TEXT:
ACT I
SCENE I. A desert place.
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches
First Witch
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch
When the hurlyburly'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.
First Witch
I come, Graymalkin!
Second Witch
Paddock calls.
Third Witch
Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Exeunt
NOTES:
Macbeth / The Scottish Play
Probably the greatest Shakespearean superstition - if not the greatest superstition in the history of the theatre. The play’s relationship with evil and trickery and blood and terror is more than enough to explain how it has come to be such a taboo name. Theatrical tradition is such that it is considered extremely bad luck to say the name of the play: as a result it is invariably referred to as The Scottish Play by anyone not directly working on it. (I slipped up and said the name in a rehearsal once, and this so distressed the lead actor that I indulged him and performed the apparent antidote to the ‘curse’ - one must leave the room, turn around three times, spit or curse and then be invited to come back in. I have not made this mistake again. (You’ll often hear people referring to the play as Mackers, or any number of such variants…!)
Witches
There are those who might insist that the play’s famous trio are not actually witches, or that the word witch isn’t spoken aloud in the play. They are called Weird Sisters, and many other things; this is all fine. But the script calls them witches, and so does the sailor’s wife they mention. I think we can accept that they are witches, since if they’re not, what’s the point of having them?
Familiars
A clear sign of a witch - in this period in which women were so easily vilified for being different - was that she would have a familiar, a small creature that would assist her in her wicked encounters and practices. Shakespeare mentions them here to ensure that there’s no doubt in our mind about these strange figures; they are witches and they are somehow bidden to these supernaturally-controlled figures. Graymalkin is a cat, and Paddock is a toad. These are considerably more sinister than the pets kept by the students of Hogwarts in a more recent story of witches and wizards - there are no familiars in that world. It’d be a much darker story if there were.