This, my twentieth time reading Macbeth, I've noticed that the Weird Sister are three different degrees of characteristics. In the beginning, Firstie (that's what I'll call her) called Macbeth "Glamis" which is his present title. Second called him "Cawdor", a title that followed almost immediately, then Thirdie (you get the idea) called him "King", which took a little longer and involves much darker deed.
Later, when they were making a potion, Firstie put in some poison, Second put in all the what is now stereotypical witches brew type stuff, ie, eye of newt and toe of frog..." Thirdie blows them out of the water with human body parts, dragon scales, shark and wolf bits. She seems to be the most hard-core.
Shakespeare's outlook toward the future is bleak. It's as if he could look into a crystal ball and see that as time progresses, society gets more and more complicated and disheartening. Follow this up with Act 4 Scene 2--the saddest scene in all of Shakespeare (see post).
Three Witches the Bad , the worse and the worst of all, come from Arthurian legend. see Culhwch and Olwen
ReplyDelete