In their second appearance, the witches once again seem to speak in sing-song nonsense rhyme, but this time the First Witch tells a story, or rather two fragments of narrative that seem connected, one about a voracious stay-at-home wife and the other about her beleagered sailor husband. Though not easy to decode, the witches’ lines (and therefore their gestures) seem filled with the vocabulary and insinuating tones of sex, selfishness, and greed. In this nasty little “immorality tale,” the sailor seems to be punished because his fat-rumped wife refused to share the lap nuts she was eating so greedily. Nonsense or seeming incoherence should, at least in Shakespeare, be taken seriously: we may assume that the sailor to Aleppo and his wife somehow prefigure Lord and Lady Macbeth. The first witch’s diatribe, moreover, seems part of a pattern in the play which implicates, in a thoroughly unwholesome way, male with female, public with private, sexuality with greediness (or rather, to put it bluntly, bad sex with bad politics). This furious witches’ brew of slander, revenge, and temptation is potent. For one thing, the angered witch can make a furious storm that will keep the ship captain awake and hollow-eyed as his ship (his “bark”) tosses and as he “dwindle[s], peak[s], and pine[s]” (22). For another, as a succubus she can exhaust him sexually, “drain him dry as hay” (17). But in spite of the witches’s power and fury – and in spite of the conniving or greediness of his mate – it is only the sailor himself, haggard and perhaps ill-judging from loss of sleep, who can destroy his bark and his soul: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tossed. (23-24, emphasis added)Or to turn the formulation around: although witches can tempt and tempest-toss the sailor, they cannot finally cause his “bark” – his immortal soul – to become totally lost. The witches have considerable physical powers but not moral power. Macbeth alone has the power to destroy his soul, though the witches and his Lady can create mischievous conditions and alluring, reason-damaging situations for him. So out of this odd little story comes a dire prediction of storm and sleeplessness caused by a potent brew of sexuality and greediness. One may therefore expect the flow of both blood and semen – and a day of judgment: an Act 5 as well as Acts 1 and 2, in which extenuating conditions are acknowledged (and create sympathy) but are not finally judged as adequate to relieve the burden – and glory – of personal moral responsibility. And through this maelstrom of theatrical “hurly burly” and philosophical speculation – a characteristic Shakespeare mix – Macbeth enters the scene and the play. He enters with words that unconsciously echo the witches – “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Although he merely refers to the terrible and bloody battle that Duncan’s forces have proudly won, this is a linguistic echo that should engage our attention. And if we watch closely nowhere else, we should carefully gauge Macbeth’s initial response to the witches’ triple salutation (46-48). Banquo, Macbeth’s companion, fellow soldier, and friend, says: “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear | Things that do sound so fair?” But does Macbeth’s “start” and his seeming “fear” arise from innocent surprise or guilty recognition that the “should-be women” have read his darkest, most secret desires? We need to watch, even though actions (like words) are not always “legible.” And first a director and actor must decide the staged response they hope to present and ponder its consequences. The intensity of Macbeth’s asides (or soliloquy) near the end of the scene (126-141, 142-143, and 145-146) give a sense of his perturbation and alienation. His choice of equivocal language and contorted syntax – “This supernatural soliciting | Cannot be ill, cannot be good” and “nothing is | But what is not” – once again relate his thought processes to the devious witches. Macbeth’s intense nervousness and hunger to know sharply contrast with Banquo’s more carefully balanced and reflective response: “Speak then to me,” he charges the witches, “who neither beg nor fear | Your favors nor your hate” (58-59). Banquo’s unobsequious choice of words suggests perhaps that his companion both begs and fears. Certainly, when Angus and Ross arrive to announce the King’s conferral of the thaneship of Cawdor on Macbeth, Banquo quickly intuits that too much trust in the witches “Might yet enkindle you [Macbeth] unto the crown, | Besides the Thane of Cawdor” and that . . . oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence. (122-125)And it is Banquo who notices “how our partner’s rapt” (141) and that his new honors seem ill-fitting (143-145). " Voyager Palex Voyager Palex Palex @ ·Palex ·˘Palex ˘VPalex VXVoyager XhPalex hvPalex vxPalex xzVoyager zöPalex ö§Voyager §ôPalex ô¨Palex ¨TPalex TUVoyager U
