The Weird Sisters

Witchcraft is now a thing of the past, as far as England is concerned, unless there still lingers in some very remote corners a belief in the power for evil of some poor old body, whose only claim for such distinction is, perhaps, her loneliness and ugliness. But in ancient days, and even into the last century, such a belief was a very usual thing. “Wise women,” as they were often called, who pretended they had the power of foretelling the future, were by no means uncommon, and even learned people and those in high positions were not ashamed to consult them with regard to coming events. In Scotland this belief lingered much longer than in England, and even to this day, in remote parts of the Highlands, there are some who claim they have the gift of “second sight”—that is, that they can see in advance events that will happen several years hence.

The time when the present story occurred was hundreds of years ago, in the year 1039, before William the Conqueror had come to Britain, and when England and Scotland were entirely separate kingdoms.

The throne of Scotland was then occupied by a King called Duncan. The country at all times was much at the mercy of Northern invaders, and just at that period it was suffering from the inroads of the Norwegian hosts, who, secretly aided by the traitor Thane of Cawdor, had obtained a footing in the eastern county of Fife. But their brief victory was changed to defeat by the valour of the Scotch Generals, Macbeth and Banquo. Sweyn, King of Norway, was forced to sue for a truce, and had even to pay a fine of ten thousand dollars to obtain leave to bury his men who had fallen in the fight.

News was brought to King Duncan of the victory that had been gained by the valour of Macbeth, and, pronouncing the doom of instant death on the traitor Thane of Cawdor, he ordered that his title should be bestowed as a reward on Macbeth.

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It was a wild night, on a desolate heath near Forres. The setting sun, low down on the horizon, cast a blood-red glow over the withered bracken and a group of blasted fir-trees. The thunder rolled overhead, the wind howled in long moaning gusts, the lightning flashed in jagged streaks. But to the three strange figures that approached from different quarters, and met in the centre of this lonely heath, such wild weather was of no import, or, rather, it suited well with their grim and sinister mood. Children of the night, their deeds were those of darkness. The wholesome sunlight and the breath of day made them shrink and cower in secret lurking-places, but when midnight veiled the sky they stole out to their unholy revels, or on the wings of the tempest they rode forth, bringing death or disaster to all who crossed their track.

“Where hast thou been, sister?” asked the first witch.

And the second replied: “Killing swine.”

“Sister, where thou?” asked the third witch.

“A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, and munched, and munched, and munched,” said the first witch. “‘Give me,’ quoth I. ‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the pampered creature cried. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger; but in a sieve I’ll thither sail, and, like a rat without a tail, I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do,” ended the witch spitefully.

“I’ll give thee a wind,” said the second witch.

“Thou art kind.”

“And I another,” said the third witch.

“I myself have all the other,” continued the first witch, gloating over the revenge she intended to take on the husband of the woman who had repulsed her, and she continued in a sort of chant:

“Show me, show me!” cried the second witch eagerly.

At this moment across the heath came the roll of a drum and the tramp of marching feet.

“A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come!” cried the third witch.

Then the three fearsome creatures, linking hands, solemnly performed a wild dance, waving their skinny arms in strange gestures, and uttering a discordant wail:

Macbeth and Banquo, marching across the heath on their way home, after the campaign with the Norwegians, were startled at the sight of these three uncanny figures barring their path.

“What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants of earth, and yet are on it?” said Banquo. “Are you alive? Or are you anything that man may question?”

“Speak, if you can; what are you?” said Macbeth.

And the three witches answered by saluting him, each in turn:

“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”

“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

“All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be King hereafter.”

“Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?” said Banquo, for Macbeth stood as if rapt in a dream, amazed at what he heard.

Then Banquo asked the witches, if indeed they could look into the future, to say something to him, who neither begged nor feared their favours nor their hate.

The witches thereupon replied:

“Hail!” “Hail!” “Hail!”

“Lesser than Macbeth and greater!”

“Not so happy, yet much happier!”

“Thou shalt beget Kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!”

“Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!”

Macbeth would fain have questioned these mysterious creatures further, but not a word more would they speak. By the death of a relative, he was certainly Thane of Glamis, but, as far as he knew, the Thane of Cawdor lived, an honourable gentleman, for Macbeth had not yet heard of his treachery, and how his title was forfeited. And to be King stood not within the prospect of belief, no more than to be Thane of Cawdor. But when Macbeth again charged the witches to speak, they vanished, seeming almost to melt like bubbles into the misty twilight from which they had emerged.

