Background/ Macbeth's Witches

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Background/ Macbeth's Witches ! What is the Role of the Witches in Macbeth?! 1. James VI and I (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union.! ! James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland (through both his parents), uniquely positioning him to eventually accede to all three thrones. James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Mary was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. ! ! In 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue.[a] He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known as the Jacobean era after him, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617, and styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland". He was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonisation of the Americas began.! ! ! 2. Macbeth begins with the meeting of three witches who plan to meet Macbeth once the battle to quell a rebellion and a Viking invasion has been defeated. We learn from them that their intentions are to trick Macbeth through their words: 'fair is foul and foul is fair".! ! Many Elizabethans believed in the role played by heavenly powers in influencing human affairs. In fact the new King, James I was a believer in witches.! ! In the spring of 1590, James VI returned from Oslo to Scotland after marrying Princess Anne, daughter of the King of Denmark-Norway. The Danish court at that time was greatly perplexed by witchcraft and the black arts, and this must have impressed on the young King James who was 24 years old at the time. The regal voyage back from Denmark was beset by a series of violent storms and James and Anne were very lucky not to have died in a shipwreck.! ! ! 3. In the summer of 1590 a great witch hunt was instituted in Copenhagen. One of the first victims was Anna Koldings, who under pressure divulged the names of five other women, one of whom was Mail the wife of the burgomaster of Copenhagen. They all confessed that they had been guilty of sorcery in raising storms that menaced Queen Anne's voyage, and that they had sent devils to climb up the keel of her ship. In September two women were burnt as witches at Kronborg. ! ! ! 4.James heard news from Denmark regarding this and decided to set up his own tribunal. This tribunal became known as the North Berwick Witch Trials. The witch trails led to the first major persecution of witches in Scotland under the Witchcraft Act 1563. Several people, most notably Agnes Sampson, were convicted of using witchcraft to send storms against James's ship. James personally supervised the torture of Agnes and other women accused of being witches. ! ! 5. Over the next few years James became obsessed with the threat posed by witches and wrote the Daemonologie, 1597; a tract which opposed the practice of witchcraft and which provided background material for Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth.! ! 6. On May 19, 1603, two months after the death of Queen Elizabeth 1 and the accession to the English throne of the Scottish King James, Shakespeare#s company, the Lord Chamberlain#s Men, where formally declared to be the King#s Men.The players had every reason to be grateful to their royal master and attentive to his pleasure and interest. It has long been argued that one of the most striking signs of this gratitude is $Macbeth#, based on a story from Scottish history, particularly apt for a monarch who traced his line back to Banquo, the noble thane whose murder Macbeth orders after he has killed King Duncan.! ! 7. As is so often the case with Shakespeare, we do not have a secure date for either the composition or the first performance of Macbeth. The first printed text is in the 1623 First Folio, but the play is usually dated 1606, principally because of a joke made by a minor character that must have provoked a ripple of shuddering laughter among the original audiences. ! ! ! 8. ACT 1-SCENE III. A heath near Forres.! Thunder. Enter the three Witches! First Witch! Where hast thou been, sister?! Second Witch! Killing swine.! Third Witch! Sister, where thou?! First Witch! A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,! And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--! 'Give me,' quoth I:! 'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.! Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:! But in a sieve I'll thither sail,! And, like a rat without a tail, 10! I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.! Second Witch! I'll give thee a wind.! First Witch! Thou'rt kind.! Third Witch! And I another.! First Witch! I myself have all the other,! And the very ports they blow,! All the quarters that they know! I' the shipman's card.! I will drain him dry as hay:! Sleep shall neither night nor day 20! 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.! Look what I have.! Second Witch! Show me, show me.! First Witch! Here I have a pilot's thumb, 30! Wreck'd as homeward he did come. ! Drum within! Third Witch! A drum, a drum!! Macbeth doth come.! ! 9. Bald Agnes: Agnes Sampson was one of the accused in the Berwick trials. Known as the 'Wise Wife of Keith', she was brought to Holyrood Palace on specific orders by King James where she was stripped bare and her body shaved. She was then interrogated in the monarch's presence before being affixed to a wall through the aid of a "Witch's Bridle". King James wavered for a while before declaring Agnes guilty of sorcery. She was then taken to Castle Hill, an infamous spot for the execution of convicted witches, where she was strangled and burned at the stake. However some say that this wasn't the last of Agnes Sampson, and her vengeful ghost, known as 'Bald Agnes', is still rumoured to roam nude around Holyrood Palace, the place of her terrible captivity.! !.
