Three Witches and Macbeth Video – Transcript
Announcer: The witches
Male reporter 1: These…ahem…young ladies are on stage as the curtain rises, telling
each other weird sayings which starts the play off in a creepy mood. As one witch says
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
Female reporter 1: The witches always seem to show up at interesting times in the play.
Their next appearance is in Act 1, Scene 3, when Macbeth and Banquo come upon
them.
Stage Macbeth: Speak if you can. What are you?
Stage Witch 1: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Stage Witch 2: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Stage Witch 3: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!
Male reporter 1: Freaky, eh? Now notice what Banquo says next about Macbeth’s
reaction to the witches.
Stage Banquo: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal.
Male reporter 1: Banquo asked his friend, “Why do you start, and seem to fear things
that sound so fair?” Macbeth seems to react internally to the prophecies the witches tell
him.
Female reporter 1: Banquo’s question is a good one. Why does Macbeth react the way
he does? Is it because the witches have struck an ambitious cord in Macbeth;
something that was already there in his heart. This is contrasted to Banquo who is just
wigged out about these supernatural sisters.
Crazy professor guy: You MUST notice. The witches do not cause Macbeth to DO
anything. They only mirror the ideas in his head. Macbeth is not some puppet on a
string that the witches control. The witches can predict future events; but, they do not
CAUSE these events to happen. This means, Macbeth is responsible FOR HIS
ACTIONS!
Celtic music plays
Male reporter 2: In Act 4, Scene 1, Macbeth even searches out the witches himself, to
pry them for a second set of prophecies.
Stage Witches (together): Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Stage Witch 2: By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes:
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!
Female reporter 2: Did you notice what she said? “By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked this way comes.” The witches recognize Macbeth for what he is, a
wicked man. Unlike Banquo, who isn’t out in the middle of nowhere at night talking to
three biddies. Well, Banquo is dead by this point anyway; Macbeth had him killed.
Stage Macbeth: How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe’er you come to know it, answer me!
Stage Witch 2: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff!
Female reporter 3: And so Macbeth receives the prophecies, hearing only what he
wants to hear. So the witches don’t make Macbeth an evil man; he’s already flawed
enough to destroy himself without any help from the supernatural. So let’s leave our first
main characters, these twisted sisters, and put our focus on Macbeth’s character.
Male reporter 2: The character of Macbeth
A short-hand way of describing Macbeth is that he’s overly ambitious, but there’s much
more going on with him than just that. Listen as he prepares to kill Duncan, the King. He
calls upon the darkness of night to surround him as he carries out the wicked deed.
Stage Macbeth: Now, o’er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings; and withered
murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
Female reporter 2: As we mentioned, Shakespeare gives Macbeth some of the finest
poetry in all his plays. The language is full of imagery and music, and reveals Macbeth
to be reflective, intelligent, and sensitive; but let’s not forget, he is a murderer.
Male reporter 2: Not just that, but he kills Duncan, the king, when Duncan is a guest in
his house! And the slaying of Macduff’s family? Pure butchery. There’s no doubt that
Macbeth is a monster. This raises the question: why does Shakespeare give such fine
poetry to a monster?
Male reporter 3: In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s first tragedy, the language is not
integrated with the characters. Shakespeare wrote ornate love poetry for Tamora and
Aaron, two cold-blooded killers. Is the playwright reverting to this same error?
Male reporter 2: The answer is…no. The character of Macbeth is a man who has all but
totally destroyed his humanity. The elevated poetry he speaks demonstrates that he
does, or did at sometime, have some humanity. Let’s go back to Act 1, Scene 7, those
crucial moments in which Macbeth contemplates the murder of Duncan.
Macbeth: He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
Female reporter 2: This is a man divided: he’s torn between his corrupt side and his
moral side. Ambition soon wins out and Macbeth embraces immorality.
Female reporter 1: So, though even heavens will cry out against Duncan’s murder,
“pity…Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind.” Macbeth
will not stop himself from committing it. He names the one thing that drives him to the
crime.
Macbeth: I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—
Female reporter 1: That’s all for today, but we’ll discuss Macbeth further in our next
program.