presentation of the witches in macbeth

Three Witches, Macbeth

The three witches are characters in Macbeth .

Macbeth begins with what is possibly the most theatrical opening stage direction of any play: Thunder and lightning, Enter three witches.

That sets the tone for the play, which is shrouded in darkness, fog, ‘filthy air’ and general foul weather. The language of the text is saturated with the kind of images that create that world. The witches – supernatural phenomena in this play – pervade the play with their presence, that hangs like a toxic cloud over the play.

Macbeth’s three witches as seen on stage

The weird sisters are a wonderful Shakespearean invention. They appear on the stage as characters and are played by actors, but they are not people. Shakespeare distances them from the people in the play by the way they use language. The human characters speak in Shakespeare’s usual mode of blank verse in iambic pentameter , whereas he gives the witches a strange, eerie incantatory verse in rhyming couplets. Their dialogue creates a mesmeric effect on the audience.

Moreover, although their intervention in Macbeth’s life is the most powerful dramatic device in the play, they do not participate with the human characters in the development of the drama. At the same time, there is the question as to whether they exist at all or are more like a personification of his ambition to become king, causing him to have the idea that he can if he can bring himself to kill the king.

So it would be pointless to try a character sketch of the witches. All one can say is that they appear on the stage as the source of evil – the kind of evil that can enter the soul of a good man, attack him at his most vulnerable point and produce the kind of chaos that leads to violence, murder, and war. Macbeth’s most vulnerable point is his ambition. They do not have human characteristics: they are more like machines programmed to create confusion and destruction.

Early in the play we see the witches talking about the evil things they have just done to human beings and we hear that they are now going to attack this very good man, favourite of the king, and national hero. And they do that. They approach him and tell him things about his immediate future – things that turn out to be true, which makes them believable – and they tell him that he will be king one day.

That plants the idea in Macbeth’s mind. They know that it’s already there, beneath the surface: all they are doing is bringing it to the surface, knowing that he will take the bait. They know that his weak point is his over-reaching ambition. From that moment on it is a decline from the height of heroism to the lower depths of villainy with the destruction of Macbeth’s very soul.

Top Three Witches Quotes

“When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

“Fair is foul and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

“I will drain him dry as hay: Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid; He shall live a man forbid: Weary se’nnights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost.”

“All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!”

“FIRST WITCH: Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. SECOND WITCH: Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined. THIRD WITCH: Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time. FIRST WITCH: Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH: Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. THIRD WITCH: Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH: Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.”

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I would know these sisters three, for with their thoughts I must agree. Yet, ‘greements seem be quite hard, even with the noble Bard. Thus I strain and give me pause, whilst I do sharp’st my claws. Fair may be foul and fair may be fair, But need’st I breathe some cool fresh air! Thus my hurley burley ends and bid farewell to noble friends. (Sorry, but I couldn’t resist!)

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Macbeth - Act 3, scene 5

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Act 3, scene 5.

The presentation of the witches in this scene (as in 4.1.38 SD–43 and 141–48) differs from their presentation in the rest of the play. Most editors and scholars believe that neither this scene nor the passages in 4.1 were written by Shakespeare.

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Why the 'Macbeth' Witches Are Key to Shakespeare's Play

Their prophecies fuel Macbeth's thirst for power

ilbusca / Getty Images

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"Macbeth" is known to be a story about the desire for power of the protagonist and his wife, but there's a trio of characters that shouldn't be left out: the witches. Without the "Macbeth" witches, there would simply be no story to tell, as they move the plot.

The Five Prophesies of the 'Macbeth' Witches

During the play, the "Macbeth" witches make five key prophesies:

• Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor—and eventually King of Scotland.
• Banquo’s children will become kings.
• Macbeth should “beware Macduff.”
• Macbeth cannot be harmed by anyone “of woman born.”
• Macbeth cannot be beaten until “Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane shall come.”

Four of these predictions are realized during the course of the play, but one is not. We do not see Banquo’s children become kings; however, the real King James I was thought to be descended from Banquo, so there could still be truth to the "Macbeth" witches' prophesy.

Although the three witches appear to have great skill at prophesying, it's not certain if their prophecies really are preordained. If not, do they simply encourage Macbeth to actively construct his own fate? After all, it seems to be part of Macbeth’s character to shape his life according to the predictions (whereas Banquo does not). This might explain why the only prophecy not realized by the end of the play relates directly to Banquo and cannot be shaped by Macbeth (although Macbeth would also have little control over the “Great Birnam Wood” prophecy).

