To allow Macbeth to see the apparitions which will tell him of his fate, the Witches pour into the fire the fearful “sow’s blood, that hath eaten Her nine farrow” and “grease, that’s sweaten From the murderer’s gibbet”.
Shakespeare then presents the Witches, without any doubt, as an evil force and yet from the first time we see them, as they plan to meet with Macbeth (upon the heath, There to meet with Macbeth”), it is clear that they are inextricably tied to the fate of the general. The Witches leave the heath in Act 1Scene 1 saying “fair is foul, and foul is fair” and Macbeth echoes these words in his very first line, ”So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. The Witches are influencing Macbeth’s thinking before he has even set eyes on them. When the Witches have vanished after his first meeting with them, Macbeth wonders whether or not the reason he saw them was that he had inadvertently eaten the “insane root” (hemlock). Hemlock is later mentioned as an ingredient the Witches add to their broth to show Macbeth the apparitions.,.
The audience knows that Macbeth is ambitious (and good-natured) because that is how Lady Macbeth describes him when she receives his letter about the meeting with the Witches: “Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it”. She thinks she will have to make her husband commit the act that will crown him, but Macbeth by this time she has already been affected by the Witches’ prophecies. Despite Banquo’s warning “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths”, Macbeth’s imagination has already been completely taken over by the possibility of murdering Duncan, “…why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair…Against the use of nature?” By the time Lady Macbeth receives her husband’s letter he has already, in his mind, gone beyond the first violent act. On his first meeting with Duncan his mind has moved on to the possibility of a second murder, “The Prince of Cumberland! – That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies”.
Banquo’s warning and the speed with which Macbeth moves away from being “Brave Macbeth” suggest that Macbeth is being manipulated by supernatural forces. Lady Macbeth’s words support this view, “Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem To have thee crowned withal”, but she will still do all in her power to get him on the throne.
Through Macbeth and Lady Macbeth , Shakespeare examines human motivations for evil actions. He shows us the gap between wanting to commit an evil action, and carrying it out. Macbeth shows himself very human as Duncan lies asleep and Macbeth thinks about taking his life. Duncan is a relative and a guest and Macbeth should be looking after him not murdering him. He would do it if he could be sure he wouldn’t be found out, but Duncan is a good king so there would probably be a huge outcry at his murder. He really wants to be king, he has “vaulting ambition”, but he needs something to tip him over the edge. Lady Macbeth provides that for him, but then she herself fails to kill Duncan when she has the chance, ”Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t”.
At this point in the play the audience stops being aware of the effect of the Witches and their apparitions on Macbeth. There seems to be enough ambition and cruelty in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth combined to carry out the murder of Duncan.
However once Macbeth is king, his descent into evil is quick and is closely linked to the witches and their apparitions. Banquo heard the prophecies and will therefore suspect Macbeth. “To be thus is nothing, But to be safely thus”. Worst of all the Witches prophesied that Banquo’s descendants would be kings of Scotland. Macbeth has no qualms about killing him and his son Fleance. He refers to “black Hecate” when he tells Lady Macbeth something dreadful will be done that night. He is allying himself with the forces of evil, “…night’s black agents to their preys do rouse”. At this stage in the play Macbeth is suspicious (he has spies in every noble’s house), he has terrible dreams every night and he is ready to murder without hesitation. Even Lady Macbeth is surprised at his violent words, “Thou marvellest at my words” and this suggests that he is being acted upon by external forces. Macbeth’s view of events becomes more and more distorted. Banquo and Fleance become in his mind the “snake that is scotched not killed”.
Hecate’s rhyming monologue makes clear that the Witches are instruments of fate and will cause Macbeth’s death and damnation by their evil equivocation. Their visions will make him “spurn fate” and that is how his fate will be fulfilled. They will make him over-confident “by the strength of their illusion” and draw him on to his “confusion”, his destruction. Macbeth even damns himself in his anger at the Witches, “Infected be the air whereon they ride, And damned all those that trust them”.
When Macbeth visits the Witches for the second time, by his own choice, they already know how far removed he is from “Brave Macbeth”, “By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes”. The Witches also know how their apparitions work on him. When they show him the procession of Banquo’s descendants, they say “Show his eyes and grieve his heart”. This line clearly links the Witches to the actions and fate of Macbeth. Yet Macbeth’s decision to go beyond the messages of the apparitions and murder Macduff shows a real thirst for blood. This leads to the horrific slaughter of Lady Macduff and her children. It seems possible that Macbeth, like Lady Macbeth, has a diseased mind.
The tragedy of Macbeth is that not until he knows his death and damnation is certain, with the dramatic message that Birnam Wood is moving towards his castle, does he see that he has been manipulated by the Witches, the evil instruments of his fate, “I pull in resolution, and begin To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth”. His last words remind the audience of “Brave Macbeth” of the beginning of the play, “At least we’ll die with harness on our back”.
The Witches create a sense of evil in Macbeth by being presented in a way that Elizabethans would recognise as truly witch-like and frightening. Shakespeare intensifies their evil power by the vivid, incantational use of language in which they describe their ghoulish acts and weave their spells. Above all, the role of the “Weird Sisters”, as they play with the fate of “brave Macbeth” and knowingly send him to his doom is a vital element in this tragic drama.