The two victorious generals stood and looked at each other, mute for awhile with awe and wonder. They had fought with armed hosts on the field of battle, but here was a mystery which might amaze the stoutest heart. The poison was already beginning to work. Deeply ambitious at heart, though lacking in resolution to cut his way ruthlessly to the highest goal, the witches’ words had found a ready welcome in Macbeth’s secret desires. But not yet could he openly avow them.

“Your children shall be Kings,” he said to Banquo; and back came the answer which perhaps he was longing to hear:

“You shall be King!”

“And Thane of Cawdor, too, went it not so?” he asked, with a half-assumed air of incredulity.

“To the self-same tune and words,” said Banquo.

The mysterious greeting of the witches now received strange confirmation, for messengers arrived from King Duncan, bringing news that the Thane of Cawdor had been condemned to death for treason, and that his title and estate were conferred on Macbeth. Such an instant proof of the witches’ powers of divination could not fail to fill Macbeth’s mind with strange imaginings.

“Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!” he murmured to himself. “The greatest is behind.” Then he spoke to Banquo apart: “Do you not hope your children shall be Kings, when those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me promised no less to them?”

But Banquo’s nature was less easily carried away than Macbeth’s. He warned him that it was dangerous to put any trust in doers of evil; often to win people to their harm they would tell truth in trifles, in order to betray them in matters of the deepest consequence.

Macbeth scarcely paid any attention to what Banquo said. His thoughts were fixed now on one idea. The witches had foretold truly that he should be Thane of Cawdor when there seemed no likelihood of such an event taking place. Why, then, should they not have spoken equal truth when they foretold a higher honour?

A dreadful idea was already beginning to take shape in Macbeth’s mind. At first he shrank from it in horror, but again and again it came back with renewed force. At last he tried resolutely to thrust it from him.

“If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me, without my stir,” he said to himself. Then, with the feeling that he would leave events to work out as fate chose, he added: “Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

But even yet he could not put the matter from him, and determine to think no more about it, as a wise man would have done. He wanted to reflect over what had passed, and discuss it again with Banquo.

“Let us go to the King,” he said to Banquo; for the messengers had come to summon him to Duncan, in order to receive his thanks for the victory. “We will think over what has chanced, and later on, having in the meanwhile pondered it, let us speak our hearts freely to each other.”

“Very gladly,” agreed Banquo.

“Till then, enough,” said Macbeth. “Come, friends;” and away he went with Banquo and the other lords to receive his new honours from the King’s hands.

At the Castle of Macbeth

King Duncan received Macbeth and Banquo most graciously, and at the same time as he conferred the new dignity on Macbeth he took the opportunity of announcing that his own eldest son, Malcolm, should succeed himself as King of Scotland, and should be named hereafter Prince of Cumberland. In those days of strife and bloodshed it was by no means an assured fact that the crown should descend peaceably from father to son. When the rightful heir was young or feeble, some more powerful relative often stepped forward and seized the sceptre for himself. Macbeth’s wife was a near kinswoman of the King—according to some of the old chroniclers, she had even a better claim to the throne than Duncan himself. Macbeth may have been hoping that after the King’s death, if it came about by natural means, the crown might pass to himself. But this public proclamation of the young Prince as the heir was an obstacle in his path which would prove a stumbling-block to his ambition, unless he overleaped it. Once more, stronger than ever, rose the evil suggestion in his mind. He knew well the dark deed to which it was leading, but he was already almost determined to go through with it, cost what it might.

Macbeth’s character was well understood by his wife. He wished to be great, was not without ambition, but his nature was not yet sufficiently hardened to snatch what he wanted by the shortest way. The great things he wanted he would have been glad to get by rightful means; he did not wish to play falsely, but he was quite content to win wrongly. Accustomed to rely on the stern judgment of his wife, he now wrote to her a full account of the meeting with the witches, and left the matter to her firmer will to puzzle out.

If there were any hesitation in Macbeth’s mind, there was none at all in Lady Macbeth’s. Her husband was already Thane of Glamis and Thane of Cawdor; well, he should reach the highest honour prophesied. So resolved was she on this point, and so swift was her mind to plot evil, that when a messenger arrived to say that King Duncan was then on his way to the castle, and would be there that night, she almost betrayed the treason in her heart by the startled exclamation, “Thou art mad to say it!” It seemed as though fate itself were delivering the unsuspecting victim straight into her hands.

“The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements,” she muttered to herself; and with terrible decision she began to stifle all thoughts of womanly weakness or pity, and to nerve herself with unflinching cruelty for the deed that lay before her.

