Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1

The witches plan their meeting · William Shakespeare

SCENE I. An open Place.

Thunder and Lightning. Enter three Witches.

Shakespeare opens with thunder and lightning, immediately creating an atmosphere of danger and uncertainty.

The witches open the play as female figures who nonetheless defy femininity.

Witchcraft was then a capital crime. The English Witchcraft Act of 1604 made invoking evil spirits a felony punishable by death. James VI of Scotland, English king from 1603, had presided over the North Berwick prosecutions of 1590–91, where the accused were charged with conspiring to kill him by sorcery; his Daemonologie was reprinted in London in 1603.

Three witches appear together outdoors during a violent storm.

The witches seem comfortable in the storm. They aren't frightened by the chaos around them.

The witches’ entrance amid violent weather immediately establishes a threatening supernatural presence.

Holinshed's Chronicles describes the prophesying figures as 'three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world', and reports that common opinion took them for 'the weird sisters'. The play keeps the number three but its stage direction names them 'Witches', a word not in that description.

FIRST WITCH

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

SECOND WITCH

When the hurlyburly’s done,When the battle’s lost and won.

THIRD WITCH

That will be ere the set of sun.

FIRST WITCH

Where the place?

SECOND WITCH

Upon the heath.

THIRD WITCH

There to meet with Macbeth.

FIRST WITCH

I come, Graymalkin!

SECOND WITCH

Paddock calls.

THIRD WITCH

Anon.

ALL

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt.