Shakespeare Fans discussion

Our conversations and thoughts about Act 3 can happen here...

Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them--
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine--
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.


foul (v.)
Old English fulian "to become foul, rot, decay," from ful (see foul (adj.)). Transitive meaning "make foul, pollute" is from c. 1200. Meaning "become entangled" (chiefly nautical) is from 1832, probably from foul (adj.) in the sense "obstructed by anything fixed or attached" (late 15c.). "A term generally used in contrast to clear, and implies entangled, embarrassed or contrary to: e.g. to foul the helm, to find steerage impracticable owing to the rudder becoming entangled with rope or other gear" [Sir Geoffrey Callender, "Sea Passages," 1943]. Related: Fouled; fouling. Hence also foul anchor (1769), one with the slack of the cable twisted round the stock or a fluke; noted by 1832 as naval insignia.

"root and other" is interesting...

'Rope or other' ? Or do you mean 'root and father'? I'll opt for the latter which is part of a line of that that Banquo is musing positively about his part of the weird womens' prophesies. And all he has to do is keep his pecker up and produce and protect plenty of progeny he thinks.

Well, you bring up a good question

These pairs of words...

rope or other
root and father
fair and foul


There do seem to be quite a few of them. They would control the way the person would say them. They are a good example of the words setting the pace of the play for the actors. They are tongue twisters nearly...almost daring an ambiguous interpretation by their sounds together.

There was my typo 'rope' for your 'root' to your typo of 'other' for father.

i.e. rope and other
ain't in the play.

Candy wrote: "Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that myself should ..."

A foul in soccer is penalised, is unfair play. And the sign on streets in England 'No Fouling' is about dogs fouling the streets and their human owners keeping them under control.

But in Act 3 Scene things are not so foul in the Underworld, now that Hecate queen of witches (and weird sisters) has arrived and she is put out about something (though not necessarily in foul temper).
First Witch: "Why how now, Hecate. you look angerly".

Somehow the the tree weird sisters are not cowed by Hecate's arrival. 'Angerly' is kind of sweet and chiding even. Made me smile.
Hecate's reply continues to expand the lighter feeling and admonish the 3 for perhaps being too 'foul' in their treatment of Macbeth. She addresses the gruesome threesome.

Hecate: "Have I not reason bedlams as you are?
Saucy and overbold, now did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death
And I the mistress of your charms
The close contriver of all harms
Was never called to bear my part
Or show the glory of our art?"

Sounds like the weird sisters have not only overstepped and misjudged their spell but they have not been artful enough either.
I wonder how Hecate would have done it in the first place. But it just goes to show you that these immortals who are inclined to mess with mere mortals are themselves a motley and undisciplined crew much like their counterparts on the other side.

And then Hecate tells them ".....get you gone, and at the pit of Acheron meet me i'th morning. Thither he will come to know his destiny" (meaning of course Macbeth)
Acheron - River of Woe. Now why would he want to go there?

JamesD wrote: "Now why would he want to go there?"

This question may lead to the origin of darkness of this play.
Why Shakespeare used the term "pit of Acheron"?
How Macbeth finds this place?

Pit has the usage of a trap for wild beasts or enemies (OED), appeared often in Bible:

For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. (Proverbs 23:27)

Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. (Jeremiah 18:20)

Acheron is a river to the underworld, appeared twice in Shakespeare's 1623 folio, both about woe and pain.

The "pit of Acheron" is a trap to hell.

Witches can find Macbeth for they are witches.
How can Macbeth find witches?

Using the brains of bats to strengthen the sight was recorded in A General Practise of Physicke published in 1598:

Hereafter follow certaine simples which strengthen the sight, as the iuice of rosted Onions tempered with hony dropt into the eyes, the braines of flitter mice or Bats tempered with hony and dropt therein.

The term bat (flittermouse, fluttermouse, rearmouse, reremouse) appears in several Shakespeare's plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (reremise).

Lady MacBeth...

"'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy."

Um...ouch wow that is so negative I am not able to find reason in it...

I love the bat references and recipes. Wonderful!!!

Although bat discussions may be "too soon"...Bats are one of my favourite animals but they are sure not getting good PR these days again!

Meanwhile...the scenes and words you quote Jim are a handful of female motifs. I'm not sure Im up to "digging" into right now.

I'll come back to it perhaps....I'm sure there is all kinds of feminist and gender literary theory...which I will look for!

James, I felt Hecate...didn't say the holy women were wrong per se...except that their error was communicating with someone who could not comprehend...that they were inexperienced and unenlightened.

To use an adage...I feel that Hecate is saying to the holy women "don't throw pearls upon the swine".

When we say that adage to soemoen we aren't taking them down a notch...we are saying they are so incredible and amzing...that they sould `chose their audience (or students or customers) wisely.

