Do the Witches, in fact have any power in the play ‘Macbeth’ throughout?

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The forces of evil are always ready to ensnare man, but they have their limitations. They do not, indeed cannot, force man into evil; they can merely tempt man to choose to follow evil ways. Experiencing temptation is not sinful, but deliberately choosing to give in to temptation is an evil.

 [“Have I not reason, beldams as you are,

Saucy and over-bold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic with Macbeth

In riddles and affairs of death?”]                                        (HECATE SCENE, Act 3, SCENE 5)

Macbeth deliberately chooses-not once but several times in the play-the evil path.  In the portrayal of Macbeth we witness the destructive power of evil in the inner life of a man. It is not a simple, smooth downward progress; but involves turmoil and conflict between conscience and other desires, between good and evil impulses that work within man. At every stage of Macbeth’s degeneration we witness the choice being made deliberately; at the same time there is a sense of inevitability about Macbeth’s choices. The Witches merely prophecy certain things for Macbeth. They do not influence him in any concert manner. It is a fact that his ambition impels him towards “the swelling act of the imperial theme” but his conscience fills him with horror at the idea that has come to him about how to gain the throne.

The deterioration of Macbeth’s character illustrates the theme of conscience and its decline. From a brave soldier and noble person, Macbeth reaches a state when he is a soulless man, a beast chained to a stake and finally slaughtered like a beast. A fever in his blood keeps him away from conscience and urges him on to ceaseless action and to desperation. Love of power and the will to live are so powerful in him that he goes to the extent of challenging Fate...

TheWitches’predictions and their partial fulfillment at once engross him in the thought of kingship. His ambition makes him unscrupulous and the thought of murdering Duncan occurs instantly in his mind.

“And you all know, security

Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” (HECATE SCENE, Act 3, SCENE 5)

Act-I Scene-I, a short scene introduces the readers to the theme of evil. As a scene of exposition, it creates the atmosphere and hints at a battle being fought and the keenness of the Witches to meet the protagonist.  Even before human beings have been introduced, the witches and tumultuous, hostile weather suggest the part to be played by the supernatural. The two ambiguous lines, “When the battle’s lost and won” and “Fair is foul and foul is fair” are only a beginning to many more of such paradoxical and enigmatic statements. It may be noted that in the whole play there are nineteen scenes of darkness as against only seven of dusk and daylight. The atmosphere of darkness and terror continues through the play until in the last scene Macduff enters with Macbeth’s head indicating the ultimate end of the nightmare.

Macbeth’s ambition, aided by his wife’s instigation, is too strong for his conscience, which is ignored. As soon as he commits the murder he can again hear the disturbing protest of his deeper self. Conscience now gnaws at him and makes itself articulate in the form of unforgettable sighs and haunting sounds. Macbeth is now overwhelmed with a sense of futility of the crime and an equally strong sense of remorse.

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

Macbeth is guilty of committing the most heinous crimes. Lady Macbeth, as if she were a fourth witch, encourages and influences him with valour of her tongue and the crime, which might otherwise have remained undone, is committed. Lady Macbeth, too, soon realizes the futility of the crown that they have obtained through crime and soliloquies. She suffers like her husband, the tortures of Hell, a glimpse of which we get in the sleep-walking scene.

‘Macbeth: “How now,you secret,black, and midnight hags!

What is’t you do?

All the Witches:  A deed without a name.”’

Evil always works through deception. The evil within Macbeth responds to the evil outside when he believes the words of the Witches. The Witches offer Macbeth worldly prosperity, as evil must, in order to be attractive enough to tempt man, but the promises of evil are false; they are seeming or half-truths. Evil always create an atmosphere of uncertainty and false belief. Macbeth’ himself does not know how far the Witches’ prophecies are good or evil!

“Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.

By Sinel’s death, I know I am Thane of Glamis.

But how of Cawdor?”

Evil must deceive in order to prosper, if only temporarily, for deception ultimately is found out. While it is in sway it sets in motion ripples of ambiguity in which the innocent are perforce also caught.  Thus Duncan calls, Macbeth as “noble”, “worthy” and so on, little knowing the reality beneath the appearance…the reality is given expression to by the porter’s macabre humorous quibbles on hell-gate!

