Summary: Act 4, scene 1
In a dark cavern, a bubbling cauldron hisses and spits,
and the three witches suddenly appear onstage. They circle the cauldron,
chanting spells and adding bizarre ingredients to their stew—“eye
of newt and toe of frog, / Wool of bat and tongue of dog” (4.1.14–15). Hecate
materializes and compliments the witches on their work. One of the
witches then chants: “By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something
wicked this way comes” (4.1.61–62).
In fulfillment of the witch’s prediction, Macbeth enters. He asks
the witches to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer
his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers
a prediction to allay Macbeth’s fears. First, a floating head warns
him to beware Macduff; Macbeth says that he has already guessed
as much. Then a bloody child appears and tells him that “none of
woman born / shall harm Macbeth” (4.1.96–97).
Next, a crowned child holding a tree tells him that he is safe until
Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. Finally, a procession of eight
crowned kings walks by, the last carrying a mirror. Banquo’s ghost
walks at the end of the line. Macbeth demands to know the meaning
of this final vision, but the witches perform a mad dance and then
vanish. Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to
England. Macbeth resolves to send murderers to capture Macduff’s
castle and to kill Macduff’s wife and children.
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Act 4, scene 1 →
Summary: Act 4, scene 2
At Macduff’s castle, Lady Macduff accosts Ross, demanding
to know why her husband has fled. She feels betrayed. Ross insists
that she trust her husband’s judgment and then regretfully departs.
Once he is gone, Lady Macduff tells her son that his father is dead,
but the little boy perceptively argues that he is not. Suddenly,
a messenger hurries in, warning Lady Macduff that she is in danger
and urging her to flee. Lady Macduff protests, arguing that she
has done no wrong. A group of murderers then enters. When one of
them denounces Macduff, Macduff’s son calls the murderer a liar,
and the murderer stabs him. Lady Macduff turns and runs, and the
pack of killers chases after her.
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Act 4, scene 2 →
Summary: Act 4, scene 3
Outside King Edward’s palace, Malcolm speaks with Macduff,
telling him that he does not trust him since he has left his family
in Scotland and may be secretly working for Macbeth. To determine whether
Macduff is trustworthy, Malcolm rambles on about his own vices.
He admits that he wonders whether he is fit to be king, since he
claims to be lustful, greedy, and violent. At first, Macduff politely
disagrees with his future king, but eventually Macduff cannot keep
himself from crying out, “O Scotland, Scotland!” (4.3.101).
Macduff’s loyalty to Scotland leads him to agree that Malcolm is
not fit to govern Scotland and perhaps not even to live. In giving
voice to his disparagement, Macduff has passed Malcolm’s test of
loyalty. Malcolm then retracts the lies he has put forth about his
supposed shortcomings and embraces Macduff as an ally. A doctor
appears briefly and mentions that a “crew of wretched souls” waits
for King Edward so they may be cured (4.3.142).
When the doctor leaves, Malcolm explains to Macduff that King Edward
has a miraculous power to cure disease.
Ross enters. He has just arrived from Scotland, and tells
Macduff that his wife and children are well. He urges Malcolm to
return to his country, listing the woes that have befallen Scotland
since Macbeth took the crown. Malcolm says that he will return with
ten thousand soldiers lent him by the English king. Then, breaking down,
Ross confesses to Macduff that Macbeth has murdered his wife and
children. Macduff is crushed with grief. Malcolm urges him to turn
his grief to anger, and Macduff assures him that he will inflict
revenge upon Macbeth.
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Act 4, scene 3 →
Analysis: Act 4, scenes 1–3
The witches are vaguely absurd figures, with their rhymes
and beards and capering, but they are also clearly sinister, possessing
a great deal of power over events. Are they simply independent agents playing
mischievously and cruelly with human events? Or are the “weird sisters”
agents of fate, betokening the inevitable? The word weird descends
etymologically from the Anglo-Saxon word wyrd, which means “fate”
or “doom,” and the three witches bear a striking resemblance to
the Fates, female characters in both Norse and Greek mythology.
Perhaps their prophecies are constructed to wreak havoc in the minds
of the hearers, so that they become self-fulfilling. It is doubtful,
for instance, that Macbeth would have killed Duncan if not for his
meeting with the witches. On the other hand, the sisters’ prophecies
may be accurate readings of the future. After all, when Birnam Wood
comes to Dunsinane at the play’s end, the soldiers bearing the branches
have not heard of the prophecy.
Whatever the nature of the witches’ prophecies, their
sheer inscrutability is as important as any reading of their motivations and
natures. The witches stand outside the limits of human comprehension.
They seem to represent the part of human beings in which ambition
and sin originate—an incomprehensible and unconscious part of the
human psyche. In this sense, they almost seem to belong to a Christian framework,
as supernatural embodiments of the Christian concept of original
sin. Indeed, many critics have argued that Macbeth, a
remarkably simple story of temptation, fall, and retribution, is
the most explicitly Christian of Shakespeare’s great tragedies.
If so, however, it is a dark Christianity, one more concerned with
the bloody consequences of sin than with grace or divine love. Perhaps
it would be better to say that Macbeth is the most
orderly and just of the tragedies, insofar as evil deeds lead first to
psychological torment and then to destruction. The nihilism of King
Lear, in which the very idea of divine justice seems laughable, is
absent in Macbeth—divine justice, whether Christian
or not, is a palpable force hounding Macbeth toward his inevitable
end.