Recommended publications
  • THE WEIRD SISTERS an EDITED SCRIPT COMPRISING EXTRACTS from MACBETH Notes
    THE WEIRD SISTERS AN EDITED SCRIPT COMPRISING EXTRACTS FROM MACBETH Notes 1 RSC Associate Schools Playmaking Festival 2018. THE WEIRD SISTERS AN EDITED SCRIPT COMPRISING EXTRACTS FROM MACBETH 1 Thunder. Enter the three Witches. FIRST WITCH Round about the cauldron go; In the poisoned entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Sweltered venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’the charmèd pot. ALL Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Drum within THIRD WITCH A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come. ALL The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up. Enter MACBETH and BANQUO MACBETH So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BANQUO What are these So withered and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, And yet are on’t? Live you? You seem to understand me, By each at once her choppy finger laying Upon her skinny lips. MACBETH Speak, if you can: what are you? FIRST WITCH All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! SECOND WITCH All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! THIRD WITCH 1 All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter! 2 BANQUO Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? MACBETH Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: The thane of Cawdor lives, and to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, Say from whence You owe this strange intelligence? Speak! Witches vanish BANQUO The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them.
    [Show full text]
  • Witch, Warlock, and Magician, by 1
    Witch, Warlock, and Magician, by 1 Witch, Warlock, and Magician, by William Henry Davenport Adams This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Witch, Warlock, and Magician Historical Sketches of Magic and Witchcraft in England and Scotland Author: William Henry Davenport Adams Release Date: February 4, 2012 [EBook #38763] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN *** Produced by Irma äpehar, Sam W. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's Note Greek text has been transliterated and is surrounded with + signs, e.g. +biblos+. Characters with a macron (straight line) above are indicated as [=x], where x is the letter. Witch, Warlock, and Magician, by 2 Characters with a caron (v shaped symbol) above are indicated as [vx], where x is the letter. Superscripted characters are surrounded with braces, e.g. D{ni}. There is one instance of a symbol, indicated with {+++}, which in the original text appeared as three + signs arranged in an inverted triangle. WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN Historical Sketches of Magic and Witchcraft in England and Scotland BY W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS 'Dreams and the light imaginings of men' Shelley J. W. BOUTON 706 & 1152 BROADWAY NEW YORK 1889 PREFACE.
    [Show full text]
  • The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, by 1
    The Witch-cult in Western Europe, by 1 The Witch-cult in Western Europe, by Margaret Alice Murray This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Witch-cult in Western Europe A Study in Anthropology Author: Margaret Alice Murray Release Date: January 22, 2007 [EBook #20411] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WITCH-CULT IN WESTERN EUROPE *** Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Irma Špehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE WITCH-CULT IN WESTERN EUROPE A Study in Anthropology BY MARGARET ALICE MURRAY The Witch-cult in Western Europe, by 2 OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1921 Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY PREFACE The mass of existing material on this subject is so great that I have not attempted to make a survey of the whole of European 'Witchcraft', but have confined myself to an intensive study of the cult in Great Britain. In order, however, to obtain a clearer understanding of the ritual and beliefs I have had recourse to French and Flemish sources, as the cult appears to have been the same throughout Western Europe. The New England records are unfortunately not published in extenso; this is the more unfortunate as the extracts already given to the public occasionally throw light on some of the English practices.
