Having found a very short, sweet and satisfactory answer to the key question about the WEIRD SISTERS, I have skipped all the work I had already done. So, before entering the “final battle” about the Macbeths, I thought I’d give myself a break and walk a path I already cleared – or that was what I thought!
The first step of the long journey had been taken years ago, when we went to Stratford to see “Macbeth” with Christopher Eccleston. On this occasion I bought the RSC’s latest edition of the play. In the preface the editors explained their unorthodox spelling of the “weyard sisters”. This was the first time I heard that the weird sisters are NOT, actually, WEIRD.
I must say I was a bit disappointed because I liked them “weird” – and my inner “Macbeth” rather relied on the weirdness, aesthetically - they couldn’t be weird enough for my taste - and plot-wise: Why are Macbeth and Banquo usually so little surprised – and confused, maybe even to the point of distraction!? – when they have this run-in with the sisters?
In retrospect, it was more than a bit of semantics but a big eye-opener because it awoke my suspicion that nothing about the weird sisters might actually be what it seemed, and I already began to gather “stupid” questions without answering them, which is something I always do. Questions like: Why is Lady Macbeth “always” wearing a green dress? Of course she is not, literally, but I saw it twice now and got the idea that it MIGHT be traditional and might carry some sort of meaning. Probably just bullshit, but I know that it will bother me until I’ve found an answer … (or know why I was asking the question; in this case it made me aware of the importance of TRADITION where “Macbeth” is concerned. All this is “heavily loaded” stuff, most of which has nothing to do with “Shakespeare”.)
This is my catalogue of silly questions concerning the sisters:
#1 Are the weird sisters really WITCHES?
#2 Are the weird sisters really WEIRD?
#3 What are they, if they are not WEIRD?
#4 Are they really SISTERS (= blood relatives)? (And, if they are, why?)
#5 And – if they are not (just) witches - which side are they on?
I’ll do the answers before breakfast, but they are only the beginning. In fact, each of them turned out to contain its own little can of worms.
#1 Yes and NO.
#2 NO (and yes)
#3 WYRD.
#4 (Emphatically) YES. (Because they say so. For the “real” reason refer to #3!)
#5 Anybody’s guess.
#1 WITCHES??? Perversely, I always took it that the weird sisters were NOT witches. The reason is probably that nobody ever calls them witches, not event they themselves: “The weird sisters, hand in hand …” (the sisters), “and oftentimes the instruments of darkness tell us truths“ (Banquo), “… by which title before these weird sisters saluted me” (Macbeth), “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters” (Banquo), “You secret, black, and midnight hags” (Macbeth), “And betimes I will to the weird sisters …” (Macbeth), “Saw you the weird sisters?” (Macbeth).
This ambiguity – if it is not just due to a convention of not NAMING witches!? - calls for an explanation, but not the one I chose, unless I believed that a thief is not a thief, even though they have stolen something, just because nobody knows it and can CALL them a thief. There is no doubt that the sisters are practicing black magic and ARE therefore witches. The ambiguity, if intended, is not for the audience, who is in on it at the latest when they are boasting about their dark deeds before they meet with Macbeth and Banquo. In fact, the animal attributes (“graymalkin” and “paddock”) make sure it is in on it from the beginning. It is for the “benefit” of the protagonists. Banquo strongly suspects. He is the one who interrogates them and refers to them as “instruments of darkness”, but, in the end, it might not have made much difference. He is prepared to make them his “oracles as well”, and who knows what would have ensued … Macbeth clearly uses the ambiguity for his own ends. Blinded by ambition, he doesn’t WANT to know. (“Such supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good …”)
So, witches it is!? - Not quite. There is a another, more potent, argument that there is more to them than just witchcraft … see #3!
#2 WEIRD??? The RSC’s editors used the historic spelling “weyard sisters” to avoid the contemporary connotations of “weird” (= (extremely) strange). According to them, the intended meaning was “wayward”, as in “wayward behaviour” = selfish, bad, unpredictable, difficult to control. Great attributes for the sisters! I was instantly persuaded and didn’t even think of checking. In fact, it’s “weyward” (not “weyard”) in the First Folio (– which rather plays into the editor’s argument, but the chutzpah might have raised my suspicion …)
As almost anything where the weird sisters are concerned the argument isn’t exactly FALSE, just incomplete and therefore misleading. Something good certainly came of it: I knew now that the weird sisters are not WEIRD. (Although the description – “so withered and so wild in their attire” that they “look not like the inhabitants of the earth” and Banquo’s confusion about their sex might still make them weird enough for me?)