A few minutes in advance of the King came Macbeth, and was received with the warmest greeting from his wife.

“My dearest love,” he said, “Duncan comes here to-night.”

“And when goes hence?” asked Lady Macbeth, in a voice of dreadful import.

“To-morrow—as he purposes,” faltered Macbeth, avoiding his wife’s direct gaze.

“Oh, never shall sun that morrow see!” cried Lady Macbeth. “Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men may read strange matters. To beguile the time, look like the time; bear welcome in your hand, your eye, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. He who is coming must be provided for, and you shall put this night’s great business into my despatch.”

“We will speak further,” said Macbeth, still irresolute.

“Only look up clear,” said Lady Macbeth; “to alter favour ever is to fear. Leave all the rest to me.”

The counsel Lady Macbeth gave her husband she was quite ready to carry out herself. King Duncan was welcomed with smiling courtesy, and the gentle old King was charmed by the grace and kind attention of his hostess.

The castle itself was pleasantly situated; the air was fresh and sweet, and so mild that the guests of summer, the temple-haunting martins, built in every nook and coign of vantage. In truth, everything around seemed to breathe peace and innocent security.

But the hearts of the master and mistress of this castle were far from the loyalty they paraded to their royal guest, though the unbending will of Lady Macbeth was lacking to her husband. Torn with conflicting thoughts, he stole away from the chamber where King Duncan was supping, in order to ponder alone over the problem whether or not he should commit this crime. There were many reasons that cried out against it. First, Macbeth was the kinsman and subject of Duncan, both strong reasons against the deed. Then, he was the host of Duncan, and as such should have barred the door against his murderer, not borne the knife himself. Duncan had shown himself so meek in his high office that all his virtues would plead in his behalf, and fill the land with horror and pity at his fate. Macbeth had no spur to urge him onward except his vaulting ambition, which might overleap its aim and fail, after all.

Missing her husband from the supper-room, Lady Macbeth followed him into the deserted hall, and when he said to her, “We will proceed no further in this business,” she overwhelmed him with the bitterest contempt. She taunted him with his pitiful lack of resolution, and derided him for his cowardly want of valour—“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ like the poor cat in the adage,” as she expressed it. When Macbeth suggested that they might fail, she laughed the idea to scorn. “We fail!” she cried. “But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.” Then she sketched out the plan of how they might proceed. When Duncan was asleep, she would drug with wine the two soldiers who kept watch at his door, and what then would prevent her and her husband doing anything they liked to the unguarded King? And, finally, what would prevent their laying the blame on the two drowsy officers, who would thus bear the guilt of the murder?

Fired with admiration for his wife’s undaunted courage, Macbeth made no further demur, and the murder of their guest, the King, was agreed on.

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That night was dark and wild, one of the roughest that had ever been known. The moon went down at twelve o’clock, and after that all was black, not a star visible. The wind moaned and wailed round the turrets of the castle, chimneys were blown down, strange screams were heard, which seemed to foretell coming woe; the owl, the fatal bellman of death, shrieked the livelong night.

The inmates of the castle were disturbed and uneasy; it was late before they sought their rooms, for there was feasting and revelry because of the King’s arrival; and, then, to many of them, sleep was impossible, because of the raging of the storm outside. But of what was happening in their midst they had no suspicion.

At the appointed hour, Macbeth, trembling with terror at his own deed, crept into Duncan’s room, and killed the King. He looked so calm and peaceful as he lay there wrapt in slumber that sudden remorse filled the heart of the murderer, and he stood fixed in horror, gazing at what he had done. In a neighbouring room two of the King’s followers stirred and called out in their sleep. One laughed, and one cried “Murder!” so that they woke each other; and Macbeth stood and heard them. But with a muttered prayer they turned again to sleep, and presently Macbeth recovered sufficiently to creep back to his wife to tell her that the deed was done.

But though he had nerved himself to strike the blow, all Macbeth’s courage again ebbed away. He shuddered with horror when he looked at the blood on his hands, and it was all his wife could do to rouse him from the sort of stupor that seemed to have seized him.

“These deeds must not be thought of in this way; it will make us mad,” she said, when Macbeth was telling her what had happened in the chamber of the King.

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“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!’” continued Macbeth, still in the same dazed fashion: “‘Macbeth doth murder sleep’—the innocent sleep, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast——”

“What do you mean?” interrupted his wife.

“Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house; ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’”

“Who was it that thus cried?” said Lady Macbeth impatiently. “Why, worthy Thane, you weaken your strength by thinking so foolishly of things. Go, get some water, and wash this witness from your hands. Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there.—And smear the sleepy grooms with blood.”

“I’ll go no more,” said Macbeth. “I am afraid to think what I have done; look on it again I dare not.”

“Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers!” cried Lady Macbeth contemptuously. “The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.” And, seizing the daggers from her husband’s nerveless grasp, she carried them back into King Duncan’s room, and placed them in the hands of the drowsy attendants, to make it appear as if it were they who had murdered the King.

Before Lady Macbeth could rejoin her husband, there came a knocking at the outer gate, and she hurried him away to put on night apparel, in order to divert suspicion from themselves if they were summoned.

The new-comer was a Scotch lord called Macduff, whom the King had appointed to call on him early in the morning. He was admitted into Duncan’s room, when, of course, the crime was at once discovered. All was now horror and confusion. Macbeth feigned as much dismay as everyone else showed. The whole castle was aroused; the alarum bell pealed out. Macduff shouted for Banquo, and for the two young Princes, Malcolm and Donalbain. Lady Macbeth came running in, as if just disturbed from sleep.

Fearing what the two grooms might say when they recovered from their drugged sleep, Macbeth took the opportunity in the uproar to slay them both, pretending that he was carried away by the fury of the moment at seeing the evidence of their villainy, the daggers in their hands.

But the suspicions of the two young Princes were aroused; they dreaded that the treachery begun was not yet ended, and they felt no safety in their present abode. So when Macbeth summoned a meeting in the hall of the castle to decide what was to be the future course of action, they secretly stole away, for better security resolving to separate, Malcolm, the elder son, going to England, and Donalbain, the younger, to Ireland.

The Guest at the Banquet

Macbeth had all his promised honours now—King, Cawdor, Glamis—everything that the weird women had prophesied. But Macbeth was not satisfied. There was one danger ever present in his path. Banquo, his ancient comrade in arms, distrusted Macbeth; he suspected him of playing most foully to win his present high honours. Macbeth, for his part, feared Banquo, because of his noble nature, valour, and wisdom in judgment. Outwardly he treated him with flattering civility, but inwardly he was resolved to rid himself of this dangerous companion. It was nothing to be King unless he could reign in safety. Moreover, when the weird sisters gave the name of King to Macbeth, they had, prophet-like, hailed Banquo father to a line of Kings. They placed a fruitless crown on Macbeth’s head, and a barren sceptre in his grip, if no son of his succeeded. If this were so, it was for Banquo’s children he had defiled his mind and murdered the good King Duncan—only for them! Macbeth resolved to go a step further in the path of crime, and to kill both Banquo and his young son Fleance.

There was to be a great feast one night at the palace. Banquo was especially invited to be present, both by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and he promised to be back in time for the banquet, though he had to ride out that afternoon on a matter of business. Macbeth inquired if he had to ride far, and Banquo answered that it would take all the time between then and supper—possibly he might even have to borrow an hour or two from the darkness, unless his horse went very well.

“Fail not our feast,” said Macbeth.

“My lord, I will not,” said Banquo.

“We hear our cruel cousins are bestowed in England and Ireland, not confessing their murder of their father,” continued Macbeth, who now pretended to believe that King Duncan’s own sons had killed him. “But more of that to-morrow. Hie you to horse! Adieu till you return at night.”

Then, in a voice of feigned carelessness, he asked Banquo if Fleance were going with him that afternoon.

Banquo replied that he was, and that they ought to start at once, and with a few final words of civil farewell Macbeth at last let him depart.

Directly he had gone, Macbeth gave an order to an attendant, and two men of grim and sinister aspect were secretly ushered into his presence. These were two murderers whom he had hired to assassinate Banquo. When he had got their consent to the cruel deed, Macbeth told them that within the next hour he would instruct them where to plant themselves, and let them know the exact hour, for the deed must be done that night, and at some distance from the palace. He also gave them strict injunctions that the work was to be done thoroughly, and that the young boy Fleance was to be slain with his father, for his absence was just as material to Macbeth as was Banquo’s.

The murderers promised to obey his directions, and he dismissed them.

If Macbeth were troubled in mind and ill at ease, his wife was no happier. She had reached the height of her ambition: her husband was King of Scotland. But the royal crown that glittered on her brow brought no charm with it to soothe the restless trouble at her heart.

That was the secret of their misery; Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had got their heart’s desire, and in the unworthy getting of it they found it brought them no content or peace of mind. Sick at heart, weary, dissatisfied, it would have been hard to find a sadder pair that day in Scotland than the King and Queen in their royal robes, on the eve of their grand state banquet.

