I. Context: Of the Kind of Principality Scotland Is

The scene depicting the political context begins with an alarum; immediately we are cast into a scene of turbulence, disorder, violence, emergency. Our first sight is a “bleeding captain,” our first words, “What bloody man is that?” The bloody man has become that way because he has been fighting in a war triggered by a “revolt” (1.2.1–2).Footnote ¹ The result is yet unsettled, for the king wishes to know its “newest state” (1.2.3). And the revolt is but a small piece of it: the leading rebel, “the merciless Macdonald,” is joined by a force of soldiers from Ireland, and the disorder has prompted Sweno, the king of Norway, to launch an invasion of Scotland (1.2.9–12, 31–33). Duncan the Scottish king thus faces multiple enemies in a multifront war. The violence Macbeth is soon to bring is no break with reigning patterns; political disorder is endemic to Duncan's Scotland.

Although one would hesitate to call Macbeth a Machiavellian play, the Florentine's analysis seems particularly helpful in elucidating the political context. In chapter 4 of The Prince Machiavelli distinguishes two sorts of principalities, which are “governed in two diverse modes: either by one prince, and all the others servants who as ministers help govern the kingdom by his favor and appointment; or by a prince and by barons who hold that rank not by favor of the lord but by antiquity of blood line.”Footnote ² In the former kind of principality, the prince is held “in greater authority because in all his province there is no one recognized as superior but himself.”Footnote ³

Scotland is of the second sort: the thanes are nobles, who rule in the feudal manner, and not part of an appointive bureaucratic structure. This is relevant to the disorder in Scotland because Machiavelli concludes that kingdoms of that sort are easy to seize, but difficult to hold. In such places, “you can easily enter,” by winning over “some baron of the kingdom; for malcontents and those who desire to innovate are always to be found. … They can open the way for you into that state and facilitate victory for you.”Footnote ⁴ Machiavelli sounds as though he is speaking of the king of Norway or MacDonald or Cawdor—ambitious malcontents, or foreigners who use malcontents to further their own ambitions.

The decentralized and independent authority structure favors disorder and makes it relatively easy to oust the reigning prince, but for the same reason, the new prince is equally insecure in his rule. Such a prince faces “infinite difficulties both from those who have helped you and from those you have oppressed.”Footnote ⁵ It is thus nearly impossible to hold these kingdoms: “You can neither content [the barons] nor eliminate them,” and so “you lose that state whenever their opportunity comes.”

Macbeth's rebellion, or usurpation, ought to be seen as one in a series of uprisings and failures of central authority, and not at all as a unique and special event. Likewise, his failure to hold the kingdom needs to be seen in this context as well, although this is not to say that Macbeth's decisions and actions had nothing to do with his ultimate fate.

One further feature of the Scottish political structure plays into the difficulties posed by the decentralized principality: there is some degree of uncertainty about the rules of succession to the throne. Shortly after the victory over the combined forces of rebellion and invasion, Duncan names his son Malcolm the successor to his “estate,” that is, his land, at least, and perhaps his estate in the broader sense that would encompass the throne (1.4.35–40). The latter reading is suggested by Duncan's naming Malcolm prince of Cumberland, or “heir apparent.” It is clear then that the kingship is not officially hereditary; presumably Duncan could have designated another to be his successor. The openness about succession has obvious merits: one can seek the fittest character and not be stuck with the one whom nature and chance have made the eldest son of the king. On the other hand, however, the openness of the succession is particularly unsettling in the context of the decentralized principality. Not being hereditary, the supreme office in the kingdom stands as a reasonable object of aspiration for any of the thanes. Decentralization fuels their ambition quite enough, but the openness of the succession raises it to a fever pitch.

The succession issue is even more ambiguous and unsettling: later on when Macbeth is made king, it is by vote of the thanes. It is not clear from the play whether this was only a response to the particular uncertainties of that specific succession decision (with Malcolm having fled and standing under some shadow of suspicion in the murder of his father), or whether thanal consent is part of every succession decision. Some evidence suggesting the latter lies in Duncan's over-eagerness to combine the elevation of Malcolm with “signs of nobleness” which, “like stars, shall shine on all deservers,” that is, on all the thanes (1.4.41–42). One could understand this as an effort by Duncan, in effect, to bribe the thanes to support Malcolm as heir. What remains unclear to us the readers, but perhaps also to subjects in Scotland, is the relation between thanal election and monarchical designation.