    [Show full text]
  • Macbeth in World Cinema: Selected Film and Tv Adaptations
    International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL) ISSN 2249-6912 Vol. 3, Issue 1, Mar 2013, 179-188 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. MACBETH IN WORLD CINEMA: SELECTED FILM AND TV ADAPTATIONS RITU MOHAN 1 & MAHESH KUMAR ARORA 2 1Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Management and Humanities, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal, Punjab, India 2Associate Professor, Department of Management and Humanities, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal, Punjab, India ABSTRACT In the rich history of Shakespearean translation/transcreation/appropriation in world, Macbeth occupies an important place. Macbeth has found a long and productive life on Celluloid. The themes of this Bard’s play work in almost any genre, in any decade of any generation, and will continue to find their home on stage, in film, literature, and beyond. Macbeth can well be said to be one of Shakespeare’s most performed play and has enchanted theatre personalities and film makers. Much like other Shakespearean works, it holds within itself the most valuable quality of timelessness and volatility because of which the play can be reproduced in any regional background and also in any period of time. More than the localization of plot and character, it is in the cinematic visualization of Shakespeare’s imagery that a creative coalescence of the Shakespearean, along with the ‘local’ occurs. The present paper seeks to offer some notable (it is too difficult to document and discuss all) adaptations of Macbeth . The focus would be to provide introductory information- name of the film, country, language, year of release, the director, star-cast and the critical reception of the adaptation among audiences.
    [Show full text]
  • Macbeth in Film: Directorial Choices and Their Impact on the Audience Kellie Suzanne Mcclelland University of Mississippi
    University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 2017 Macbeth in Film: Directorial Choices and Their Impact on the Audience Kellie Suzanne McClelland University of Mississippi. Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation McClelland, Kellie Suzanne, "Macbeth in Film: Directorial Choices and Their mpI act on the Audience" (2017). Honors Theses. 534. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/534 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MACBETH IN FILM: DIRECTORIAL CHOICES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE AUDIENCE by Kellie Suzanne McClelland A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Oxford May 2017 Approved by ____________________________________ Adviser: Professor Ivo Kamps ____________________________________ Reader: Senior Lecturer Peter Wirth ____________________________________ Reader: Professor Karen Raber © 2017 Kellie Suzanne McClelland ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii To Dr. Ben McClelland for believing in me and encouraging me and supporting me on this, his Retirement Year, as well as every other time of my life. Thanks for it all. I love you, Daddy. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I owe my family, friends, and Him from whom all blessings flow my deepest gratitude for providing comfort and encouragement throughout this arduous journey that has become my thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • William Shakespeare As a Psychologist: a Study of the Supernatural Agency in Macbeth
    © 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.org (ISSN-2349-5162) William Shakespeare As A Psychologist: A Study of The Supernatural Agency in Macbeth Written By: - Prithvi Raj, Lecturer in English, Govt. Sr. Sec. School, Gurera Distt Bhiwani (Haryana) Macbeth: The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. It is the tragedy about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. The first act opens in thunder and lightning with the three witches. They decide that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. The three Witches appear to greet them with prophecies. Both Macbeth and Banquo are surprised and horrified to see them. The first witch hails Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis,” the second as "Thane of Cawdor,” and the third proclaims that he shall "be King hereafter.” Instantly, Ross, a messenger of the King, arrives and informs Macbeth about his new title: Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy has thus fulfilled. It gives thought to Macbeth for getting position of king. Macbeth writes to his wife and informs about three witches with prophecies. Coincidently Duncan decides to spend one night in the Macbeth's castle. Lady Macbeth makes a plan to murder the king. Since, she wants to secure the throne of the king for her husband, Macbeth. Although, Macbeth does not like to murder the king, however Lady Macbeth agrees him for this cruelty. On the night of the king's visit, Macbeth kills Duncan. The audiences do not see the misdeed of murder. In accordance with her plan, “Lady Macbeth frames ………..Thane of Fife, arrives.”[1] In a feigned fit of anger, Macbeth also murders the guards before they can protest their innocence.