But true to her old undaunted spirit, even in the midst of her own depression, Lady Macbeth tried to rouse her husband from his despondent gloom.

“How now, my lord?” she said. “Why do you keep alone, making companions of sorriest fancies? Things without all remedy should be without regard; what’s done is done.”

“We have but scotched the snake, not killed it,” returned Macbeth, whose mind was always brooding on the possible dangers ahead. All day he was thinking over the past, or plotting fresh wickedness to secure his own safety, and by night he was haunted by the most terrible dreams. In this constant state of unrest he could even think with envy of the quiet repose of the man he had killed. “Better be with the dead, whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace, than to live on in the restless torture of the mind. Duncan is in his grave; after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done its worst; nor steel, nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy—nothing can touch him further.”

“Come, my gentle lord,” said Lady Macbeth, “smooth your rugged looks; be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.”

“So I shall, love, and so I pray be you,” said Macbeth. “Oh, my mind is full of scorpions, dear wife! You know that Banquo and his son Fleance live.”

“But they will not live for ever,” said Lady Macbeth.

“There’s comfort yet; they can be assailed,” said Macbeth; and then, in dark, mysterious words, he gave his wife to understand that a deed of dreadful note was to be done that night, though he refused to tell her more precisely what it was. “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed,” he ended. “Thou marvellest at my words, but hold thee still: things bad begun make themselves strong by evil.”

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In the great hall of the palace the banquet was spread. The King and Queen entered, with the Thanes of Lennox and Ross and many other noblemen of Scotland. Macbeth bade them be seated, and gave to one and all a hearty welcome. As the guests took their places at table, the arras hanging over a side-doorway was pushed apart, and a grim face peered in. Leaving the stool (for there were no chairs in those days) which he was about to occupy at the side of the table, in the midst of the guests, Macbeth went to speak to the intruder. It was one of the hired assassins, and he brought the news that Banquo was safely slain.

Macbeth was greatly pleased to hear this, but in another moment all his fear and discontent rushed back, for the young boy Fleance had escaped. The child of Banquo that was to be King hereafter! But Macbeth tried to console himself with the thought that, as he expressed it, “the grown serpent” was disposed of, and for the present, at least, the young snake had no teeth to bite.

Macbeth stood so wrapt in gloomy musing that Lady Macbeth was forced to recall him to a sense of his duties as host. Poor lady, she had a hard task that night. Not only had she to conceal her own unhappiness, but she had to support the flagging spirits of her husband, and try to screen his strange behaviour, while she scattered smiles and flattering words in all directions. Macbeth roused himself by fits and starts, but his gaiety was forced, and his wife dreaded that every moment he would betray himself. However, at Lady Macbeth’s rebuke, he tried to shake off his gloom, and, approaching the table, he made an effort to speak cheerfully to the guests.

“May it please your highness sit,” said the Thane of Lennox.

The seat which Macbeth had been about to occupy when he went to speak to the murderer had remained empty, but now, unnoticed by all the other guests, a figure glided in and took possession of it.

If only Banquo were present, Macbeth went on to say, their honour would be complete, and he hoped it was his own fault, and no mischance, that had kept him away.

The Thane of Ross replied that Banquo deserved blame for not keeping his promise, and again asked Macbeth to favour them with his company.

“The table’s full,” said Macbeth.

“Here is a place reserved, sir,” said Lennox.

“Where?”

“Here, my good lord,” said Lennox, pointing to the seat Macbeth had first chosen. “What is it that moves your Highness?” he added in alarm, for Macbeth stood gazing in horror at what seemed to the others nothing but an empty stool.

Well might the guilty King tremble and grow pale, for in the place that seemed vacant to everyone else he saw sitting the blood-stained figure of the murdered Banquo.

“Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me!” he cried, recoiling in horror.

“Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is not well,” said the Thane of Ross.

But with eager words Lady Macbeth tried to calm the startled guests, assuring them that it was only a momentary fit of illness, such as Macbeth had been accustomed to from his youth. “Eat, and regard him not,” she implored them, and then, in a stern undertone, she tried to rouse her husband from his fit of dazed terror. But Macbeth was heedless of her entreaties. With starting eyes he watched the ghastly figure which his guilty brain alone could see, and it was only when the vision melted away that he recovered from the sort of stupor into which he had fallen. Then, for a brief moment, he spoke cheerfully, and, calling for wine, he drank to the health of all present.