The Scottish political structure is thus particularly problematic: it is nearly guaranteed to provoke high levels of ambition for the crown and at the same time to lack a settled mode of succession that might curb that ambition. Scotland in Macbeth thus seems substantially more disordered even than England of the War of the Roses era; the latter was also a decentralized feudal monarchy, but the firm establishment of the principle of hereditary succession meant something, although, as the war made clear, not always enough.

II. Context: How Duncan Deals with His Friends and His Enemies

Machiavelli's structural analysis sheds much light on the political situation in Scotland; the Florentine helps sophisticate our political understanding by making us see the deep significance of structural variables. He thus counters the common human tendency to overly moralize politics through understanding political outcomes solely in terms of good and bad qualities, good and bad decisions by political actors, or, alternatively, as the outcomes willed by a supernatural divinity responding to the moral character or the piety of human actors. Machiavelli, nonetheless, does not go so far as some more modern thinkers and suggest that background factors like structure control everything and the quality of individual decision and action determines nothing. Indeed his Prince is unintelligible except as an attempt to arm readers with a political understanding that can inform wise action. It is indeed in this sphere that Machiavelli proclaims the novelty and importance of his books.Footnote ⁶

Although Shakespeare nowhere cites Machiavelli by name in Macbeth, nonetheless his presentation of the political context of Macbeth's rise and fall includes elements of Duncan's statecraft seemingly taken out of The Prince. (Even if that is not the case, Machiavelli's comments once again supply great aid in understanding what we see in the early scenes of the play.) In a word, by Machiavelli's lights Duncan's ineptitude matches the disorder to which the Scottish political structure conduces. Machiavelli implied that a place like Scotland is ungovernable, but Duncan added to the difficulties by making nearly every mistake Machiavelli warned against.

Again, our very first view of Duncan is instructive: he stands outside the battle and seeks news of how it goes. He does not, as Machiavelli insists the prince must do, lead his own troops into battle. Moreover, the next speech by Malcolm, soon to be named heir apparent, suggests that military accomplishment is not part of the family treasury, for he speaks of the “good and hardy soldier” who “fought ’gainst [his] captivity” (1.2.4–5). He, apparently, was unable to defend himself. Neither father nor son seems to have imbibed Machiavelli's strictures: “a prince should have no other object, nor any other thought, nor take anything else as his art but that of war and its orders and discipline.”Footnote ⁷ Even more emphatically: the prince “should never lift his thoughts from the exercise of war.”Footnote ⁸ The point of this single-minded devotion is not merely academic: “The prince should go in person, and perform himself the office of captain.”Footnote ⁹ The prince who does not handle military matters properly is in trouble: “it is necessary for a prince to have good foundations for himself; otherwise he must of necessity be ruined.”Footnote ¹⁰ One way in which this failure promises ruin is particularly apropos to Macbeth: the art of war “is of such virtue that not only does it maintain those who have been born princes but many times it enables men of private fortune,” like Macbeth himself, “to rise to that rank.”Footnote ¹¹

Machiavelli's advice is especially well suited to a place like Scotland. The independence of the barons feeds their ambition quite sufficiently of itself; military weakness in the king has three quite devastating consequences in this context: First, it makes the king less able to respond effectively to the inevitable threats against him, threats which arise in the normal course of things. Second, perceptions of royal weakness further encourage an ambition already well armed in the nobles. Finally, the king is driven for the sake of defense against his rebellious nobles into overreliance and dependence on the loyal (for the moment) barons. His dependence is so great that he readily depletes the store of rewards he can offer to hold their loyalty. Those who see themselves as king-makers or king-keepers soon wonder why they should not be king themselves.

Machiavelli speaks in large generalities of all principalities and all princes, or in slightly smaller generalities of centralized and decentralized principalities. His strictures have even more power when applied to the specific place that is Duncan's Scotland. The scene setting forth the political context reveals the special honor, the special moral status military qualities like courage and valor enjoy in Scotland. On hearing of Macbeth as “valour's minion,” even Duncan replies, “O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!” (1.2.19, 24). Michael Davis points out “the staggering frequency of references to manhood, being a man, not being womanly.” In this play, he concludes, “courage is the manly virtue par excellence.”Footnote ¹²

Given the moral tone of this society, Duncan's lack of military prowess is an especial liability. Another comment by Machiavelli is apt: “among the other causes of evil that being unarmed brings you, it makes you contemptible.”Footnote ¹³ It is true that Duncan's subjects do not speak of him with open contempt; indeed they usually speak of him with affection. But they do not speak with respect, awe, or fear. Duncan, as we shall see, has followed the policy of seeking the love of his subjects, but as Machiavelli insists, it is better to be feared than loved.Footnote ¹⁴ Duncan has the affection of his subjects, but this is not enough to restrain Macdonald, Cawdor, Norway, or Macbeth. In a martial society the idea that a more martial man should be the first man (the principal man) naturally arises, especially in the bosoms of the more martial men.

