Witches shakespeare witchcraft audience macbeth thought animals act

Text	How does Shakespeare present the Witches here? Shakespeare https://www.bl.uk/people/william-shakespeare wrote Macbeth at a time when interest in witchcraft bordered on hysteria https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/witchcraft-in-shakespeares-england . Witches were blamed for causing illness, death and disaster, and were thought to punish their enemies by giving them nightmares, making their crops fail and their animals sicken. Witches were thought to allow the Devil to suckle from them in the form of an animal, such as ‘Graymalkin’ and ‘Paddock’, the grey cat and the toad mentioned by the Witches in Act 1, Scene 1. Those who were convicted were often tortured, their trials reported in grisly detail in pamphlets https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/witchcraft-pamphlet-a-rehearsal-both-strange-and-true-1579 that circulated in their hundreds. Often, those accused of witchcraft lived on the edges of society: they were old, poor and unprotected, and were therefore easy to blame. King James VI of Scotland https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/king-james-vi-and-is-demonology-1597 was deeply concerned about the threat posed by witches. He believed that a group of witches had tried to kill him by drowning him while he was at sea (a curse echoed here by the First Witch). During his reign thousands of people in Scotland were put on trial for witchcraft https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/witchcraft-pamphlet-news-from-scotland-1591 . In 1604, under his rule as king of England and Wales, witchcraft was made a capital offence, meaning that anyone who was found guilty of being a witch could be executed. When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606, then, he knew that his audience would have felt a mixture of fear and fascination for the three ‘weird sisters’, their imaginations captivated by the mysterious meeting on the desolate heath with which the play begins. Shakespeare’s portrayal of the Witches in Act 1, Scene 3 draws directly on many of the beliefs about witchcraft that his audience would have held. They harm animals (as when the Second Witch reports, matter-of-factly, that she has been ‘killing swine’ (1.3.2)). Their power over the elements means that they can control the winds, raise storms and sail in sieves. They use gruesome ingredients such as body parts (the ‘pilot’s thumb’ (1.3.28)) in their spells. They are also deeply vindictive. The First Witch vows to make the sailor suffer simply because his wife refuses to give in to her gluttonous demand. Her reaction is shockingly, disproportionately cruel: she vows to drain the life out of him until he is ‘dry as hay’ (1.3.18) and curses him with a tortuous inability to sleep, declaring ‘He shall live a man forbid’ (1.3.21) and that he shall ‘dwindle, peak and pine’ (1.3.23). This is a clear example of the crime known in Shakespeare’s day as ‘mischief following anger’, a punishment inflicted as a result of some kind of grievance. Shakespeare uses this passage, then, to demonstrate the Witches’ vindictive nature, leaving the audience in no doubt as to their connection with the powers of evil.

Text

How does Shakespeare present the Witches here?

Shakespeare
https://www.bl.uk/people/william-shakespeare

wrote Macbeth at a time when

interest in witchcraft bordered on hysteria
https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/witchcraft-in-shakespeares-england

. Witches were blamed for causing illness, death and disaster, and were thought to punish their enemies by giving them nightmares, making their crops fail and their animals sicken. Witches were thought to allow the Devil to suckle from them in the form of an animal, such as ‘Graymalkin’ and ‘Paddock’, the grey cat and the toad mentioned by the Witches in Act 1, Scene 1. Those who were convicted were often tortured, their trials reported in grisly detail in

pamphlets
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/witchcraft-pamphlet-a-rehearsal-both-strange-and-true-1579

that circulated in their hundreds. Often, those accused of witchcraft lived on the edges of society: they were old, poor and unprotected, and were therefore easy to blame.

King James VI of Scotland
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/king-james-vi-and-is-demonology-1597

was deeply concerned about the threat posed by witches. He believed that a group of witches had tried to kill him by drowning him while he was at sea (a curse echoed here by the First Witch). During his reign thousands of people in Scotland were put on

trial for witchcraft
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/witchcraft-pamphlet-news-from-scotland-1591

. In 1604, under his rule as king of England and Wales, witchcraft was made a capital offence, meaning that anyone who was found guilty of being a witch could be executed. When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606, then, he knew that his audience would have felt a mixture of fear and fascination for the three ‘weird sisters’, their imaginations captivated by the mysterious meeting on the desolate heath with which the play begins.

Shakespeare’s portrayal of the Witches in Act 1, Scene 3 draws directly on many of the beliefs about witchcraft that his audience would have held. They harm animals (as when the Second Witch reports, matter-of-factly, that she has been ‘killing swine’ (1.3.2)). Their power over the elements means that they can control the winds, raise storms and sail in sieves. They use gruesome ingredients such as body parts (the ‘pilot’s thumb’ (1.3.28)) in their spells. They are also deeply vindictive. The First Witch vows to make the sailor suffer simply because his wife refuses to give in to her gluttonous demand. Her reaction is shockingly, disproportionately cruel: she vows to drain the life out of him until he is ‘dry as hay’ (1.3.18) and curses him with a tortuous inability to sleep, declaring ‘He shall live a man forbid’ (1.3.21) and that he shall ‘dwindle, peak and pine’ (1.3.23). This is a clear example of the crime known in Shakespeare’s day as ‘mischief following anger’, a punishment inflicted as a result of some kind of grievance. Shakespeare uses this passage, then, to demonstrate the Witches’ vindictive nature, leaving the audience in no doubt as to their connection with the powers of evil.

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How does Shakespeare present the Witches here?