❦Shakespeare Explained
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Macbeth

William Shakespeare · c. 1606
Act I, Scene I A desert place

Thunder and lightning. Three witches meet in the open. They make a brief plan: when the battle now in progress is over — before sunset — they will reconvene on the heath, where they will encounter Macbeth. Their familiar spirits (a cat named Graymalkin, a toad named Paddock) call them away, and they leave with a chant that names the play’s controlling paradox: Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

The scene is twelve lines long. It is also the entire opening of the play — before any human character speaks, the witches have already established the moral atmosphere (paradox, inversion, foul weather), the meeting that will trigger the action (a rendezvous with Macbeth), and the play’s preferred verse rhythm for supernatural speech (short trochaic tetrameter, suited to spell and chant).

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.
First Witch
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When shall the three of us meet again — in thunder, in lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch
When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
When the uproar is over — when the battle has been both lost (by one side) and won (by the other).
Third Witch
That will be ere the set of sun.
That will be before sunset.
First Witch
Where the place?
Where shall we meet?
Second Witch
Upon the heath.
On the heath.
Third Witch
There to meet with Macbeth.
There, to meet Macbeth.
First Witch
I come, Graymalkin!
I’m coming, Graymalkin!
Second Witch
Paddock calls.
Paddock is calling.
Third Witch
Anon.
Right away.
All
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
What looks fair is foul, and what looks foul is fair — we hover through the fog and the filthy air.
Exeunt. — End of Act I, Scene I.