Macbeth Act One – “So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

Macbeth Act One – “So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

Late on the night of November 4^th, 1605, as the wind picked up outside his window, Shakespeare probably put down his 1599 copy the ‘Discovery of Witchcraft, and Daemonologie’ wriiten by the new king James I. The weather outside was foul and well suited to a bit of reading on witches. He then probably downed the last of the mulled wine in the goblet beside his bed before he lifted the brass candle snuffer and put out the candle.

Early the next morning, Shakespeare was probably awoken by a loud knock on the door of his large room at his Silver Street lodgings which he rented from Christopher Mountjoy (a French Huguenot and a wigmaker by trade). The news had started to spread that a plot to blow up the houses of parliament had been foiled the night before and a certain Guy Fawkes had been arrested. The early visitor was probably one of Mountjoy’s apprentices, a young provincial boy from Shakespeare’s home county of Warwickshire. News that people from Warwickshire were involved in the plot probably came as warning to Shakespeare to lay low for a while. Shakespeare could see that his family’s Catholic sympathies might come to haunt him again. He probably then got dressed and went down the local inn where he could get a hearty breakfast of porridge and a pint of ale.

As he walked back to his lodgings he probably pondered on how some of the good men of Warwickshire could let their private ambitions drive them to acts like the attempt to blow up parliament. He thoughts may have drifted momentarily to his own ambitions and as he avoided the inevitable horse manure in the streets and slopsbuckets being emptied out of windows and doors, he may have worried that this new plot could stop his dreams of having a new play and a dozen odd performances at the court this winter. At £10 a performance and sometimes £12 for a new play that King James I liked, Shakespeare knew how lucrative a few court performances could be, so he thought of what of the ideas he had and what stories he could make into plays to make a good impression on James I.

As walked back along Muggle Street, Shakespeare could have thought back to one of his first projects for Ferdinando (the Lord Strange) back in the early 90’s when he was commissioned to write the Henry VI trilogy for the company known as the Lord Strange’s Men. They were a good set of plays but ultimately a piece of flattery, a rewriting of royal history but with the exploits and loyalty of the Lord Strange’s ancestors the Stanleys made to sound pivotal to the English crown. Perhaps he could do the same with James’ Scottish ancestors.

In earnest, Shakespeare walked up the stairs of his Silver Street lodgings, unlocked and walked into his room, fully opened the curtains and took out his ‘Holinshed’s  Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’. It was a 1587 Second Edition which he either had picked up in London in 1590 or it had been given by the Earl of Southhampton if he had worked for him in 1588 at Titchfield. He scanned through the pages until he found the story he wanted and then took down his copy of George Buchanan’s account of the same story in ‘Rerum Scoticarum Historia’. He then took out a leaf of new parchment and the good goose quill that he had purchased a week before and he wrote the title on the parchment ‘The Tragedie of Macbeth’.

Then his imagination traveled and meandered almost as much as the quill on the page. A Scottish moor, a desolate place. Thunder and lightning crash. Enter three witches.

First Witch: “When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

Three witches meet and just like the storm they appear in, they brew thunderous and ethereal plans. They decide to meet after some battle and it is revealed to the audience that they intend to meet on the heath with Macbeth.

We cross to a battle camp at Forres, where the King of Scotland, Duncan sees a bleeding sergeant who then tells the latest news from the battlefield where Scottish forces fight with Irish forces led by the Scottish rebel and traitor Macdonwald. The sergeant initially says that the battle was close: “Doubtful it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together

And choke their art..”

He then relates how their own generals Macbeth and Banquo fought with valour and courage. The horror of the battle is described especially how Macbeth fought his way through and killed Macdonald:

“Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,

And fix'd his head upon our battlements.”

It then is revealed that a second assault happened when the Norwegian army arrived to attack them. The Sergeant is led away to have his wounds treated. Ross then enters and tells of how the traitor the Thane of Cawdor worked with the Norwegian invading army but eventually the Norwegian were defeated and the Thane of Cawdor captured. King Duncan decides to execute Cawdor and give this title to Macbeth for his bravery.

“No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.”

As promised earlier, the three witches meet on a heath near the Forres battlefield. They seem to have been all involved in different activities since they last met. One has been killing swine, while another met a woman who was pigging out on chestnuts and wouldn’t share them with her so she threatens to cast a spell or a curse on the woman’s husband who has sailed off to Allepo. The other witches help her to cast a spell. Then, a drum is heard and the witches know that this signals the approach of Macbeth so they start their mischief or ‘charm’ for Macbeth.

“The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about:

Thrice to thine and thrice to mine

And thrice again, to make up nine.

Peace! the charm's wound up.”