Duncan's lack of martial virtue is not his only deficiency. He lacks insight into those around him. Speaking of the rebellious thane of Cawdor he says, “He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust” (1.4.13–14). Duncan complains, “There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face” (1.4.12–13). Surely Duncan lacks this art if he trusted Cawdor absolutely as, apparently, he is about to do again, in trusting the new thane of Cawdor with his life. It is not merely that he lacks this art, but, according to Machiavelli at least, he is seeking the wrong art: “Men in general judge more by their eyes than by their hands, because seeing is given to everyone, touching to few. Everyone sees how you appear, few touch what you are.”Footnote ¹⁵ He seeks to see when he should seek to touch. Should a prince ever trust anyone absolutely? Should the prince in a decentralized principality ever trust any of his thanes absolutely? Duncan is remarkably blind to his situation.

As he moves inexorably nearer to his death, the indications of his blindness and lack of insight multiply. Approaching Macbeth's castle, the castle of his doom, he stupidly intones:

On seeing his deadliest enemy, Lady Macbeth, he gushes:

And of Macbeth he says,

Although Duncan's speech contains an ambiguity—for whom does Macbeth have great love?—in the context Duncan appears to think it is love for him rather than Lady Macbeth that hastens him home. The irony, of course, is that Macbeth has hastened home so that he may speak with his wife about the prophecies and the odd piece of luck that puts Duncan in his keeping at that very moment (see 1.5). Duncan does not see clearly (much less touch) the truth because he lives in a fog mostly of his own producing. He lacks the art of judging people truly because he believes, or wishes to believe, that all love him.

Probably the key incident for understanding this side of Duncan occurs in the scene where he attempts to reward Macbeth for his great services to his kingdom, and at the same time names his son Malcolm his successor. At his first meeting with Macbeth after the successful suppression of the combined rebellion/invasion, he attempts to thank Macbeth:

According to all the reports of Macbeth's prowess, Duncan is not overstating the state of things: Macbeth has saved his throne. Referring to Macbeth's elevation to the thaneship of Cawdor, Duncan claims, in effect, merely to have made a down payment on the immeasurable debt of gratitude he concedes is Macbeth's due. But then, just as he has admitted owing Macbeth “more than all can pay,” what does he do? He takes the largest jewel he possesses, the succession, and vests it in his much less deserving oldest son.

Perhaps Duncan is not the innocent he appears; he sets a limit to Macbeth's ambition, or attempts to do so. Duncan appears to be moved by the thought that this moment when honors are being dispensed is the right moment to elevate his son, for he says that the “honour” bestowed on Malcolm must

In the general dispensation of honors, perhaps it will not be noticed that the greatest honor has been given to one not so evidently to be counted among “the deservers.” Duncan both sees and wills not to see that among the “shining stars” of nobleness, there is one sun (son) who will outshine the others.

It is difficult to imagine a more mismanaged event. Contrary to David Lowenthal's ingenious argument, this does not seem to be a good plan unfortuitously gone bad; it is ineptitude reaping its almost predictable reward.Footnote ¹⁶ At the very moment he tells Macbeth that he owes him everything, he gives the truly valuable thing to another. One cannot imagine a more rankling way to proceed, a way more calculated to arouse feelings of ill treatment in Macbeth.

Duncan speaks of gratitude but then acts ungratefully. At the same time he expects Macbeth to be grateful; he believes Macbeth loves him because he benefits Macbeth. He believes in the power of gratitude at the very moment he shows its lack of power. Duncan acts, in other words, exactly as Machiavelli shows Cesare Borgia at his worst moment did. Borgia made only one “bad choice,” but it was “the cause of his ultimate ruin”: he made Julius pope despite an old enmity between them.Footnote ¹⁷ Borgia did this because he believed that “new benefits will make old injuries be forgotten,” that is, because he believed in the power of gratitude.Footnote ¹⁸ But Machiavelli thinks that “great personages” will never be appeased in this way; to think otherwise is to deceive oneself. This indeed is one of Machiavelli's chief lessons: gratitude is a small force among the great.