‘“ I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire. [Knock] Anon, anon. I pray you, remember the porter.” [Opens door]’

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ‘voice what appear to be the most hospitable epithets while committing the most heinous of crimes against hospitality- the murder of a guest under their own roof. Thus before he commits the murder of Duncan he is troubled by the vision of the blood-stained dagger. He is later troubled by the hallucination of Banquo’s Ghost. Once again there is confusion between appearance and reality.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair,

Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

Like all tragic heroes, Macbeth too is blind to reality. He believes implicitly in what the Witches say, it is on the basis of his belief in their words that he takes action and goes deeper into the quagmire till he reaches the point of no return. His belief in the Witches…The atmosphere of uncertainty let loose by one act of evil permeates everything and colours the vision of even the innocent and good characters. Thus Malcolm in his cautiousness puts on an appearance of vileness to test the reality of Macduff’s integrity. In case of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth when they welcome Duncan, we have evil masquerading as good to hide the truth.

“Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse

Is the initiate fear that wants hard use;

We are yet but young in deed.”

Gradually Macbeth discovers the unshakable truth of evil’s deception, but not before it has wrought deterioration of character in him. To him appearance is reality, but he has lost touch with the benevolent spirit, which gives meaning to life. The theme of false appearance is embodied in the very action of the play, so that Macbeth’s despairing recognition of mere ‘mouth-honour’ among his remaining followers echoes ironically his wife’s advice to be a serpent under the welcoming of Duncan. It is reinforced by the cloud of uncertainty that settles on Scotland during Macbeths’ despotism.  After the murder of Duncan, the darkness that envelops the earth in daytime reinforces the disorder and equivocation in nature as aptly implied in the words of Rosse,Act II,SceneIV.

Evil works out its own destruction. It may create terrible disorder at first but Nature is able to restore harmony. The birth of good is heralded by the perversion of Nature itself. Birnam Wood moves and Macduff turns out to be a man “unborn” of a woman-these are symbolic devices to indicate that the very perversion of mature can herald the doom and destruction of one who initially caused that perversion. True honour and bravery are opposed to false honour and rashness. The repetition of words such as ‘duty’, and ‘service’ create a sense of an orderly social and political fabric which has been disrupted   by Macbeth’s crime. Images of planting and seeing, of sleep, and of milk stand in contrast to the images of disorder implied by words like fear and blood and by contrast between appearance and reality. Evil is deceptive and seeks to lead astray.

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Reference’, Words and Sentences from Critical Evaluations of Dr. Sen and Sraboni Ghosh, except setting, ideas and contextualized.                                                           (RituparnaRayChaudhuri)

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Its oft I had been asked by students and many of others of the given topic. What I personally felt be its answer, referring obviously to standard books, I answered my seekers including also analyzing myself just twelve lines of the opening scene, which is in fact, later I thought, is containing a very ‘partial fulfillment’ of the conversation among the witches- perhaps that figures out the destiny of a mortal being, destiny of the tragic hero, full of “profound- mature -complexity of human materialistic nature’’-----

How does Act I Scene 1 set the mood of the play ‘The Merchant of Venice’?

                        

-The moon shines bright: in ‘such a night’ as thus.

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees.

And they did make no noise.-

It is a genre, in which Shakespeare is a master. For the other great comedy of the world’s literature, the comedy of Moliere or Ben Jonson, is different in kind to his.  The play, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, resolves itself purely into a simple form. It illustrates the clash between the emotional and the intellectual characters, the man of heart and the man of brain. The man of heart, Antonio, is obsessed by tenderness for his friend. The man of brain is obsessed by lust to uphold intellect in a thoughtless world that makes intellect bitter in every age. Shylock, is a man of intellect, who born into a despised race. It is a tragedy, that the generous Gentiles about him can be generous to everything, except to intellect and Jewish blood. Intellect and Jewish blood are too proud to attempt to understand the Gentiles who cannot understand.  Shylock is a proud man. The Gentiles, who are neither proud nor intellect, spit upon him and flout him.

“How like a fawning publican he looks!

I hate him for he is a Christian;

But more that in low simplicity

He lends out money gratis, and brings down

The rate of usance here with us in Venice.”

