MACBETH

ACT 1, SCENE 1
Read the scene aloud and note the sound and rhythm of the language in the scene
and considering what it does.

In Macbeth, the witches speak in rhyming couplets most of the time. At other times,
they speak in unrhymed iambic tetrameter (or trochaic tetrameter). Trochaic
tetrameter is a rapid meter of poetry consisting of four feet of trochees. A trochee is
made up of one stressed (long) syllable followed by one unstressed (short) syllable.
Here is the flow of a line of trochaic tetrameter:

BAboom / BAboom / BAboom / BAboom.

This is the opposite of iambic pentameter, which is the language of nobles – kings,
queens, characters of high birth (such as Romeo and Juliet), in which the emphasis
consists of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed)
syllable and the flow of a line is like this:

baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.

So, Shakespeare has made us aware right from the start of his play, of the choices
that he has made about the positioning of his characters. We know just from the
way that they speak that the witches are low down on the social hierarchy. We can
work out just from the way that they speak, how we are to understand the
relationship between the witches and the other characters in the play.
Let’s read it again once more, trying to make Shakespeare’s intended emphasis
very clear.

What is the physical setting for the first scene in the play? Where does it take
place?
It is referred to in your edition of the text as ‘a desolate place’. Some editions of the
play refer to it as a desert place – meaning deserted, out of the way, hidden from
view. It is an uninhabited or unpeopled area of land; a solitary and forsaken place. It
is bleak and cold. It is also a secret place, where the goings on are unseen by the rest
of society.

How does the scene begin?

The play opens with a clap of thunder and lightning – a hugely significant sound
effect. (In Shakespeare’s day – the Elizabethan era - there would not really have
been theatrical lighting to accompany such a dramatic sound effect (which would
have been produced live, by actors not in the scene and some stagehands). Most
modern theatre productions of the play would feature a very striking lighting effect
to indicate the drama created by lightning.

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There are several filmed or cinematic versions of Macbeth. It is a great ‘action film’
and probably more violent than most Hollywood ‘thrillers’. Certainly, the film
productions that we will view term this, such as the film directed by Roman Polanski,
the BBC productions and the most recent film version of the play directed by an
Australian – Justin Kurzel - all use the visual and acoustic imagery of winter,
thunder and lightning to open the play.

Question: Who is there?

Three witches are present in the opening scene. Witches in the context of
Shakespeare’s time and in his plays, were women who were known for practicing
sorcery.

Question: Does anyone know what a sorcerer is? What a sorcerer does?
In Shakespeare’s time people believed in witches. Witches were people who had
made a pact with the Devil in exchange for supernatural powers. (For example, if
your cow was ill, it was easy to decide it had been cursed. If there was plague in your
village, it was because of a witch. If the beans didn’t grow, it was because of a witch.)

Witches might have a familiar – a pet, or a toad, or a bird – which was thought to
function as a demon advisor. Women who were accused of being witches tended to
be old, poor, single women. (It was in Shakespeare’s time that the idea of witches
riding around on broomsticks (a broom being a common household implement in
Elizabethan England) became popular.

In Shakespeare’s day, anyone who was suspected of witchcraft was persecuted and
this was mostly women. Women who were publicly declared to be witches were
killed in a number of cruel and painful ways. It was legal to kill witches because of
The Witchcraft Act passed in 1563, which set out steps to take against witches who
used spirits to kill people.

What do you make of this positioning of women? What might it reveal about the
social and historical context of the play?
The three witches in Macbeth play with his mind and arguably manipulate him and
other characters into disaster; casting spells on people to destroy lives.

The term ‘witch’ was used in Shakespeare’s time to describe an old, foul and ugly
woman, perhaps one who looked deformed in some way, or who limped. Certainly,
they were unconventional and rebellious women – unmarried and childless. Their
unconventional qualities in the context of a patriarchal society, might provide a
clue as to how they were regarded and treated.