Viewing Duncan's actions through a Machiavellian lens, which appears to be what Shakespeare is doing, makes it impossible to avoid the conclusion that Duncan is as little wise as he is valiant. But surely he is, in some sense, good. Even Macbeth, trying to find an argument to justify killing Duncan, concedes the king “hath borne his faculties” mildly; that he has been “clear” or spotless in the exercise of his office (1.7.16–17). It would seem reasonable to conclude this has something to do with his Christianity; as Macduff puts it, Duncan “was a most sainted king” (4.3.110).

Duncan clearly was the sort of king Machiavelli spoke of as one who aimed to be loved rather than feared, and the result was just as Machiavelli predicted. His mildness proved not to be a blessing to his people or to himself, but a spur to rebellion among even those he trusted. Again, mildness may be a problematic “mode” of rule always and everywhere, but it is particularly out of place in Duncan's Scotland.

Following out what Shakespeare shows us about Scotland as a place and Duncan as a prince forces us to revise our initial impression. Macbeth seems far more Machiavellian on reflection than it does at first sight. But does this mean Macbeth is a Machiavellian play?

III. The Cosmological Context

Duncan is a Christian prince and his way of being a prince makes sense if the world is a Christian place, that is, the kind of place Christianity posits the world to be. Shakespeare supplies an experimentum crucis to show whether the universe within Macbeth is a Christian universe in one of the climactic scenes of the play—the murder of Macduff's wife and child. In a key place Lady Macduff, decrying her husband's foolish abandonment of them, asks her son: “And what will you do now? How will you live?”

Little Macduff clearly means to echo the famous lines of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “Consider the birds of the sky, that they do not sow or harvest or collect for their granaries, and your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not preferred above them?” (Matthew 6:25–27). Young Macduff seems to have taken his theology from his father, who is quite amazed at the fate of his family: “Did heaven look on / And would not take their part?” he asks (4.3.225–26).Footnote ¹⁹ The only way Macduff can reconcile the silence of heaven with the murder of his innocents is by attributing their fate to some guilt of his own: “Sinful Macduff, / They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am” (4.3.226–27).

Shakespeare gives us no reason to accept Macduff's analysis, however, except perhaps in the sense that Macduff “sinned” in leaving his family alone and unprotected where Macbeth could get at them. If that is his sin, it is precisely the doing of what Jesus commended in the Sermon on the Mount: the universe of Macbeth is not the universe of the Sermon on the Mount.

Indeed, within Macbeth the ruling forces seem to be not the Christian God, but the witches. They predict and in some sense cause both Macbeth's rise and fall, that is, the central line of action in the play. But it is not so easy to see what the witches or the forces for which they speak are.

Banquo readily fits the witches into a Christian perspective when he associates them with the devil (1.3.105). As “instruments of darkness” Banquo suspects the witches mean to “tell us truths” in order “to win us to our harm,” harm with “deepest consequence,” presumably loss of one's eternal soul (1.3.121–24). The witches, Banquo hypothesizes, could be part of the gigantic and cosmic battle for the souls of men.

Yet Shakespeare plants evidence to show that the universe of Macbeth is no more a satanic universe than a Christian one. Immediately after the murder of Duncan comes the “knocking at the gate scene” in which Shakespeare explores for us the possibility that Macbeth's castle is part of the realm of Satan. The porter answers the knocks “i'th’ name of Beelzebub” and then “in th'other devil's name” (2.3.3, 7). He greets the knocker (Macduff as it turns out) as though he is a series of souls consigned to hell; he even casts himself for a moment as the very “porter of hell-gate” (2.3.1–2). Having just seen what we have seen, the murder of the “sainted king,” we can well believe the porter speaks true. But he bursts the bubble of his own speculation: Macbeth's castle is not “hell,” and he resolves to “devil-porter it no further” (2.3.16). This place is not hell; it only seems so.

A similar comment on Banquo's satanic thesis comes at the end of the play, when, as Lowenthal points out, a new character named Seyton appears.Footnote ²⁰ Surely this is a “little joke” of Shakespeare's to have Satan appear live and on stage, but it rather disconfirms Banquo's hypothesis about the broader cosmos: Macbeth, having taken the witches' bait, is not in the service of Satan, but the reverse. Satan is a bit player in a drama staged by other forces. Macbeth's world is not satanic, although it has features about it that readily lead to the thought that it might be.