The 'Macbeth' Witches' Influence

The witches in "Macbeth" are important because they provide Macbeth’s primary call to action. The witches' prophesies also affect Lady Macbeth, albeit indirectly when Macbeth writes his wife about seeing the "weird sisters," as he calls them. After reading his letter, she's immediately prepared to plot to murder the king and worries her husband will be too "full o' th' milk of human kindness" to commit such an act. Although Macbeth initially doesn't think he could do such a thing, Lady Macbeth has no question in her mind that they would succeed. Her ambition steels him.

Thus, the witches' influence on Lady Macbeth only increases their effect on Macbeth himself—and, by extension, the entire plot of the play. The "Macbeth" witches provide the dynamism that has made " Macbeth " one of Shakespeare’s most intense plays.

How the 3 Witches Stand Out

Shakespeare  used a number of devices to create a sense of otherness and malevolence for the "Macbeth" witches. For example, the witches speak in rhyming couplets, which distinguishes them from all other characters; this poetic device has made their lines among the play's most memorable: "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

Also, the "Macbeth" witches are said to have beards, making them difficult to identify as either gender. Last, they are always accompanied by storms and bad weather. Collectively, these traits make them appear otherworldly.

The Witches' Question for Us

By giving the "Macbeth" witches their plot-pushing role in the play, Shakespeare is asking an age-old question: Are our lives already mapped out for us, or do we have a hand in what happens?

At the end of the play, the audience is forced to consider the extent to which the characters have control over their own lives. The debate over free will versus God's preordained plan for humanity has been debated for centuries and continues to be debated today.

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The history of the witches in Macbeth

  Hovering through the fog and filthy air of Macbeth, the weird sisters are a terrifying chorus to the action of the play

Head of Research

by Dr Will Tosh

4 minute read

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Magic and devilry were on people’s minds in 1606, the year Macbeth was first performed. England’s new Scottish king James was known to his subjects as a committed opponent of witchcraft and a scholar of black magic. And less than two years after James’s succession, and perhaps six months before Shakespeare started writing Macbeth , the country was profoundly shaken by the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot, the failed attempt by a group of English Catholic dissidents to assassinate the king and all the members of parliament in a huge explosion. Preachers were quick to detect demonic encouragement behind the plot.

Macbeth , Act I, scene 1 in the Munro First Folio.

The dread of supernatural horror hangs over Macbeth , and Shakespeare was very aware that his play would be taken as a comment on the Scottish king’s escape from devilish treason (it’s even been suggested that the smell of the sulphurous gunpowder used at the Globe to simulate lightning flashes would have reminded the audience of their monarch’s near miss).

But if the witches are the central focus for this atmosphere of terror, Shakespeare never lets his characters refer to the prophetic threesome as ‘witches’, although they’re termed as such in the speech prefixes and stage directions. For Macbeth and Banquo, the two characters who encounter them, they are ‘weïrd women’ or ‘weïrd sisters’, that unfamiliar umlaut indicating how early modern people said this ancient word (with two distinct syllables). In fact, in the First Folio, the earliest surviving text of Macbeth , the word is variously spelled ‘wayward’, ‘weyward’ and ‘weyard’, all of which would have been pronounced the same way in 1606: ‘WAY-rrd’.

Billy Boyd, Cat Simmons, Moyo Akandé and Jess Murphy as Banquo and the witches in Macbeth , 2013. Photographer: Ellie Kurtz

Shakespeare took this unusual word from his main source for Macbeth , Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland , in which the historical ‘Makbeth’ and ‘Banquho’ encounter ‘the weird sisters’, as Holinshed describes them, ‘goddesses of destiny, or else some nymphs or fairies, endowed with knowledge of prophecy’. In the play, the witches’ primary role is the provision of ambiguous fortunes which stir the ambitious Macbeth to action despite the fact that the details of his promised fate are decidedly sketchy (when will he be ‘king hereafter’? By what means? For how long?).

By the Renaissance, the word had lost its folkloric association but retained the broad meaning of ‘destiny’

So one interpretation of the weïrd women is less as traditional witches and more as potent prophets. In 11th century England and Scotland, a person’s fortune was determined by the workings of wyrd, a mysterious force that was both unavoidable and inexplicable. By the Renaissance, the word (now spelled ‘weird’) had lost its folkloric association but retained the broad meaning of ‘destiny’. Also in play in early modern England was the classical notion of feminised ‘Fates’, goddesses like the Morai of ancient Greece who dictated the scope of a person’s life.