Exhausted already … but it’s getting worse! Seems to be a “two coffee problem” …
One coffee and three chocolate easter eggs later:
#3 WYRD ??? When I started to check on everything I still didn’t understand about “Macbeth”, I also looked into the “weird sisters” and instantly discovered that the RSC put me on the wrong track. We know WHO the weird sisters are – in the first place! It is neither a secret nor open to discussion because we know where they come from. Shakespeare’s source for “Macbeth” was Holinshed’s “Chronicle of Scotland” where the protagonist, returning from the battlefield, meets three women who deliver their prophecies about his future. These women are neither weird nor old hags, they are beautiful noblewomen = the Elizabethan version of the Greek Fates, so, clearly not witches but GODDESSES. IN THE FIRST PLACE, they are neither “weird sisters” nor “wayward sisters” but “WYRD SISTERS” – “wyrd” being the Anglo-Saxon word for “fate”.
But again it is not as simple as that! Before I am again starting to cast doubt, I insist on setting it down that the “weird sisters” are neither weird nor wayward nor witches IN THE FIRST PLACE, but age-old, powerful goddesses in charge of the fates of men (and women). (HEATHEN goddesses, mind! Whereas in a Christian universe the one and only God is personally in charge of everything, the Olympian gods were usually rather relaxed about humans – unless their doings concerned them personally! – and thus left the petty details to three industrious occupants of the spinning room. This, in my opinion, muddles the issue of fate in “Macbeth” not just a little bit. See #5!)
Now to the “buts”: That the sisters are goddesses in HOLINSHED doesn’t mean that they have to be goddesses ON THE STAGE. As usual, Shakespeare takes the liberty to do with his source exactly as he pleases. In “Macbeth” the sisters are vengeful, irresponsible, mischievous old hags who practice black magic and create havoc, therefore WITCHES and as WAYWARD as they come! ON THE SURFACE, the goddesses probably became witches because the producers of the play wanted to please King James I who became an expert on witchcraft after almost having been shipwrecked crossing the channel, a mishap he attributed to the influence of witches. “The yeasty waves” which “confound and swallow navigation up” would have conjured a rather unpleasant memory. But I don’t believe that this is all there is to the witches. Even if not entirely intended, they certainly developed a life of their own.
As the Anglo-Saxon word “wyrd” and the “Elizabethan” word “weyward” have no etymological or semantic connection whatsoever, it stands to reason how they came together in the first place. I suppose it is the influence of witches because “wayward” is exactly what they are, and, I suppose, the expression “wyrd sisters” (approximately pronounced as “word sisters”) wouldn’t have made much more sense to an Elizabethan audience than to an audience of the 21st century. Only the part who had a classic education – respectively an inclination to check Wikipedia – would have known what it meant. Therefore I think it most likely that “weyward” wasn’t a spelling error of the First Folio but the intended meaning. (Which is great but created a semantic “storm in a teacup” due to the mixing of entirely independent contexts.) So, in the end, the RSC was probably “right”, but, again, it’s not as simple as that …
#4 SISTERS??? The reason why I don’t care for the RSC’s decision is because it is reductive – with consequences I came to dislike. The reason that the witches are not CALLED “witches” I already explained. (Either there was a convention against naming witches or the ambiguity was intended for the protagonists.) But this doesn’t explain why they are called the “weird SISTERS” by everybody who refers to them = Macbeth, Banquo, and the sisters themselves. This is actually rather noteworthy, and I think the likeliest explanation for this is that they are intended to BE sisters, and this can only be because Shakespeare wanted to keep the semantics of the FATES – who ARE three SISTERS. (Intuitively, this had been important for me from the beginning, so that I liked to imagine the witches of my inner “Macbeth” as weird triplets!)