If the witches and the forces they represent are not satanic, then what are they? What is the cosmos in which the action of Macbeth occurs? The play opens with the witches in the shortest opening scene by far of any of Shakespeare's plays. The scene hardly forwards the action, for the witches do no more than agree to meet later, on the heath, when Macbeth returns from the battle. Little of the plot would be lost if this opening scene were omitted and the witches debuted instead in 1.3, where they actually do meet Macbeth. It is almost as though the very point of the opening scene is to put them first, to give them a brooding preeminence within the universe of Macbeth. (One should not discount, however, the pure staginess of it; just as in their last appearance the witches are part of a theatrical pageantry, the equivalent of computerized animation for Elizabethan theater.)

The witches gather in 1.1 to set a later meeting with Macbeth. For some unspecified reason they care about Macbeth, but in general they seem not to be partisans of his or any other of the humans: they will meet “when the battle's lost and won” (1.1.4). What is to some a victory (Macbeth and Duncan, as it happens) is to others a defeat, and they no more (and no less) take the perspective of one party than the other. But what makes their stance so paradoxical in the saying is that they do not stand toward the action as mere spectators either—they do not, spectator-like, wait for the battle to be “over.” They see it from the perspective of the participants, but of all the participants.

The witches' second appearance comes very soon; only one scene intervenes and they are presented in a much fuller way. As Lowenthal points out, they reveal themselves to be harm-doers, but their harm seems petty in inspiration and limited in degree.Footnote ²¹ One of the witches attempts to get even with a sailor's wife who told her to get lost. Interestingly, the witch does not seek direct revenge on the wife, but instead goes after her sailor husband, out at sea on The Tiger. Equally surprising, given all the blood that flows in Macbeth, the witches' efforts to harm the sailor extend only to rousing the winds against him, but never so much that his ship be lost (1.3.20–25). The witches do not seem capable of taking human life. They are, as Lowenthal concluded, very far from satanic, both in their motives and in their powers.Footnote ²² There is no hint here of a great struggle with God or good for the souls of men, no sign of truly demonic powers. It is not clear these witches would succeed even in a Stephen King novel.

The witches explicitly claim power only over the winds; the second and third witches seem to command a wind apiece and the fourth witch the other two (if we are to assume there are four winds). Their powers and the limits to their powers seem related to their command of the wind. Banquo tells us they “look not like th'inhabitants o’ th'earth / And yet are on't” (1.3.39–40). To paraphrase an old saying: they are on the earth but not of it. Earth is not their element, as Banquo says describing their vanishing: “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them” (1.3.77–78). Their element is air, as Macbeth confirms immediately: they have vanished “into the air, and what seemed corporal / Melted as breath into the wind” (1.3.79–80). They are creatures of the air, the least substantial of the elements, the common denominator between wind and breath, or speech. They are most assuredly not creatures of the underworld.

Act 1, scene 1 left us in uncertainty as to why the witches sought Macbeth. The interchange between them just prior to Macbeth's appearance on the heath suggests they are up to some of the petty mischief that seems their chief delight. Their instrument of mischief this time is not wind, but breath: they breathily hail Macbeth and fill his ears with prophecies of great things to come.

They possess the ability to “look into the seeds of time / And say which grain will grow and which will not” (1.3.56–57). This power to say what will be is closely related to their being creatures of the air. For one, it is through speech, i.e., breath, that this power operates. The witches have bronchial but not brachial power. Moreover, air is the least substantial element, and the future, that which is not yet, is even less so. The witches are mistresses of that which has slight being—air and the future.

Their airy power over speech extends their power beyond the limits their direct power over the winds must respect. Through their indirect agents, the Macbeths, the witches are able to take life. Their mischief becomes distinctly less petty in motive and effect. But that is not because they are themselves more powerful; rather their power of speech enlists earthly men in their projects of harm, and earthly men possess much brachial power. The interaction of the witches and human beings is particularly pregnant with the capacity for harm.

Despite all the harm their intervention in the human world produces, they are angrily blamed by Hecate, their leader, for incompetence at the art of contriving harm in their very next appearance in the play. Many respectable critics, editors, and directors consider this next scene (3.5) to be a non-Shakespearean interpolation by some “hack writer.”Footnote ²³ Since I believe this scene is of much importance for understanding Macbeth, a few words are appropriate in defense of its authenticity. In favor of the scene are the following considerations. If the scene is authentic, we have a satisfying and intelligible pattern of symmetry in the witches' four appearances. These appearances occur in two sets of two each. Within each set a very short opening scene, containing only the witches, is separated by one scene from a second much longer appearance of the witches, this time together with Macbeth.