“And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss,” he added boldly. “Would he were here! To all, and him, we drink!”

The words were scarcely uttered, when once more the vision of the murdered man rose before Macbeth. With a scream of terror he again recoiled, pouring forth a torrent of entreaties and defiance. Lady Macbeth once more tried to smooth matters over, but her husband’s frenzied ravings could not be so lightly covered, and, dreading the suspicions that his wild words must give rise to, she hastily dismissed the guests on the plea of his sudden illness.

When everyone had gone, and the husband and wife were left alone, she was too worn out and unhappy to utter any further reproaches or questions. Haggard and miserable, the guilty pair stood there in the deserted hall, amid the broken fragments of the disordered feast and the dying torches that flickered in the first gray twilight of dawn. Ashes of splendour, loneliness, despair—it seemed like the emblem of their own ruined lives.

Macbeth was quiet enough now; he seemed possessed with a sort of sullen desperation. He had waded so deep in blood, it would be as tedious to go back as to go forward, and he determined that any cause that hindered his own good should be ruthlessly swept aside. It was he, not Lady Macbeth, who was the leader now. Banquo’s murder he had arranged alone, and he asked no counsel from his wife about a fresh deed of iniquity he was already planning.

But in his guilty superstition he resolved to go early the next day to seek the weird sisters, to learn from them, if possible, what secrets fate still held in store.

The Witches’ Cavern

Macbeth had gained his throne by treachery, and he had no confidence in the loyalty of his subjects. He feared lest they should plot together to bring back the sons of Duncan, and he had secret spies in the households of all the great nobles. The one he feared most, next to Banquo, was Macduff, Thane of Fife, and when the latter refused to obey the tyrant’s bidding to attend the great feast, Macbeth knew that he was likely to prove a dangerous enemy, and resolved to get rid of him without delay. But before he could lay hands on him, Macduff fled the country, leaving his wife and children in his castle in Fife, and going himself to the Court of the English King to beg his help in placing Malcolm on the throne.

It was the day after the banquet at Macbeth’s palace. In a gloomy cavern, far removed from the haunts of men, the three witches were busy brewing a hideous compound for some dark and evil purpose. In the middle of the cavern was a boiling cauldron, and as the witches circled round it in a grotesque dance, each in turn flung in some horrible ingredient. The flames crackled, clouds of hissing steam arose from the cauldron, and as they danced the witches croaked a discordant chant:

The charm was just completed to their satisfaction, when there came a knocking at the entrance of the cavern. The second witch looked up with a cunning gleam in her sunken eyes.

The door swung open by itself, and Macbeth entered. In spite of his curiosity, he stood almost appalled at the weird scene before him. The darkness of the cavern was fitfully lighted by the leaping flames of the fire, and the evil faces that peered back at him from the shadowy gloom might well bring discomfort to a guilty soul.

“How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags? What is it you do?” he demanded.

“A deed without a name,” answered the witches in chorus.

“I conjure you, by that which you profess, however you come to know it, answer me to what I ask you.”

“Speak!” “Demand!” “We’ll answer,” said the witches. “Say if you would rather hear it from our mouths or from our masters?”

“Call them; let me see them.”

The first witch flung some additional horrible charms into the cauldron, and then the three chanted together:

There was a flash of light, a roll of thunder, and in the midst of a cloud of blue steam there rose from the cauldron the Apparition of an armed Head.

“Tell me, thou unknown power——” began Macbeth.

“He knows thy thought,” said the first witch; “hear his speech, but say thou nought.”

“Whate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks,” said Macbeth, as the Apparition sank from view. “Thou hast spoken my fear aright; but one word more——”

“He will not be commanded,” said the witch. “Here is another, more potent than the first.”

There was another roll of thunder, and a second Apparition arose from the cauldron, a blood-stained Child.

“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!”

“Had I three ears, I’d hear thee.”

“Then live, Macduff; what need I fear of thee?” cried Macbeth. “But yet I’ll make assurance double sure; thou shalt not live; that I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, and sleep in spite of thunder.”

There was a third roll of thunder, and a third Apparition rose—a Child crowned, with a tree in its hand.

“What is this that rises like the issue of a King, and wears upon his baby brow the round of sovereignty?”

“Listen, but do not speak to it,” commanded the witches; and the Apparition spoke on:

“That will never be!” cried Macbeth, in delighted relief, as the vision of the baby King sank back into the cauldron. As he truly said, who could remove the forest, and bid the trees unfix their earth-bound roots? All the bodements were good. Fate seemed bright before him. But there was still one thing his heart throbbed to know.