So, using “weird” instead of “wyrd” or “wayward”, in my opinion, I keep both intended semantic contexts alive because the word “weird” didn’t exist before Shakespeare invented the “weird sisters” and therefore the expression constitutes an amalgamation of both contexts. Using “weird”, a new word, I don’t cancel out either meaning. Sorry, I just love this etymological stuff – but there actually is more to it …
#5 WITCHES OR NOT - WHICH SIDE ARE THEY ON??? The reason that both contexts have to be kept alive to understand and – which is more contestable! – represent the sisters on the stage is, in my opinion, that FATE is such a central and contested issue in “Macbeth”. In Elizabethan times, fate is probably not as “absolute” as in ancient Greece, but it is a central term of Protestant faith and therefore omnipresent in “Shakespeare”. “Hamlet” is one of these works of fiction that constantly teach me that understanding is overrated; there are much better things one can do with them. It is supposed to be the most “modern” of Shakespeare’s plays; in truth it might have become that much later and originally have been the exact opposite because, as Claudia and I recently established, it is pure Greek tragedy. The protagonist already got into a tragic position before he is actually grown up and in a position to act. Hamlet’s solution, in the end, is total acceptance of fate: “The readiness is all!” Along the way, there certainly is a bit of action but also what always feels like too much monologue on the stage – which basically was the chorus in Greek tragedy: coming to terms with things. In “Macbeth” the fate issue is trickier because “modern” tragedy is all about guilt, not fate, and as soon as “we” start to act, we also become guilty. The problem with Elizabethan tragedy, respectively an Elizabethan “mindset”, is that “Elizabethan” is not just Elizabethan. It is, if anything, a default name for an extremely dynamic social conglomerate, full of factions and irreconcilable contradictions. This is probably one of the features that made “Shakespeare” so versatile and enduring. (The bloody thing doesn’t add up!)
The way the three sisters are placed in the play suggests that they have, in some way or other, a part in the tragic development. It suggests that Macbeth would not have become guilty if they hadn’t told him his fate, but this is only clear-cut if we don’t scratch the surface. Beneath it, the sisters are semantically divided. If they really were goddesses and in league with fate, in a world ruled by the one God, they couldn’t be “instruments of darkness”. And they cannot be “wayward” – irresponsible and, in consequence, not to be taken seriously – and “wyrd” – important and influential – at the same time. So, it seems we have to decide – and, doing this, one way or the other, we give them real influence over the story we are going to read. Goddesses or old hags – they are the SPINNERS = makers of text. We might not WANT to grant them this power, but, try as we might, we won’t succeed …
Here I’ll come back unexpectedly to the question of the green dress. I haven’t solved this one, but it struck me as a decision that was already made unconsciously before somebody thought of dressing Lady Macbeth. In my opinion, there are a few settings already set before a new “Macbeth” is even thought of. One of them is that Banquo has to be present in the banquet scene. Both Claudia and I tried to change that – and failed. Another seems to be about the weird sisters, and it finds an expression in the RSC’s decision for “wayward”. In Elizabethan times, witches were not a problem. The general public believed in their existence and knew what they could do and in what way they were “instruments of darkness”. There was also no ambiguity about where the darkness came from. In a twenty-first century production of “Macbeth”, I’d be outraged if the sisters were witches. If I see a contemporary production of “Macbeth” I expect to see … do I even know what I expect???
At the Dock X the sisters were refugees of war – the least powerful, most marginalized of people. In the “old” RSC production with Antony Sher they were some kind of ragged homeless, if anything even more irrelevant and powerless. In the new one with Christopher Eccleston they were little girls – children, the least powerful part of society from the point of view of generation. The “Shakespeare Retold” with James McAvoy – still my favourite “Macbeth”, though unfortunately without any “Shakespeare” in it - brings the tradition to a head in a very entertaining way: The sisters are binmen, and their prophecies work exactly BECAUSE nobody really listens to them. Binmen are about the basest part of society as to career choice. They are irrelevant. Who listens to the prattle of binmen?!!!
So, even BEFORE a new “Macbeth” is thought of, the decision to marginalize the sisters is already made, and I am already in for a new disappointment. At second glance it doesn’t even work, they are too important a structural feature to be obliterated. And the choice what to do with them – apart from marginalizing – is more relevant because it tells us where “we” today locate the DARKNESS. Poverty and destitution make people powerless but threaten society because they lay bare its self-delusions. (Beware the binmen! In fact, they are almost omniscient because they see EVERYTHING!) The powerless immigrants wield an enormous impersonal power to destabilize “western” societies by making the brown filth overflow once more. And children are the most “wayward” of people, basically uncontrollable, selfish, and unreliable. They have to be supervised or referred to institutions. In fact, we couldn’t even imagine a world where children actually were allowed to run free …!!! (Even though it was ALMOST like that when I was a child, but today cars run free everywhere, so children have to stay at home.) But the little girls on the Stratford stage, though creepy enough, were extremely docile. They probably existed only in Macbeth’s imagination, therefore: no real threat. Most importantly: They DIDN’T DO ANYTHING.
THIS is one of the settings I’d most definitely change.
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