Moreover, some of the evidence against the authenticity of the scene seems especially weak. That the poetry of the Hecate speech is not up to the level of other Shakespearean poetry is perhaps correct, but does not seem so certain to me as it does to some. There are rough and even bare patches in Shakespearean poetry on more occasions than this particular speech. Moreover, the alleged incompatibility of what is said in the scene with the rest of the play is much overstated. Hecate addresses the other witches as “saucy and over-bold”; she blames them for daring “to trade and traffic with Macbeth / In riddles and affairs of death” (3.5.3–5). But, the objection goes, they have not “traded and trafficked”; there was no exchange between Macbeth and the witches such as “trade” or “traffic” would imply. This is not a very potent objection, for two somewhat different reasons. First, “trade and traffic” can have a broader meaning than exchange of goods and services: it can mean something as broad as “have dealings with,” or “have intercourse with,” terms which certainly without difficulty fit the witches' interactions with Macbeth. Second, it is not so clear that the relations the witches have had with Macbeth do not qualify as “trade and traffic” in the narrower sense. True, they have not asked him for money nor, say, for his soul, as other “traders” of such sort have done, but it is not clear that in giving him his prophecies they were not expecting something in return, although it is most difficult to discern in the earlier scenes what the witches seek from Macbeth. Their motive in trafficking with him does not appear to be revenge for an insult, as was the case with their relation to the master of The Tiger and his wife. Nonetheless Hecate does accuse them in terms that suggest “trade” of some sort was involved in their dealings with Macbeth: she accuses them, in effect, of having been snookered by Macbeth, although admittedly it is difficult to see what she is getting at. After blaming them for setting up a “rogue” operation, independent of her, “the mistress” of their “charms,” she adds,

Difficult as it is to be clear on Hecate's meaning here, her point seems at least to be this: they have done things for Macbeth, or enabled Macbeth to do things, but what he has done has been all “for his own ends” and not for theirs. They have enabled him to benefit himself, but he has not benefited them in return.

What makes this passage so difficult to interpret is our ignorance of their ends, their potential benefit in this action. In their earlier appearances in the play, they do seem to relish causing harm, and in this scene Hecate, referring to herself as “mistress” of their “charms,” identifies herself as “the close contriver of all harms” (3.5.6–7). That is, she is mistress of their charms insofar as she is the chief contriver of harm; ergo, their charms are about contriving harms. In the parallel world Shakespeare has constituted in Macbeth, this set of cosmological forces is devoted to the contriving of harms, and that is the network of forces in which Macbeth has gotten scooped up.

However, Hecate seems to be saying that if the witches exist (or possess an art) for the sake of doing harm, then they have failed somehow in regard to Macbeth. It surely cannot be that through Macbeth they have not brought harm; that they surely have done. But Hecate's excoriation of their ineptitude makes sense if we notice that although Macbeth (and through him the witches) has thus far caused great harm, that harm has not been so much for its own sake (i.e., for the witches and their art), but for Macbeth's sake: he has committed great crimes and now he benefits from them. Rather than Macbeth being enlisted by them in their activity, they have been enlisted in his. In the “trade and traffic” with Macbeth they have gotten little.

The only way this “trade deficit” can be rectified is for Macbeth's actions to be turned to their ends, rather than his; that means the witches must now lure him to action that produces his own harm, his own downfall, and death. That is precisely what Hecate instructs them to do, and as we see them turn this corner with Macbeth, we see better the overall nature of their harm-producing art. In this context Hecate makes a speech that is so integral both to the reappearance of the witches and Macbeth two scenes later and to the character of the supernatural presences in the play as a whole, that it is difficult not to see it as very authentically Shakespearean. (If it is an interpolation, it is certainly not by a “hack,” but by a very great student of this play.)

The parallel between this passage and the passages about magic in A Midsummer Night's Dream ought to give pause to any who doubt the authenticity of the Hecate scene. In any case, this speech confirms some earlier surmises we have made about the witches and extends our knowledge of them. First, their element, or the element of their power, is “vap'rous,” or as Hecate says a bit earlier, “I am for th'air” (3.5.20). There is even the suggestion of a link between their art and alcohol: the “vap'rous drop” must be “distilled” and, through the illusions it can then produce, mortals are led to their “confusion.” The witches possess an art of intoxicating human beings through creating illusion. This comports with our earlier observations that they do only limited harm unless joined with the brachial power of humanity. Human beings would be immune to the charms of the witches if they understood the truth sufficiently to withstand illusion-induced intoxication, or if they had some other vaccine against it.