In director Roman Polanski’s famous film production of Macbeth, the witches are
presented as very old and ugly hags – almost ancient-looking. They are even
completely naked in one scene. They are not beautiful in any way and the eerie
depiction of the witches in the opening of Polanski’s film, very clearly represents
Shakespeare’s intent for the opening scene of his play: it is ambiguous and provides

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a social commentary about the shift in attitudes at the conclusion of the Elizabethan
era.

Question/Discussion: Who was the ruling monarch of England when Shakespeare

was writing his plays? Here is an opportunity to talk briefly about the transition of
after the death of Elizabeth the First – the virgin queen – who claimed to have the
heart and stomach of a man and King James.

The Witches ‘Bewitch’ Macbeth

Yet the witches, despite being old and ugly hags, also have the capacity to be
‘bewitching’. From the first, we see them planning to ‘bewitch’ Macbeth. We learn in
this first brief scene, that the witches intend to meet with Macbeth on a heath – a
very wild place – a tract of uncultivated land.

What do they talk about in their brief scene? What does their language suggest?
They say that they will meet it when the hurly-burly’s done - that is after the uproar,
tumult, chaos and confusion is over; when the battle’s lost and won. So we know
that they are going to meet with Macbeth after there is fighting, blood and violence.

‘Graymalkin’ is referred to in your text as ‘a grey cat’. More specifically, Graymalkin

is a familiar spirit - a demon advisor - in the shape of a cat.

‘Paddock calls’, refers also to a familiar animal spirit in the shape of a toad and the
demon advisor summons the witches. Paddock is a toad. When the Third Witch
responds, “Anon”, she is in fact responding to the call of Paddock, the toad spirit.

What is the significance of the three witches speaking in unison at the end of the
scene, when they say:

Fair is foul and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Fair is foul and foul is fair draws our attention to a contradiction. It refers to the
notion of opposites and the idea in the play that things in the world of Macbeth – in
Macbeth’s society are upside down and not as they should be. Chaos has
descended or is descending – hovering through the fog and filthy air. The ‘order of
the world’ has been thrown into complete turmoil.

Imagery
The imagery of fog suggests a thick, dense vapour that is difficult to see through. It
is filthy air – the atmosphere is thick, dirty, muddy and polluted. It is difficult to see
clearly. The fog is a metaphor for the notion that truth is obscured and so
deception and trickery are both possible and probable in the world of the play.

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Dramatic and Theatrical Devices
The speaking in unison of the witches suggests a ritualistic act. The three witches, in
that very moment, are engaging in an act of sorcery and witchcraft; they have a plan
to influence the events of the play and specifically, the fate of Macbeth.
Comment: Do you remember from your reading of Romeo and Juliet that the
concept of Fate was at the centre of Elizabethan thinking?
Shakespeare was interested in the debate about the concept of Fate (the idea that
humans cannot control their own destiny) and the concept of Free Will. Here it is
again in the story of Macbeth.

In its day and in contemporary productions of Macbeth that are true to

Shakespeare’s intention, the ritualistic enactment of sorcery is intended to make its
audience feel both uneasy and very afraid of what will come next. In this sense, it
foreshadows the future of Scotland.

So, by the end of this first, brief scene in the play; a scene that is only 13 lines long,
what has Shakespeare revealed to us about the world of his play Macbeth? What
has he set up for us in the initial, brief and very evocative opening scene?

The Social Context and its Imagery

Shakespeare’s opening scene, with its thunder and lightning, desolate landscape and
three hideous female characters who are engaged in an act of sorcery, is indicative
of a world that might bring terror to our hearts. It is a world shrouded in fog, in
which unseen dangers lurk and threaten to end life and destroy our sense of safety.
Shakespeare’s world in Macbeth, is a very superstitious world. It is important to
remember that the audiences of Shakespeare’s day were people who believed in
pixies, faeries and ghosts. (Think of the plays that you have studied in previous years
– what can you remember about their ‘magical’ thinking?) It was also a time of
significant religious debate within the Christian tradition, during which time
Catholics and Protestants were very conscious of and opposed to, one another’s
differences and beliefs, as minor as they might have been or seem to us now.