    [Show full text]
  • Exhibition Catalog
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Mr VVilliam Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies. London: Printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623 Call Number: STC 22273 Folio 1, no.72 After William Shakespeare died in 1616, two friends from his acting company put together the history-making book that's best known as the "First Folio" of Shakespeare. Published in 1623, seven years after his death, it contains 36 of Shakespeare’s plays---almost all of them. Eighteen of the plays, including Macbeth and Twelfth Night, had never been published before and may have been lost without the creation of the First Folio. Largely because of this book we know them all. A “folio” was a large, expensive book, usually reserved for Bibles or important works of history, law, and science--- not plays. Shakespeare was one of the first English playwrights to have his plays collected in a folio. The Folger owns 82 copies of this first printed edition of Shakespeare’s works. This copy once belonged to Rachell Paule, a woman living in 17th-century London. Robert Anning Bell (1863-1933) Trio of illustrations from Bell’s edition of The Tempest [1900] Call Numbers: ART Box B433 no.7, no.10, and no.20 (size S) Although many of Shakespeare’s plays feature magic and the supernatural, The Tempest is the only one to deal so directly with characters who are human practitioners of magic. These original pen and ink illustrations were made by Bell for his edition of the play, published in 1901. We never meet the witch Sycorax in the real time of the play, but she casts a long shadow—the dead mother of the monstrous Caliban, her wickedness and depravity in her use of magic make her the perfect foil for the supposedly beneficent sorcerer Prospero.
    [Show full text]
  • The Witches' Sabbath in Scotland
    Proc Soc Antiq Scot 142 (2012), 371–412 THE WITches’ SABBATH IN SCOTLAND | 371 The Witches’ Sabbath in Scotland Laura Paterson* ABSTRACT There are ample surviving references in the witchcraft trial material to indicate that the witches’ sabbath became an important feature of the crime of witchcraft in Scotland. Comparison of the trial material has revealed numerous discrepancies between individual and group accounts of the witches’ sabbath. The frequent inability of the witches to agree upon a time, date or place that the witches’ sabbath took place have indicated that, in the cases studied, the witches’ sabbath was not a genuine historical event. Elite beliefs and ideas about the witches’ sabbath were frequently introduced during interrogations, and certainly left their mark upon the witchcraft records. However, the examination process was often a negotiation between witches and their interrogators, and as such, allowed many witches to incorporate their own beliefs and ideas into their descriptions of the witches’ sabbath. Close reading of the trial material, combined with an analysis of contemporary presbytery records and popular ballads, provides evidence that many witches were drawing upon popular beliefs about fairies, magic and the supernatural, as well as their experiences at real life celebrations and festivities, to compose their descriptions of the witches’ sabbath. The majority of confessions that contain descriptions of the witches’ sabbath are the product of this interrogation and negotiation process, but this research has also explored the possibility that the witches’ sabbath might have been a real visionary experience for some witches, and that these visionary experiences were fantasies induced by psychological trauma, or a waking or sleeping vision similar to those experienced by tribal shamans.
    [Show full text]
  • Diplomarbeit
    DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit “Fairies, Witches, and the Devil: The Interface between Elite Demonology and Folk Belief in Early Modern Scottish Witchcraft Trials” Verfasserin Ruth Egger, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra (Mag.) Wien, 2014 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 057 327 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Individuelles Diplomstudium Keltologie Betreuerin: Dr Lizanne Henderson BA (Guelph) MA (Memorial) PhD (Strathclyde) 1 Acknowledgements First of all, I want to thank all my lecturers in history who introduced me to the basic theories and methods of historiography, but also to those providing lessons for Celtic Studies who made me aware of the importance of looking beyond the boundaries of one’s own discipline. Their interdisciplinary approach of including archaeology, linguistics, literature studies, cultural studies, and anthropology among other disciplines into historical research has inspired me ever since. Regarding this current study, I specially want to thank Dr. Lizanne Henderson who not only introduced me into the basic theories of methods of studying witchcraft and the supernatural during my time as Erasmus-student at the University of Glasgow, but also guided me during the writing process of this dissertation. Furthermore, I would like to thank the University of Vienna for giving me the chance to study abroad as Erasmus-student and also for providing me with a scholarship so that I could do the literature research for this dissertation at the University of Glasgow library and the National Archives of Scotland. Also, I thank Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Melanie Malzahn for supporting me in acquiring this scholarship and helping me finding a viable topic for the dissertation, as well as Univ.-Doz.