According to Hecate's testimony and the practice of the witches, it is not just any old sort of illusion that produces their effects:

The illusion that drives men to ruin is the illusion of security. The thought here is not obscure; indeed it relates nicely to the alcohol metaphor underlying the speech: by making men feel secure, alcohol (or the witches) leads men to chase things their mortal fear, caution, prudence, and uncertainty might lead them to hold back from. They drive too fast, they fight with people too big and strong for them, they leap from dangerous heights. Almost daily the newspapers remind of drug- or alcohol-induced ruin through overconfidence.

But how do the witches produce this false and dangerous sense of security, this unleashing of hope? Through their prophecies. They give human beings the sense that they can know the future, that they can know what will happen. But the illusion the witches produce is not an illusion that the future is destined. It is, says Hecate, an illusion that leads them to “spurn fate.” The witches' kind of illusion does not produce a quietist resignation of que sera sera but an activist tossing off of all restraint.

The witches' prophecies make human beings bolder for action by making them confident they can know and thus control outcomes. It makes them think outcomes are not uncertain, not governed by chance or fortune. The witches operate by instilling in them a frame of mind in which they believe the conquest of Fortuna is possible; they, or the men like Macbeth who are particularly susceptible to their appeal, already believe the conquest of Fortuna is desirable. In the very first description of Macbeth, he is called “brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name!— / Disdaining fortune” (1.2.16–17). Macbeth disdains Fortuna from the outset, but before the witches he does recognize some limits on what even a disdainer should or can do: “I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (1.7.46–47).

What holds Macbeth back most, even in this period between the initial prophecy and the deed, is his fear of consequences, that is, his uncertainty of success:

Macbeth, the bold warrior, at first thinks of the murder of the king as completely open; he cannot imagine getting away with it. Despite the witches' prophecy he is not bold for the deed until his wife cooks up a plan (not, as Lowenthal has shown, all that good a plan), to conceal their involvement.Footnote ²⁴ Without the security promoted by the prophecy, it is difficult to imagine the Macbeths or any sensible murderers confident enough in that plan to move forward in such a risky venture. But with hope swelling and imagination heaving, the Macbeths ascend far above “wisdom, grace, and fear” (3.5.31).

The witches' second set of prophecies operates even more obviously in the same manner. They make Macbeth overconfident by making him feel invulnerable. Again, the witches do not lead him into a quiet because confident repose, but into frenetic because certain to be successful activity. The immediate result of their second prophecy is Macbeth's resolve,

The cosmic context of Macbeth is a world in which the witches rule, or, at least, are powerful forces. They are, we might say, a metaphor for a world in which the Machiavellian project of the conquest of Fortuna, and with it, that of the emancipation of humanity from certain restraints that had long been thought unavoidable, has come to power.

Machiavelli had developed his thought on the powers of Fortuna and the abilities of mankind against it in the penultimate chapter of his Prince. In this place Machiavelli rises from the doings of human beings, especially of princes, to consider the governing powers of the world as a whole:

Many believe there is more than human force that governs the world. He first calls that force “fortuna and God,” although in his recapitulation at the end of the long sentence he speaks only of chance, dropping the reference to God and referring now to “chance” rather than fortune (Fortuna), sometimes personalized as a goddess. Machiavelli's change of terminology requires us to consider briefly the difference between God or Fortuna as a goddess and chance. God and Fortuna are persons, endowed with the two essential qualities of personhood—intelligence and will. To say that God rules the world is to say the outcomes or events of the world are the outcome of some sort of intention. To say they are the result of chance is precisely to deny that. But to say that chance rules is not to say the outcomes are merely arbitrary or without cause. It is merely that causal forces are operating without reference to any intention, and in particular without reference to the intentions or desires of the human beings who are affected by events.

By dropping reference to God, Machiavelli is indicating his opinion that affairs of the world are not controlled by a personal, intelligent, and willing power, to say nothing of one that is loving and benevolent, but rather by impersonal forces. But he goes on to raise the further question: Does chance really govern the world? He admits to having “been in some part inclined to [that] opinion,” that is, that what rules the world are forces human beings cannot control and therefore that a passive stance is appropriate since we cannot accomplish much in the face of forces we cannot master.