Enter Macbeth and Banquo, on their way to Forres, when they see the three witches who “… look not like the inhabitants o' the earth…” and Macbeth asks them to speak. The witches one by one hail Macbeth first as thane of Glamis (his family title), then as thane of Cawdor (which we know he is about to receive because we heard King Duncan declare it in the last scene but Macbeth doesn’t know yet) and finally the Third Witch hails Macbeth who she declares “…shalt be king hereafter.” Macbeth is taken back by both the hailing by the title of Cawdor and the prediction of kingship. Banquo then asks if they can”… look into the seeds of time” to also predict his future. They witches reply that Banquo will be “… lesser than Macbeth, and greater…” and that his own children shall be kings. When Macbeth demands that the witches explain themselves, they vanish “Into the air… as breath into the wind…”

While Macbeth and Banquo talk about the strange predictions Ross and Angus, arrive and bring the news that King Duncan has rewarded Macbeth with the title of Thane of Cawdor, because the previous thane is about to be tried, judged and probably killed for treason. Macbeth talks then to Banquo about the prophesies of the three witches and questions Banquo whether he has hopes that his own children will be kings. Banquo is cautious and replies that he finds it strange but he remarks that:

“… oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray's

In deepest consequence.”

Macbeth then ignores his companions and in a soliloquy , ruminates upon the possibility that he might one day be king. He contemplates that the two truths in the witches ‘predictions’ could be “…happy prologues to the selling act of the imperial theme…” He goes on to think that none of what the witches say can be evil or “ill” or even “good” because as he logically asks himself:

“Why hath it given me earnest of success,

Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

Against the use of nature?”

Macbeth decides to leave the future up to chance.

“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,

Without my stir.”

Macbeth is brought back to reality and they depart for Forres but not before Macbeth and `Banquo agree to speak again privately about the group departs for Forres. As they leave, Macbeth and Banquo decide to later speak their “free hearts” to each other about this whole business.

At King Duncan’s palace at Forres we hear that of the traitor Cawdor’s death just as Macbeth and Banquo enter. King Duncan shows his gratitude to Macbeth and Banquo and they swear their loyalty to Duncan. Duncan then announces that he declares his eldest son Malcolm the Prince of Cumberland and thus will pass on his throne to him. Duncan then announces that he and the royal party will go straight to Macbeth’s castle in Inverness to celebrate. Macbeth declares that he will go straight away to prepare for King Duncan’s arrival. As he goes, he decides that he will have to do something about matters and asks that his desires stay deep and hidden:

“The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires:

The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”

At Macbeth’s castle in Inverness, we encounter Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth, reading a letter from Macbeth which tells of the witches predictions and his appointment to Thane of Cawdor.

“’They met me in the day of success: and I have

learned by the perfectest report, they have more in

them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire

to question them further, they made themselves air,

into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in

the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who

all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title,

before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred

me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that

shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver

thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou

mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being

ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it

to thy heart, and farewell.’”

Lady Macbeth is happy and declares that Macbeth “shalt be what thou art promised”. But she expresses her reservations and fears that Macbeth will not be ruthless enough to cease this opportunity and she decides to do what ever it takes to help her husband become king.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,

That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;

And that which rather thou dost fear to do

Than wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.”

A messenger interrupts her and tells Lady Macbeth that King Duncan is on his way to their castle and that Macbeth is going to be here himself soon. She dismisses the messenger and conjures spirits to help her do what she knows has to be done.

“The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry 'Hold, hold!'”

Then Macbeth arrives enters, and Lady Macbeth seems pleased to see him. Macbeth announces that Duncan comes that very night and will leave the next day and Lady Macbeth declares:

“O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

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 eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under't. He that's coming

Must be provided for: and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch;

Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.”

Macbeth baulks at what is suggested and Lady Macbeth says that they should cease this opportunity and asks that Macbeth leaves the plans to her. He agrees that they will speak later about this.

King Duncan and his party arrive at Inverness and are greeted by Lady Macbeth who says that they are indebted to the king and are his servants. They then go in to see Macbeth.

It is night and the festivities are well under way and King Duncan has almost finished eating. Macbeth enters contemplates the murder of Duncan deciding that as Duncan’s kinsman and host that he should not do it and that other reasons such as the virtues of Duncan himself mean that he should not be killed particularly since the only reasons Macbeth has to kill Duncan are his own over-reaching ambition:

“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly: if the assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease success; that but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgment here; that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips. He's here in double trust;

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself

And falls on the other.”

Then Lady Macbeth enters and asks why Macbeth has left the feast particularly since King Duncan is asking for him. Macbeth replies that they “will proceed no further in this business” of killing Duncan since he has already honoured them. Lady Macbeth is beside herself and call Macbeth a coward and attacks his masculinity. She even declares that she would follow through with infanticide if she had sworn as Macbeth has sworn:

“I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.”

The tide has turned. Macbeth asks what happens if they fail and lady Macbeth says that with courage they cannot fail. She tells Macbeth of the plan she has hatched to get chamberlains drunk so that then they can “perform” anything on the “unguarded Duncan”. Macbeth adds to the plan by suggesting that they smear the chamberlains faces with blood to make it look as if they had done it. Act One ends with Macbeth now resolved to kill King Duncan.

“I am settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”