    [Show full text]
  • (Paper) -- Hunting Power Through Witch Hunts in Early Modern Scotland
    Portland State University PDXScholar Young Historians Conference Young Historians Conference 2021 May 19th, 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM Session 2: Panel 1: Presenter 3 (Paper) -- Hunting Power through Witch Hunts in Early Modern Scotland Devika D. Narendra Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/younghistorians Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Narendra, Devika D., "Session 2: Panel 1: Presenter 3 (Paper) -- Hunting Power through Witch Hunts in Early Modern Scotland" (2021). Young Historians Conference. 16. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/younghistorians/2021/papers/16 This Event is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Young Historians Conference by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Narendra 2 “Be ane great storme: it wes feared that the Queine wes in danger upone the seas,”1 read King James VI of Scotland in a letter from Lord Dingwal. 2 The festivities celebrating his recent marriage would have to wait, King James VI needed to ensure his new wife, Queen Anne, would arrive safely in Scotland. King James VI stayed at the Seton House, watching the sea every day for approximately seventeen days, but the Queen did not come. 3 The king would have to retrieve her himself. The sea threw the king’s boat back and forth and rendered him fully powerless against the waves. The King and Queen were lucky to have survived their journey, one of Queen Anne’s gentlewomen, Jean Kennedy, having drowned in the same storm.4 Upon returning to Scotland, King James VI immediately ordered all of the accused witches of the North Berwick witch hunt to be brought to him, believing that the witches caused the dangerous sailing conditions, intending to kill him.5 To protect himself, he tortured and executed witches, prosecuting them for both witchcraft and conspiring against the King.
    [Show full text]
  • Magic Language: the Transmission of an Idea Over Geographical Distance and Linguistic Barriers
    Magic Language: The Transmission of an Idea over Geographical Distance and Linguistic Barriers Arne Kruse, Liv Helene Willumsen Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2020, pp. 1-32 (Article) Published by University of Pennsylvania Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mrw.2020.0012 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760679 [ Access provided at 15 Aug 2020 12:10 GMT from UIT Norges Arktiske Universitet ] Magic Language: The Transmission of an Idea over Geographical Distance and Linguistic Barriers ARNE KRUSE University of Edinburgh LIV HELENE WILLUMSEN University of Tromsø The aim of this article is to map out a fascinating transnational path regarding the transfer of ideas concerning witchcraft. Our objective is to demonstrate how language has the ability to carry and transport an ideological doctrine across national and linguistic borders—in this case, knowledge directly related to the learned European doctrine of demonology, which influenced witch- craft persecution all over Europe. The areas investigated are two locations in northern Europe, namely Scot- land and Finnmark, the northernmost district of Norway. The latter was called Vardøhus in the seventeenth century, and had a district governor as the highest authority. The district of Vardøhus covered the approximate area of Finnmark county in 2019, an expanse of 48,649 square kilometers and comparable to the area of Denmark. In the following, the modern name Finnmark will be used both for the district of Vardøhus and for the modern county.1 However, the choice of these two areas is not based on their geographical positions but rather on the exceptional intensity of the witchcraft persecution and the ideological content of the witchcraft trials that took place there in 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare's Macbeth
    Shakespeare’s Macbeth May 2013 These study materials are produced for use s m a r t SHARING MASTERWORKS OF ART with the Classic Players production of Macbeth AN EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH OF BOB JONES UNIVERSITY Shakespeare’s Artistic Accomplishment in Macbeth Macbeth is the story of a hero turned villain. It explores the cause and consequence of sin, tracing the downfall of an ambitious man whose deliberate commitment to evil destroys him and his kingdom. Since Shakespeare’s own age Macbeth has remained a popular piece for both the study and the stage although it was written as a script to be performed, not a text to be read and scrutinized. Many elements of the play contribute to its success as pure entertainment, among them its dramatic plot and characters, its irony, spectacle and suspense: Macbeth wavers concerning the murder of Duncan, even right outside the door to his chamber; the prophecies of the Witches and Apparitions prove one by one to be ironic; and Lady Macbeth experiences self-loathing and horror that culminate in her sleepwalking episodes. Shakespeare’s early audiences would have found the play’s supernatural elements, especially the Witches, very captivating. Their association with Satan’s domain creates an atmosphere of darkness appropriate to the action of the plot, and they also Shawn MacDonald & Philip Eoute as Lady Macbeth & Macbeth, Classic Players 2013 effectively introduce the major theme of equivocation. Rather than intending to promote communication with such insidious audience’s ears were more attuned to appreciate upon casual creatures, Shakespeare implies that they are to be shunned.
    [Show full text]