F I S H I N G

General Macbeth was riding home from war in the company of a friend, when three witches waited for him and greeted him as the future king. Macbeth talked it over with his wife and when the King visited them at their castle they murdered him  at night in his sleep.

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Macbeth had lots of reasons to  feel insecure as a king and so he went to see the witches about his future. They sang and danced around their cauldron and oracled that he was safe unless the woods moved up against him :

Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

Macbeth thought he was safe forever.

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From then on Macbeth ruled in defiance of all the laws of Scotland, but the aristocracy got ready for war. They approached his castle camouflaged…… each man carrying the branches of a tree. And the guards told Macbeth that the woods were moving up against him.

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Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, written some 400 years ago.
The witches are called “weird sisters”.

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Lady Macbeth seems more resolute than her husband, but breaks down under the strain, can’t sleep. Macbeth has “murdered sleep” says Shakespeare.

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The most famous Macbeth lines are at the end of the play :

“…………Life is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.” —

said by Macbeth in the face of death. The quote starts out with

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day…”

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The photos  are from “Atlas ilustrado de castillos y fortalezas de España”, published by Susaeta. The two boys crossing the olive grove are lifted off a Gary Olsen drawing.

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SCENE I : A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. The witches are chanting:

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrails throw!
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!

When you read Macbeth for the first time, you have to skip the secondary scenes to get a clear idea of the drama.

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Here are two more famous scenes from Mcbeth that are  easy to read:

Macbeth’s  porter.

In the morning, when the assassination has not yet been discovered, Macbeth’s porter goes to open the castle gate and he mumbles to himself:

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The ghost of a murdered colleague

Macbeth is invited to sit down at the festive table, but though his seat looks empty to you and to everyone else,  he  sees it occupied by the ghost of a man he has just murdered.

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Glamis castle is in Scotland. It is where Queen Elizabeth grew up.

Glamis was one of Macbeth’s hereditary titles. The photo is copyrighted and worth the click to see the original by  Wyatt.

This last picture is from a site about castles in the United Kingdom:

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