And...Hecate is like any good "lead" or "supervisor" they say to the holy women..."you should have elevated this challenge to me, your supervisor," I like that Hecate , in my view, is talking shop...it's an industry meeting or corproate HR. LOL

The weyward Sisters are asexual or intersexual, shown in Banquo's lines:

BANQUO.
you should be Women,
And yet your Beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

Lady Macbeth's "unsex me" does not make her a man but asexual like the witches. Lady Macbeth is also a witch. After reading her husband's letter of the witches' prophecies, she summons "Spirits" to tend her.

LADY MACBETH.
Come you Spirits,
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the Crown to the Toe, top-full
Of direst Cruelty:

Lady Macbeth fears her husband is full of the Milk of human kindness. The man needs certain "illness" to achieve his ambition by "murthering" his king.

LADY MACBETH.
yet do I fear thy Nature,
It is too full of the Milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great,
Art not without Ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.

To fix her husband's problem of kindness due to Milk, Lady Macbeth commands Spirits to take her Milk for gall of murthering substances. Women secrete milk after delivery normally; a witch may do that anytime with witchcraft:

LADY MACBETH.
Come to my Woman's Breasts,
And take my Milk for Gall, you murthering Ministers,
Where-ever, in your sightless substances,
You wait on Nature's Mischief.

The next step is to transfer that Milk to Macbeth.

"Reremouse . . . This little creature doth partake both with beast and bird in such neareness of resemblance to either of them, as that it may (with reason) be doubted of whether kind he is. . . . So is she the only bird that suckleth her young with her paps and giveth them milk." — A Display of Heraldry, 1610, John Guillim

Then pick they forth such Thieves as hate the Light,
The black-eyed Bat (the Watch-Man of the Night)
That to each private Family can pry,
And the least slip can easily descry; — The Owl, 1604, Michael Drayton

Lady Macbeth isn't an anti-mother witch with infanticide fantasy, but a less powerful witch than the weyward Sisters. She prepares her own witchcrft ingredients:

LADY MACBETH.
I have given Suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the Babe that milks me,
I would, while it was smiling in my Face,
Have plucked my Nipple from his Boneless Gums,
And dashed the Brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.

the Babe that milks me: Lady Macbeth breastfeeds a baby bat, not a human baby, to infect the bat with her milk.

his: same as its in Shakespeare's time. To comment "his" as "the ungendered babe becomes male" from The New Cambridge Shakespeare is improper.

dashed the Brains out: To disease Macbeth's mind, Lady Macbeth uses bat's brains with her milk of murthering substances to infect Macbeth's brain.

This has a side effect. The bat's nature goes with the milk. Macbeth then possesses features of both human and bat, similar to a "creature doth partake both with beast and bird."

This assumption may pry into Shakespeare's mind in designing plots and lines; e.g., "Sleep no more: Macbeth does murther Sleep, the innocent Sleep."

With bats as his spies, Macbeth can find the witches.

MACBETH.
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a Servant Feed. I will tomorrow
(And betimes I will) to the weyard Sisters.

Macbat and Lady Macbat.

Clock, Twelve, Bell, Drink.

After midnight, Macbeth persuades Banquo to leave the night-watch, and asks Lady Macbeth to strike upon the Bell when his drink is ready, a suspicious arrangement.

FLEANCE.
The Moon is down: I have not heard the Clock.

BANQUO.
And she goes down at Twelve. . . .

[Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a Torch.]
. . .
MACBETH.
Go bid thy Mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the Bell. . . . [A Bell rings.]

Clock . . . Twelve: Ghosts and devils often appear after midnight in Shakespeare's plays (e.g. Hamlet), purpose of this dialogue.

my drink is ready: The drink prepared by Lady Macbeth (a Belle's drink), not by servants, contains her witchcraft ingredients of a milked bat's brains.

Macbeth's "Milk of human kindness" will be razed out after this drink. It's the turning point of this play, a contract with devils. This may reason some obscure lines and plots (e.g. the third murtherer, the depression of Lady Macbeth).

In Marlowe's 1604 Doctor Faustus, devils come to fetch Faustus when the clock strikes twelve.

[The clock strikes twelve.]
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!

This answers Macbeth's question: "But wherefore could not I pronounce Amen?"

Striking a bell after midnight for a drink is unusual; besides that, Shakespeare arranged Lady Macbeth herself to strike the bell, the servant to bed.

MACBETH.
Go bid thy Mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the Bell. Get thee to bed.

This makes Lady Macbeth as Mephistophilis for her husband. The wife of Faustus is a devil dressed like a woman; her fire-works are used to blast away friars in later scene.

FAUSTUS.
But, leaving off this, let me have a wife, the fairest maid in Germany, for I am wanton and lascivious, and cannot live without a wife.

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
How, a wife? I prithee, Faustus, talk not of a wife.

FAUSTUS.
Nay, sweet Mephistophilis, fetch me one, for I will have one.

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Well, thou wilt have one, sit there till I come, I'll fetch thee a wife in the devil's name.

[Enter with a devil drest like a woman, with fire-works.]

Great excerpt Jim, thank you!