“Tell me, if your art can tell so much,” he begged the witches, “shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom?”

“Seek to know no more,” came the solemn warning.

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”I will be satisfied. Deny me this, and an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know! Why does that cauldron sink, and what noise is that?” For there was the sound of trumpets.

Then in the dusk of the cavern shone a strange luminous glow, and slowly in procession passed a line of eight Kings; the last carried a mirror in his hand, and was followed by Banquo’s ghost.

Horrible sight! Then, after all, the witches had spoken truly, and it was Banquo’s children who should fill the throne of Scotland for untold generations. For in the mirror held by the eighth King were reflected many more, and some of them carried twofold orbs and treble sceptres.

“What, is this so?” demanded Macbeth, and the first witch answered:

Then a strain of weird music was heard, and in a sort of wild, mocking dance the witches vanished, the cauldron sank into the earth, and Macbeth was left standing alone in the gloomy cavern.

Birnam Wood

When Macbeth learnt that Macduff had escaped from his power and fled to England, he took a fiendish revenge: he gave orders that his castle in Fife should be surprised and seized, and his wife and children slain. Macbeth’s barbarous commands were executed, and the Thane of Fife’s wife, children, servants, and every unfortunate soul in the castle, were ruthlessly slaughtered.

Scotland had long been groaning under the heavy yoke of the tyrant, and at this cruel deed it broke into open rebellion. Macduff returned from England, bringing the young Prince Malcolm with him, and many noblemen flocked to their standard. Macduff, burning with revenge for the loss of all his dear ones, swore that if ever the tyrant came within reach of his sword he should never escape alive.

In the troubles that now gathered thick and fast around him, Macbeth had no longer the counsel of his devoted wife to strengthen him. The punishment of her evil deeds had fallen upon Lady Macbeth. Her stern spirit was broken, for she was a prey to all the tortures of unavailing remorse. Her sleep was troubled, and in her dreams she acted over and over again the scene that had taken place on the night of Duncan’s murder. The doctor called in to attend her could not explain the cause of the illness that seemed consuming her, but her waiting gentlewoman told him that at night Lady Macbeth would rise in her sleep, and speak strange words and act in a strange manner. The doctor resolved to watch, himself, to see what happened. For two nights all was quiet, but on the third night, as he was speaking to the gentlewoman, Lady Macbeth entered, clad in a night-mantle, and carrying a lighted taper. Her eyes were open, but she evidently saw nothing; she was walking in her sleep. Setting down the taper, she began to rub her hands, as if she were washing them, speaking the while in a low voice. From her broken phrases it was easy to guess the scene of guilt that was haunting her brain. Mixed with words about Duncan’s murder came reproaches to her husband for his lack of courage, and then references to other crimes—the murder of Banquo, and the death of the Thane of Fife’s wife. And all the time Lady Macbeth kept rubbing and rubbing her hands; but it was of no use—nothing would ever make them clean again.

“Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand,” she moaned, as if her heart were breaking.

“What a sigh is there!” said the doctor. “The heart is sorely charged.”

“I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body,” said the gentlewoman.

“This disease is beyond my practice,” said the doctor: “yet I have known those that have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.”

“Wash your hands; put on your nightgown, look not so pale!” muttered Lady Macbeth. ”I tell you yet again, Banquo is buried; he cannot come out of his grave. To bed, to bed! There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed!” And, with a gesture as if she were dragging some invisible person reluctantly after her, Lady Macbeth took up her taper and slowly retreated.

The strain of this unceasing remorse by day and night was too much even for Lady Macbeth’s dauntless courage, and the days of her life were soon to be numbered.

Macbeth himself was bordering on a state of frenzy. Some said he was mad; others, who hated him less, called it valiant fury. Whichever it might be, certain it was that his excitement was beyond control, and that he could not direct his cause in a reasonable manner. Sick at heart, void of all hope, he yet summoned all his courage, and resolved to fight stubbornly to the end, like some savage animal brought to bay.

The English troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, were close at hand, and the Scottish nobles with their followers were to meet them near Birnam Wood. From here the combined forces were to march on Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth now was, and which he had strongly fortified.

Rumours of the enemy’s might filled the air, but Macbeth, trying to reassure himself with the witches’ prophecy, bade his people bring him no more reports.

“Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot quail with fear,” he declared. “What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know all mortal consequences have said to me thus: ‘Fear not, Macbeth; no man that’s born of woman shall e’er have power upon thee.’”

