THE WEIRD SISTERS – MACBETH - #BLOGCHATTERA2ZCHALLENGE2022

 
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First Witch:

“When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, lightning or in rain?”

Second Witch:

When the hurly-burly’s done,

When the battle’s lost and won.

Third Witch:

That will be ere the set of sun

First Witch:

Where the place?

Second Witch:

Upon the heath

Third Witch:

There to meet with Macbeth.

Act 1, Scene 1 - Macbeth

What a brilliant way to start a play! The three Witches, also known as the three Weird Sisters, meet on a dark, stormy night on the heath, setting the ominous theme of the play from the very start. The audience sits at the end of their seats, unsettled by the light and sound effects, as the three hags speak in short, dramatic lines.

                                                                  QuotesGram              

       Macbeth, often known as, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy was one of his most popular plays as well, maybe because it was dramatic and filled with action. The Weird Sisters were the harbingers of what was to come in the play, and in the protagonist, Macbeth’s, own life as well. Macbeth was an upcoming general, but as in the case of all Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, he had a tragic flaw as well – his blind ambition. It was this flaw that was exploited by the Weird Sisters as they lured him with prophecies that sounded true but were laced with falsehood. As Banquo, Macbeth’s friend, warned him,

“But ‘tis strange./ And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/ The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray ‘s/In deepest consequences.”

However, Macbeth does not heed him, and he believes blindly in the prophecies of the Weird Sisters. Already the Thane of Glamis, when he turns into the Thane of Cawdor as well, according to their prophecies, he then aims at the crown of Scotland.

The plot becomes easy when King Duncan honours the victorious Macbeth by spending a night under his roof. It is then that Lady Macbeth comes into play, a strong woman with a warped mind, and incites her husband to murder the king and seize the throne.

Macbeth’s ambition makes him see his close friend, Banquo, as a threat to the throne through his descendants. He succeeds in getting rid of Banquo, but Banquo’s son, Fleance, escapes to make the prophecy of the Weird Sisters come through. Banquo’s progeny will sit on the throne in due course of time as Macbeth will not have a son to succeed him.

The last time the Weird Sisters meet Macbeth, their prophecies are even more unbelievable. They assure him that he will be safe till Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane, and no one “of woman born” will be able to harm him. Macbeth is elated to hear this, because he feels that it is impossible for these events to come true.

However, once again, the Weird Sisters have used half truths to convince a man who has lost his wife to madness already. His guilty mind causes him to see the ghost of Banquo. Finally, when events go against him, he realises that he has been played like a puppet by the wicked Sisters who have led him to his doom.

                              The Ghost of Banquo Painting by Theodore Chasseriau
                                                                   Pinterest

The term ‘Weird Sisters’ was first used by Scottish writers to describe the Three Fates of Roman and Greek mythology, who are supposed to have control over men’s lives as they have ultimate knowledge about their destinies.

In Holinshed’s chronicles, the original inspiration for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Sisters were shown to be noblewomen with elaborate dresses and hair dos. Maybe the Bard wanted to dramatize them further, and he changed their appearance, making them withered and wild, with beards that belied their gender.

Orson Welles placed ‘Macbeth’ in Haiti in his film adaptation where he made the Weird Sisters voodoo priestesses. Some of the other film versions were the Japanese ‘Throne of Blood’ by Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski’s ‘Macbeth’ (1971) and Joel Coen’s ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ (2021). In the last mentioned, British actress Kathryn Hunter played the roles of all the three Weird Sisters.

Kathryn Hunter who played all the Three Weird Sisters (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

Indiewire.com

Interestingly, JK Rowling has often mentioned the Weird Sisters as an influence in her Harry Potter series.

I am participating in the #Blogchatter A to Z Challenge! Happy Reading and Writing! :)

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