Kirsty Rider in Macbeth , 2018. Photographer: Johan Persson

Early modern audiences would have heard another meaning in ‘weïrd’, too, as the First Folio spellings suggest. To them, the word sounded the same as ‘wayward’, an insulting term meaning ‘disobedient’ or ‘perverse’. ‘Wayward’ was frequently applied to women who were perceived to be outspoken or quarrelsome (cardinal sins according to the misogynistic theories of Shakespeare’s England). Women who asserted their wisdom and knowledge might well find themselves castigated as ‘wayward’, and if they were vulnerable and unlucky that ‘waywardness’ might be interpreted more darkly as sorcery or witchcraft.

Moyo Akandé, Cat Simmons and Jess Murphy as the witches in Macbeth , 2013. Photographer: Ellie Kurtz

Which bring us back to the weïrd sisters. Their ‘weirdness’ was, from Shakespeare’s perspective, both ‘wyrd’ and ‘wayward’, powerful and marginal. For Shakespeare’s first audience, they were figures who represented England’s ancient past and the mysterious magic of prophecy. But the ‘withered’ and ‘wild’ sisters were also examples of what was becoming a familiar stereotype in an England newly attuned to the ‘risks’ of sorcery: poor, disregarded and insulted old women whose wisdom, if acknowledged at all, could be understood only as witchcraft.

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The witches' prophecy.

Act 1 Scene 3 – Key Scene

In this scene, we meet Macbeth for the first time. The witches gather on the moor and cast a spell as Macbeth and Banquo arrive. The witches hail Macbeth first by his title Thane of Glamis, then as Thane of Cawdor and finally as king. They then prophesy that Banquo’s children will become kings. Macbeth demands to know more but the witches vanish. Ross and Angus arrive to tell Macbeth that he has been given the title Thane of Cawdor by Duncan.

You can take a look at the scene here. Using the following steps, remember to look at it line by line and if you’re looking at the scene for the first time, don’t worry if you don’t understand everything at once.

Take a look at the scene. Who has the most lines? Are they using prose or verse? Actors at the RSC often put the language into their own words to help them understand what they are saying. We’ve added some definitions (in green), questions (in red) and paraphrased some sections (in blue) to help with this. You can click on the text that is highlighted for extra guidance.

Forres is a place near to King Duncan’s camp.

Banquo is not sure whether the witches are human because of how they look. What do you imagine they look like?

Why do you think Macbeth doesn’t respond immediately to the witches’ prophecies?

Why are you scared by words that promise an amazing future?

You have given my friend such great news about what his future holds that he is completely spellbound.

If you can foretell what will happen in the future and say what will happen and what won't.

Your children and descendants will be kings.

The idea of being king is completely unbelievable.

How many questions do Macbeth and Banquo ask of the witches and why do you think the witches don’t answer?

• Listen Read the scene aloud. Are there any words or lines that really stand out? Who asks more questions and who seems to be in control?

Play scene in performance

The witches in the 1946 production of Macbeth.

The witches in the 2018 production of Macbeth.

The witches in the 1987 production of Macbeth.

The witches in the 1952 production of Macbeth.

The weird sisters in the 1999 production of Macbeth. 

The witches in the 2011 production of Macbeth.

Mojisola Adebayo, Frances Ashman and Sarah Malin as the witches in the 2007 production of Macbeth. 

Louise Bangay, Meg Fraser and Ruth Gemmell as the three witches in the 2004 production of Macbeth.

Jan Chappell, Susannah Elliot-Knight and Janet Whiteside as the three witches in the 1996 production of Macbeth.

Anthony Quayle as Macbeth and Clement McCallin as Banquo with the witches in the 1949 production of Macbeth.

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Discuss Shakespeare's presentation of the witches in Macbeth. How dramatically effective is the presentation?

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The Witches in Macbeth

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

10 May 2024

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This A3 Macbeth revision resource contains analysis of 30 quotations that focus on the influence of the witches across the play. They are presented chronologically.

I ask students to pick out the most important quotations and plot them onto a revision timeline.

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Macbeth Revision

5 revision sheets covering analysis of key quotations for the following 5 characters in Macbeth. Macbeth Lady Macbeth Banquo Macduff The Witches Also contains character quizzes, critical perspective revision sheets, kingship revision lesson, grade 9 model answers, quotation revision, context revision and a Macbeth character timeline.

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