The Three Witches

In brief...

Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using charms, spells, and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality. The play leaves the witches’ true identity unclear—aside from the fact that they are servants of Hecate, we know little about their place in the cosmos. In some ways they resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally weave the threads of human destiny. They clearly take a perverse delight in using their knowledge of the future to toy with and destroy human beings. 

Deeper analysis...

Throughout the play, the witches—referred to as the “weird sisters” by many of the characters—lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers, but mainly it is the result of their understanding of the weaknesses of their specific interlocutors—they play upon Macbeth’s ambition like puppeteers.

The witches’ beards, bizarre potions, and rhymed speech make them seem slightly ridiculous, like caricatures of the supernatural. Shakespeare has them speak in rhyming couplets throughout (their most famous line is probably “Double, double, toil and trouble, / Fire burn and cauldron bubble” in 4.1.10–11), which separates them from the other characters, who mostly speak in blank verse. The witches’ words seem almost comical, like malevolent nursery rhymes. Despite the absurdity of their “eye of newt and toe of frog” recipes, however, they are clearly the most dangerous characters in the play, being both tremendously powerful and utterly wicked (4.1.14).

The audience is left to ask whether the witches are independent agents toying with human lives, or agents of fate, whose prophecies are only reports of the inevitable. The witches bear a striking and obviously intentional resemblance to the Fates, female characters in both Norse and Greek mythology who weave the fabric of human lives and then cut the threads to end them. Some of their prophecies seem self-fulfilling. For example, it is doubtful that Macbeth would have murdered his king without the push given by the witches’ predictions. In other cases, though, their prophecies are just remarkably accurate readings of the future—it is hard to see Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane as being self-fulfilling in any way. The play offers no easy answers. Instead, Shakespeare keeps the witches well outside the limits of human comprehension. They embody an unreasoning, instinctive evil.

Witchcraft in Shakespeare's Time

In Shakespeare's time, many people believed in the power of witches. One was King James I. In 1591, when he was King of Scotland during the reign of Elizabeth I, a group of witches and sorcerers attempted to murder him. Their trial and testimony convinced him that they were agents of evil. Thereafter, he studied the occult and wrote a book called Daemonologie (Demonology), published in 1597. This book–and an earlier one called Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer, 1486), describing the demonic rites of witches–helped inflame people against practitioners of sorcery.  

Shakespeare, good businessman that he was, well knew that a play featuring witches would attract theater-goers and put a jingle in his pocket. Moreover, such a play would ingratiate him with James, who became King of England in 1603. So, about two years after James acceded to the English throne, Shakespeare began working on Macbeth. When it was first performed in about 1605, it frightened audiences in the same way that The Exorcist, the 1973 film about diabolical possession, scared American audiences. Magically, Shakespeare's bank account and reputation grew. In a manner of speaking, Macbeth was The Blair Witch Project of the 17th Century. Shakespeare himself, a man of extraordinary intellect and insight, probably regarded witchcraft for what it was: poppycock.  

Four named witches appear in Macbeth--the three hags who open the play and later Hecate, the goddess of sorcery. But is there a fifth witch, Lady Macbeth? In fact, in Act I, Scene V, she invokes spirits to “unsex” her and bids “thick night” to dress “in the dunnest smoke of hell” so that she may assist her husband in the murder of King Duncan.  

Glossary of Animals and Animal Parts in Witches' Brew (Act IV, Scene I)