Scene summary
On the heath, The Witches talk of petty revenges: one says she has been killing pigs, and another, to whom a sailor’s wife refused chestnuts, promises to torment her husband with storms and sleeplessness. When a drum announces Macbeth and Banquo, who are returning from the battle, they recite a charm. Banquo finds the figures, bearded and withered, strange, as if they were not inhabitants of the Earth. The Witches greet Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and future king, and he starts. Banquo asks that they speak to him too, and they answer in opposites: less important than Macbeth and more powerful, father of kings without being one. Macbeth reminds them that the Thane of Cawdor is alive and demands to know more, but they vanish into the air. Soon Ross and Angus arrive, sent by the king, and name Macbeth Thane of Cawdor, which confirms the first forecast. Banquo distrusts the partial truth, because the instruments of evil sometimes tell small truths in order to betray in great ones. Macbeth, unsettled, already imagines a murder and thinks that if Fortune wants to make him king, it can crown him without his acting.
Analysis
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