King James and Shakespeare’s Writing of Macbeth

King James succeeded Queen Elizabeth the First – who was known as The Virgin
Queen and Good Queen Bess and Gloriana - and she was the last of the Tudor
monarchs. She presided over a long period of stability, greatness and progress in
England’s history. Ordinary people felt secure during her reign. She was queen from
1558 until 1603.

King James was a cousin to Elizabeth through his mother Queen Mary Stuart – who
was known as Mary Queen of Scots. His mother had been beheaded by Queen
Elizabeth during her reign, because she had been complicit in a plot to kill Elizabeth
and ascend the English throne. She was beheaded for treason.

At the time of Shakespeare’s writing of Macbeth and its very first live performance in
1605, King James (the 6th of Scotland and 1st of England) had been on the English
throne for only two years.

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James was particularly superstitious about witches and even wrote a book on the
subject called Demonologie in 1597, some years before coming to the English
throne. James was Scottish, had experienced a very odd childhood and was very
concerned about witches. In his book, he put the traditional arguments in favour of a
belief in witchcraft.

King James had even participated in a number of trials of ‘alleged’ witches. There is
more historical information about him at the following link that will help you to
understand the historical and social context of the play better:

https://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=james1

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth so that he might appeal to old King James, soon after
he became the King of England. Macbeth is a drama that features witches and takes
place in Scotland, where James had been king since the year 1567.

Guy Fawkes, in the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, attempted to assassinate King
James. There is also historical information about The Gunpowder Plot that provides a
contextual insight into the social and political world in which the play was first
performed at the following link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z3hq7ty

Contrasting Cinematic Versions of Macbeth

Act 1, Scene 1 in Roman Polanski’s Macbeth

Sensory Imagery and Symbolism

We see a blood-soaked sky and hear eerie bird noises, coughs, grunts and whispers.
We are placed in a bleak location that seems to be a desolate coastal place, near a
cliff. Question: What might a cliff symbolise? How does it make us feel?

Then we see a gnarled stick, making a circle in the earth and then the camera pulls
out slowly to reveal the three ‘ugly hags’. One draws a circle on the ground with her
stick, then they dig a hole together, with their bare hands.

They begin the scene speaking in unison in a definite ritual and act of sorcery:

Fair is foul and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

We then see that they are burying a noose and a severed human hand that is
holding a dagger. (These are the symbolic images that foreshadow things to come.)
They symbolically pour blood upon what they have buried, add some other items
(herbs, perhaps the eye of a newt, or the tongue of a lizard or something else that is
ghastly) and they spit upon it. The spit possibly symbolising contempt and impurity.

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After that, the witches deliberate about meeting with Macbeth on the heath. The
way that they emphasise his name, is indicative of the central role that he will play in
events that are to come later in the play.

They walk away, slowly and deliberately, into the fog.

Act 1, Scene 1 in the BBC Macbeth

In the more literal presentation by the BBC (that is 100% true to the text and without
‘director’s edits’), the three witches (who initially appear to be rocks, or part of the
landscape) rise up slowly and deliberately, and present the dialogue in the scene,
exactly as it is written on the page. This interpretation suggests that they are part
of nature – perhaps the darker side of nature and human nature.

The dialogue of the witches is chorus-like, with each one taking a specific/scripted
part and speaking in turn. The movement is quite ritualistic and choreographed. The
witches join hands uniting and acting, as a single entity.

Reflection and Writing Task to complete for Homework

Think about the opening scene of Macbeth. Consider the world that Shakespeare has
established for the audience to contemplate in his brief but potent, opening scene.
What is Shakespeare telling us about the world that he lives in? What is his society
like? What is the feeling in England at this early time in King James reign, not long
after the death of Elizabeth the First?

In 2-3 paragraphs, write down your thoughts about what Macbeth as a play offered
to its original audience and what it now offers a contemporary reader or theatre
audience. Why might a director or a theatre company choose to program it today?

I might task you to read your ideas to the class.

Over the next week we will look at the rest of ACT 1 – so please familiarise yourself
with it before we look at it in class.

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