Act 1, Scene iRead “Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1” by William Shakespeare on Genius |
In this scene, the three witches, or Weird Sisters (possibly Shakespeare’s version of the Fates?) convene and decide when to approach Macbeth and Banquo with their prophecy. They call on their “familiars” (companion spirits) and depart.
One of Shakespeare’s key sources for his depiction of the witches in this scene was Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584): “[Witches] can raise and suppresse lightning and thunder, raine and haile, clouds and winds, tempests and earthquakes. Others doo write, that they can pull downe the moone and the starres. Some write that with wishing they can send needles into the livers of their enimies. Some that they can transferre corne in the blade from one place to another. Some, that they can cure diseases supernaturallie, flie in the aire, and danse with divels. Some write, that they can plaie the part of Succubus, and contract themselves to Incubus; and so yoong prophets are upon them begotten, &c. Some say they can transubstantiate themselves and others, and take the forms and shapes of asses, woolves, ferrets, cowes, apes, horsses, dogs, &c. Some say they can keepe divels and spirits in the likenesse of todes and cats. ” (Book I, Chapter IV) 246 “The AS wyrd is represented in English and Scots by “weird,” e.g., “he maun dree his weird” (suffer his destiny). Some link with Teutonic Fate-goddesses is therefore to be found in the “three weird sisters” of our earlier literature. Holinshed relates that three women “in straunge and ferly apparell, resembling creatures of an elder world,” met Macbeth and Banquo and foretold their destinies. " “These women were either the weird sisters, that is the goddesses of destinie, or else some nimphs or feiries, endued with knowledge or prophecie by their Nicromanticall science.” “They are Shakespeare’s witches or weird sisters, the Fatae or Parcae of Boece’s History. A story of “The weird Sisters” is mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland, but it is now unknown, and the additions to Warner’s Albion’s England (106 A.D.) speak of “the weird elves,” as Spenser has “three fatal Impes” in his Ruines of Time, and Chaucer “the fatal sustrin” (sisters), akin to “the weird lady of the woods” in Percy’s ballad, who prophesied from a cave about Lord Albert’s child, then stole him away and nurtured him.” “Whatever the ultimate origin of the Norns and similar dispensers of destiny may have been, they had human counterparts in actual prophetesses or magic-wielders, like the old Scots “spae-wife,” who foretold an infant’s future, or the Norse Spakona or Volva. In some references to these it is not easy to say where the human aspect ends and the supernatural begins. As Grimm says: “Prophesying, inspiring and boon-bestowing women were always supposed to pass through the country, knocking at the houses of those whom they would bless, and tales of travelling gifting sorceresses were much in vogue all through the Middle Ages.” Additional Text NotesComment: Weird Sisters are characterized
as harbingers of destiny; they are explicitly compared to the Greek Fates who spin out men’s lives. Comment: Paradoxes abound throughout the play and reinforce the ambiguity of several key issues, including (a) Macbeth’s tragic flaw, (b) whether fate is predestined or mutable, (c) inversion of the hierarchies of nature Comment: Names of a familiar, or witches’ companion. Graymalkin is a cat, while Paddock is a toad. Question: What is a paradox? |
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