Witches vanish
BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
MACBETH
Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?
MACBETH
Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO
You shall be king.
MACBETH
And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
BANQUO
To the selfsame tune and words.
Macbeth’s attempts to command the witches fails, and they “vanish”, a sudden disappearance which confuses Macbeth and Banquo. The stage direction is vague, with no detail on how they vanish – trapdoor? smoke? hidden wire (hard for three people!)? Our attention has been firmly focused on them, given Macbeth’s interrogative questioning, so it is hard to imagine the illusion could be pulled off, and Macbeth and Banquo’s words perhaps work – like the earlier “not like the inhabitants o’ the earth” - to persuade us to distrust our eyes. The witches are, Banquo says, like “bubbles”, bursting or dissipating, returning to an elemental form, a natural disturbance which suggests immense power. The focus is again on the witches’ bodies, as “what seem’d corporal melted”, a vivid image of a body melting which conjures ideas of a spirit-like possession and enchantment, of a disjuncture between appearances and reality. The exchange continues, providing a clear comparison of Macbeth’s and Banquo’s character. While Banquo dismisses the witches' prophecies for the talks of mad women and assumes there to be some “insane root”, Macbeth is adamant that the witches should have stayed. Banquo’s attribution of the witches to the “insane root” is a reference to hallucinations brought about by herbs such as hemlock and henbane which remove all reason and cloud logical thinking. There is a play on words here too – the witches will become the “root” (cause) of insanity; the metaphor that follows of taking “reason prisoner” suggests that the witches’ talk, once acknowledged, is impossible to escape from, and that pursuing the witches would only drive them to insanity. Banquo’s warning is, somewhat ironically, prescient, foreshadowing Macbeth’s hallucinations (including of the ghost of Banquo himself). Macbeth’s curiosity about the witches’ words blinds him from realising the sense of Banquo’s; his repetition of the prophecies suggest he has not been listening. The pace of the lines here increases, and the exchange becomes sharper, the stichomythia demonstrating the growing tension between Macbeth and Banquo, heightening the audience’s unease. This is not, however, the tyrannical Macbeth of the later play, and the stichomythic exchanges stay as ‘banter’; Macbeth is held in check by Banquo’s easy wit, trivialising the moment by suggesting Macbeth’s repetitions of the prophecies are nothing more than “tune and words”, a song he is repeating in jest. Even with the lightness of intent here, Banquo perhaps speaks more truth than he realises; this is not the first time Macbeth has echoed the witches’ “tune”, and it will not be the last. Their speech patterns and rhythms – the tripling, the paradoxes, the equivocation – seep through the play and is the most distinguishable voice (and the most memorable – the chant-like lines ‘haunt’ the audience like an earworm). The difference is that here the echoes are conscious and, despite the disturbance of the witches’ vi, things are held in order.
- Raquel, Zosia and Elise