All we can say, is that in the tragedies, the dramatist seeks to entertain generally mainly by playing on our capacity to shudder and shed tears whereas in the comedies are the Elizabethan feelings, whether humorous or sentimental.  Shakespeare has a careful selection of the titles of his plays. His tragedies and historic plays are named after the central character of the play. His comedies on the other hand, are named after weak and passive characters; similar is the case with the present play. It has been named after Antonio, the merchant of Venice, a weak and passive character suffering from nameless melancholy. As with character, so with the feelings, the gaiety and folly and pensive sentiments of love are portrayed to the life, but not its pain, nor its mystery-its profounder influence on the character of the lover.

“Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,

And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

Sleep when he wakes , and creep into the jaundice

By being peevish?”

If there is a moment of anxiety or sorrow, it passes and leaves no mark when things go well again. Melancholy Antonio is so not very melancholy at the end of the play, though he has been in danger of a dreadful death hours before. Shakespeare has been regarded as a master of opening scenes.  No matter what terms we may use, the fact cannot be denied that an author, while portraying life and human nature in his work, gives his own point of view to us in the process. Every author looks a life from a certain angle, and that determines the kind of reality he depicts in his work.  

“Then let us say you are sad

Because you are not merry: and ‘twere as easy

For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry

Because you are not sad.”

The opening scene of play’ The Merchant of Venice’ fully illustrates this view. The play simply begins on a street in Venice. Antonio , the protagonist, a rich and prosperous merchant appears as a kind of a brooding man, who says that he regards this world as the stage of a theatre on which every man has to play a certain role, his own role being a sad man.

“ I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.”

Gratiano, another friend, who says in contrast that he would like to play the role of a happy and jovial man wanting that the wrinkles of old age should come to him with mirth and laughter. He ridicules the man who is too serious and solemn, and who pretends to be “Sir Oracle”, wanting all others to become silent when he is about to open his mouth to speak.

“I’ll tell thee more of this another time:

But fish not, with this melancholy bait,

For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.”

Salerino and Solanio, other friends, are talkative persons as Gratiano is, though Gratiano has more wit and is more glib-tongued than they. Solanio says that he too would be feeling melancholy at this time if his ships were sailing upon the sea; and Salerino  elaborates this view as his speech contains of vivid pictures of a ship being tossed by the sea-waves and getting struck in shallow waters or over-turning after a collision with dangerous rocks.

“Should I go to church

And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,

Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side

Would scatter all her spices on the stream,

Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks..”

Salerino, in another speech is reasonably distinguishes now between the two kind of men, those who are always melancholy and sullen, those who are always laughing and chattering.

“Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time:

Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,

And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;

And other of such vinegar aspect

That they’ll not show their teeth in the way of smile,

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable’’..

Bassanio, Antonio’s best friend, however, is a prodigal young intelligent man, is also romantic with an enterprising and adventurous spirit. He wants to try his luck at Belmont but he has no money. He had previously taken a loan from Antonio, whom he has not yet repaid. He now asks him for again, another loan. He has an ingenious and fertile mind therefore too. Asking for a second loan, he refers over here to one of his boyhood habits. He says that whenever as a school-boy he lost one arrow, he used to shoot another arrow in the same direction, succeeding in finding the first arrow, besides recovering the second.

..”I donot doubt,

(As I will watch the aim) to find both,

Or bring your latter hazard back again,

And thankfully rest debtor for the first.”

This scene, further introduces to the play’s compassionate natured heroine, Portia, who is quite obviously resourceful and confident of herself can able to take quick decisions to put them into action with intelligent plans. She has been much praised during two centuries of criticisms. She is one of the smiling things created in the large and gentle mood that moved Shakespeare to comedy. The scene in the fifth act, where the two women, coming home from Venice by night, see the candle burning in the hall, as they draw near, is full of naturalness that makes beauty quicken at heart.

“The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils;”

However, though not directly, but through Bassanio’s description of her in the opening scene, he is speaking to Antonio about his to go to Belmont in an effort to win ‘her’. In this description, loyal Portia is here described as “a lady richly left”, as “fair, and, fairer than that word”, and “of wondrous virtues.” Bassanio becomes eloquent when he goes on to describe her:

“Her name is Portia; nothing undervalu’d

To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia;

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

For the four winds blow in from every coast

Renowned suitors;”..

Of the mature comedy, the foundations of the major stories of the play hence have been laid very clearly and firmly. Indeed, Shakespeare became successful in his skill of becoming an architect who had built up the plots with his many-sided genius in the portrayal of his characters. It is wonderful that Shakespeare has built up this play in such a way that the impacts of each of ‘the two stories’   are found in the opening scene.