So, when a white-faced, trembling messenger brought the news that ten thousand English soldiers were marching on Dunsinane, Macbeth silenced him with curses and abuse.

But his momentary rage over, he fell again into dejection.

“I am sick at heart,” he said; “I have lived long enough, my way of life has fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, such as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, curses not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.”

Then, shaking off his despondency in a fresh outburst of fury, he rallied his men, determined to make a most stubborn resistance, no matter what forces were brought against him. “I will not be afraid of death and bane, till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane,” he cried, once more falling back for comfort on the witches’ prophecy.

News again came to Macbeth of the near approach of the English, and that the Scottish nobles were flocking to the standard of the young Prince. But he refused to be daunted.

“Hang out our banners on the outward walls,” he shouted. “The cry is still, ‘They come.’ Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.”

In the midst of his warlike commands, a cry of women was heard within the castle, and the news was told Macbeth that the Queen was dead. For a moment he was stunned. This, then, was the end of all their plotting and ambition! But now there was no time even to spend in grief.

“She should have died hereafter,” he said, with a bitter reflection on the vanity of human life. “There would have been time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

But his musing was interrupted; a messenger came hurrying up, his face full of terror.

“Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.”

The man sank on his knee before Macbeth.

“Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, but know not how to do it.”

“Well, say, sir,” said Macbeth impatiently.

“As I stood watching upon the hill, I looked towards Birnam, and anon, methought, the wood began to move.”

“Liar and slave!” cried Macbeth, livid with fury, and striking the man to the ground.

“Let me endure your wrath if it be not so,” persisted the messenger. “Within these three miles you may see it coming; I say, a moving grove.”

“If thou speak false, upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive till famine cling thee,” said Macbeth. “If thy speech be true, I care not if thou dost as much for me.”

His resolution faltered, and he began to doubt the falseness of the fiends that lied like truth. “Fear not till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,” they had said. And now a wood was coming to Dunsinane!

“Arm, arm, and out!” thundered Macbeth.—“If this which he avouches be true, there is no flying hence nor tarrying here,” he thought, sick at heart. “I begin to be aweary of the sun, and wish the estate of the world were now undone.” Then, with a sudden return of fury, “Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back!”

The strange occurrence reported by the messenger was indeed true, but the explanation was simple. When the English and Scotch troops met near Birnam Wood, in order the better to conceal the soldiers as they marched to Dunsinane, Malcolm commanded that every man should hew down a leafy bough, and bear it before him, thereby making it impossible that the number of their host could be discovered. From a distance this mass of waving green boughs looked exactly as if Birnam Wood were advancing on Dunsinane.

The first of the witches’ safeguards had failed Macbeth, but he fell back with desperate reliance on the other. Besides, in any case, it was now too late to retreat; he must fight the matter out to the end, and either conquer or be lost for ever.

“They have tied me to a stake,” he cried. “I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. What’s he that was not born of woman? Such a one am I to fear, or none.”

In his furious fighting on the battle-field he presently encountered one of the English leaders, whom he promptly slew. Macbeth laughed in triumph, for he felt himself secure; he feared no weapon brandished by any man born of woman.

But the hour of fate was at hand. Macduff, scorning to strike the wretched peasants, hired to fight, sought everywhere for Macbeth, determined either to slay the tyrant or sheathe his sword unused. And at last he found him.

But Macbeth seemed to shrink from the furious challenge.

“Of all men else I have avoided thee,” he said. “But get thee back; my soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.”

“I have no words; my voice is in my sword,” returned Macduff.

They fought, but for awhile neither got the better. Then Macbeth told Macduff that he was losing labour, for it was as easy for his keen sword to hurt the air as to wound him. He bore a charmed life, which could not yield to one of woman born.

“Despair thy charm!” cried Macduff. And the next moment Macbeth knew that the witches had doubly deceived him, for his second hope had failed—Macduff proclaimed that his birth had been different from that of ordinary mortals, so that in a way he might be said never to have been born.

“Accursed be the tongue that tells me so!” exclaimed Macbeth, “for it hath cowed my better part of man. And be those juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense; that keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee!”

“Then yield thee, coward!” taunted Macduff, “and live to be the show and gaze of the time; we’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted upon a pole, and underwrit, ‘Here you may see the tyrant.’”

His words goaded Macbeth’s failing nerve to fresh fury. Desperate and despairing, he flung his final challenge at his foe.

“I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, and to be baited with the rabble’s curse! Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and cursed be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

“Lay on, Macduff!”