Nonetheless, he concludes that “it might be true that fortune is arbiter of half of our actions, but also that she leaves the other half, or close to it, for us to govern.” He gives an illustration in his famous analogy: fortune is like a raging river at flood time. It overflows its banks and causes mayhem all around. But this need not be. Human beings can first learn to anticipate floods and develop safeguards against them—dikes and dams. These can prevent floods or minimize damage from them. Interpreting his example, we might say that human actors, armed with foresight, knowledge of causes, and the right kind of will can go very far toward mastering or conquering fortune. But in order to do so, they must understand the “ruling force” as fortune or chance or merely natural forces, and not as Providence. They must be free to treat the “ruling forces” as merely impersonal and amoral things; they must see themselves as free to impose their will on these will-less forces. They must be able to conceive nature in such a way that they are free to become “masters and owners” of it. In the last analysis, this is the point of Machiavelli's departure from the orders of others:Footnote ²⁶ to free men to conquer fortune or nature, which requires that it be de-divinized. This conquest will enable human beings to make themselves secure against the destructive floods that are fortune unmastered. Machiavelli indeed indicates his uncertainty over just how far the conquest of fortune can go toward making human life better: the forces change but we humans tend to lack the flexibility that would allow us to adapt well to new situations. So he lays out a project of conquest of fortune or of human ascendance to pure sovereignty in the universe, but he holds back from affirming that this degree of conquest is possible—though he surely sees it as desirable, for the conquest of fortune could produce secure control of the future.

If, as I have suggested, the world of Macbeth is a thought experiment to test the value and truth of the Machiavellian project, the experiment produces a decidedly negative judgment. For one, Shakespeare attaches that project to a set of beings who intend harm to human beings, and who succeed at their aim. Two aspects of this require comment. First and most obvious is the negative sign Shakespeare sets before the Machiavellian aspiration. Fortune, at least as presented in this play, cannot be conquered. It is only an intoxicating illusion that it can. Nonetheless, human beings have such deeply disordered desires and hopes, that the emancipation of the human soul from the uncertainties and thus restraints of Fortune can have only harmful, very harmful effects. If there were beings, Shakespeare is saying, who wished to do great harm, they could hardly do more than promote the project of a conquest of Fortune through the promulgation of a new knowledge of cause and effect that promises to gain for human beings the power to control outcomes to a degree undreamt of before.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to understand about the witches, however, is their motivation in promoting harm. As we have seen, they are not satanic or demonic; they are presented rather as possessors of an “art of harm.” They are presented as craftsmen, with craftsmen's love for practicing their art in an effective and virtuosic manner. This is difficult to make sense of when we attempt to interpret how the metaphor of the witches' cosmos might apply in ours. Perhaps it is best to understand the witches' art of harm in terms of the various options before Shakespeare. He wished, it seems, to present the Machiavellian project in its harmful or dangerous aspects, and for dramatic and perhaps other reasons cast it as the project of malevolent beings. That would make as clear as possible the negative judgment he was rendering. Yet he does not attach this project to satanic beings, that is, to beings who are part of the Christian cosmos, or even to beings who root and branch oppose God or the good. Machiavelli seeks to conquer Fortune not to do evil but to do good. It would be entirely unsuitable to present him or his project as satanic. Shakespeare then hit upon the idea of beings who do harm out of no motive but their practice of an art of harm. They bring great evils to the human world without especially wishing evil to humanity. Like Machiavelli, the witches are possessors of a great and powerful kind of knowledge, ultimately illusional and productive of an even more delusional intoxication. It is a misguided or backfiring art or body of knowledge, but it is not evil in aim.

The security-producing illusion of the witches replaces within Macbeth the security-producing illusion of Christianity within which Duncan and Lady Macduff, among others, live. Human beings, mortals, pervasively seek the illusion of security. Shakespeare's Macbeth juxtaposes these two sorts of security and warns us away from both. In treating the two in such a parallel way, it is tempting to speculate that Shakespeare was trying to bring out a deep affinity between Christianity and Machiavellianism. The two, of course, are very different in many ways that reverberate through The Prince and Macbeth. The easiest way to capture the difference perhaps is in Machiavelli's famous formula: Christianity encourages one to rely on the arms of others (ultimately God and Jesus); Machiavelli encourages one to rely on one's own arms. The one encourages a degree of passivity and surrender to fate (providence); the other encourages and empowers a self-sufficient Promethean activism. Yet the deep parallel in Shakespeare's treatment remains: they are both (inappropriate) modes of responding to human mortality via the search for (delusional) security. Taking a hint from both Nietzsche and Machiavelli, we might characterize the situation Shakespeare portrays in Macbeth as follows: Christianity is the illusion of security for the millions (the many, or the people in Machiavelli's analysis); Machiavellianism is the illusion of security for the few (or the great, as Machiavelli spoke of them). They are parallel errors, with Machiavellianism apparently far the greater error, the one or the other of greater attractiveness depending on psychological type.