‘The Merchant of Venice ‘consists of four plots- two major and two minor, so intricately interwoven to form one whole integrated story. The two main plots comprise ‘The Bond Story’ and ‘The Lottery of Caskets’. These two plots are closely interlinked.   The main plot of this play pertains to Antonio and the Jew and money-lender, and of the bond that Antonio sighs and subsequently forfeits. This story is known as ‘The Bond Story’. 

“Why thou-loss upon loss! the thief gone so much,

And so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction,

No revenge: nor no ill luck stirring but what lights

O’ my shoulders; no sighs but o’ my breathing;

No tears but o’ my shedding.”

The other major story pertains to the will left by Portia’s father, laying down the condition which a suitor of Portia must fulfil before he can claim Portia’s hand in marriage. This is known as ‘’The Casket Story”.

“O my Antonio, had I but the means

To hold a rival place with one of them,

I have a mind presage me such thrift

That I should questionless be fortunate.”

Bassanio, asks therefore for a loan of three thousand ducats from Antonio in order to be able to go to Belmont to try to win Portia as his wife. Antonio, who has no cash in hand, hence asks Bassanio to borrow money in his name as the guarantor from some money-lender or merchant. Both the stories hence have been set afoot at the same time and the stories have closely interwoven also. Without the one, the other has no obvious significance of its own. 

“You know me well, and herein spend but time

To wind about my love with circumstance;

And out of doubt you do me now more wrong

In making questions of my uttermost

Than if you had made waste of all I have.”

The two sub-plots in the play are- The Jessica-Lorenzo love story and The Ring Episode. Both these sub-plots are interrelated to each other and to the main plot as well. However, this former story includes Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, falls in love with Lorenzo, a friend of Antonio and Bassanio. Both the lovers go to Belmont, where Portia entrusts them with the responsibility of looking after her household, till she remains in Venice for the trial of Antonio.  When the Court scene reveals Shylock at his most horrible and the Christians also not at very best, the scene immediately shifts to a peaceful vicinity of Belmont, where on a glorious moonlit night the run-away lovers Lorenzo and Jessica are seen in Portia’s garden engaged in a highly romantic conversation bandying the names of lovers of bygone times and distant climes. Lorenzo and Jessica get half the share of Shylock’s wealth when Shylock loses the case against Antonio.

The next episode constitutes one of the important stories in the play. It is only after Bassanio wins the lottery of caskets, that Portia marries him and gives him a ring as a token of their love.  She takes a promise from Bassanio that he will never part with the ring. At the same time, Nerissa married Gratiano and gives him a ring, with the promise from him that he will not part with it at any cost. The rings represent wealth as well as emotional value. This is known as ‘The Ring Episode’, acts as an offshoot of the Casket story. Then it is connected with the Bond Story in the Trial scene, as Bassanio and Gratiano give their rings to Portia and Nerissa respectively as a token of gratitude for saving Antonio.

“The quality of mercy is not strained

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath; It is twice blessed

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

 Justice and mercy, as delivered in the play, do not appear to be as sweet, selfless and full of grace as presented by Portia. The play depends on the theme of appearance and reality to enrich the plot and to present the atmosphere and to create the suspense in the storyline. The exposition of the play is therein to the audience to convey the circumstances that unfold, leading up to the events of the play. Outward appearances are liable to be deceptive. This principle is best demonstrated through the lottery of the caskets. In the choice of caskets, not only their appearance but the mottoes inscribed on them are to be considered:

“Gold: Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.

Silver: Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.

Lead: Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”

Thus the plot of the play, determines the general framework but into it are fitted the other elements which enrich and diversify their sense of pleasure. There is an Elizabethan phrase-‘A   Paradise of Dainty and Delight.’ The phrase well described the romantic comedy except that daintiness is not essential. Any delight has a right to be admitted to the paradise. In the words of Raleigh, the last Act of the play of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is ‘an exquisite piece of Romantic Comedy’ and Shylock has no place there. It is easier to find an analogy to Shakespeare’s comedies in musical compositions than in his classical comedy proper. Shakespeare is closer to Mozart that to Moliere.   

‘’ The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.”

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[Except References, ideas, settings,contextualized- orientation of words and its elaboration from Dr. S.  Sen (of Critical Evaluations), Rajinder Paul, Textual Workbook and other]