Macbeth

If you stood on a high hill in Scotland 900 years ago, you would feel a wind carrying the scent of rain, wet heather, and peat smoke. It was a wild land of jagged mountains and ancient castles, but also a land of blood and iron, where loyalty was measured by the sharpness of a sword. More than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare took these dark legends and wrote Macbeth, a play about ambition, fate, and whether believing a prophecy forces it to come true. Our story begins in a great storm. Out of the sulfurous mist on a lonely heath, emerged three withered wild figures, the weird sisters. Weird comes from the old word weird, meaning destiny. They were the weavers of the future, and they knew a great battle had just ended. They knew the hero of that battle, Macbeth, was riding toward them. Macbeth, the brave Thane of Glamis, was riding home across the desolate heath with his closest friend and fellow general, Banquo. They had fought like lions for their sovereign, the good King Duncan. Suddenly, Banquo pulled his reins. Three strange figures stood in their path, silent as statues. "Speak, if you can," Macbeth commanded. "What are you?" The first sister cried, "All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!" Macbeth already held this title. But the second said, "All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!" And the third proclaimed, "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!" Macbeth went cold. To think of being king meant thinking of the death of King Duncan, a thought that made his heart knock against his ribs. Banquo asked the sisters to speak to him too. They answered in riddles. "Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none." "Tell me more!" Macbeth cried. But the sisters vanished like bubbles on water. Before the men could recover, messengers from King Duncan galloped up with astonishing news. The Thane of Cawdor had been revealed as a traitor and executed, and the grateful king had bestowed the title and lands upon Macbeth. "Can the devil speak true?" Banquo muttered in disbelief. The prophecy had come true within the hour. Macbeth was now the Thane of Cawdor. But what of the crown? He whispered to Banquo, "Do you not hope your children shall be kings?" Banquo, wise and cautious, warned his friend. "Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence." But Macbeth was barely listening. A dark seed of ambition had been planted in his mind, and it was already beginning to grow. Far away, in the northern stronghold of Inverness, Lady Macbeth walked the stone corridors of her castle. She was a woman of fierce intelligence and iron will, devoted entirely to her husband's success. By the flickering light of a torch, she read a letter that had just arrived from Macbeth. He wrote of the battle, of the strange women on the heath, and how their prophecy had already begun to come true, now that he was Thane of Cawdor. Lady Macbeth's heart raced. She did not doubt the prophecy for a second. She saw the crown within their reach. Yet, looking out at the dark Scottish mountains, she worried. She knew her husband's nature too well. "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor," she whispered, "and shalt be what thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way." She feared Macbeth was too noble to do what must be done. He had ambition, but lacked the ruthlessness to match it. She resolved to pour her own spirits into his ear, whispering away his doubts to steal his courage the moment he returned. Just then, a breathless servant rushed in. "The king comes here tonight!" he gasped. Lady Macbeth stared, her heart skipping a beat. "Thou art mad to say it!" she exclaimed. But the servant insisted that Macbeth was coming with him, and that a messenger had ridden ahead to bring the news. When the servant left, Lady Macbeth stood alone…

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