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monikailani1074
monikailani1074
Student
College - Senior

What three messages does Macbeth receive from the three apparitions?

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Posted by monikailani1074 on Friday March 20, 2009 at 11:59 PM and tagged with act four, apparitions, birnam wood, macbeth, macduff, predictions, shakespeare, witches.

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  1. robertwilliam

    eNotes Editor

    OK, so we're looking here at the apparitions scene: Act 4, Scene 1. Let's go one by one.

    The first apparition is an "Armed Head". He says:

    Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff;
    Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.

    Macduff, though no-one knows this yet, will be the one to eventually kill Macbeth. So it's good advice - and it's simple: Beware of Macduff (who is also the Thane of Fife).

    THe second apparition is a bloody child.

    Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
    The power of man, for none of woman born
    Shall harm Macbeth.

    Macbeth is to be bloody (i.e. shed lots of blood), brave and resolved. No-one born of a woman can harm him. The irony, which we don't discover until the last scenes of the play, is that Macduff was not "born", in the normal way, but born by section, cut out of his mother's womb.

    The third apparition is a baby, crowned, with a branch in his hand. He says to Macbeth:

    Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
    Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
    Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
    Shall come against him.

    So Macbeth is to be as brave as a lion, and to ignore everyone else. Macbeth will never be overcome ("vanquished") until the nearby wood, Birnam Wood, moves to Dunsinane Hill.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth-text/act-iv-scene-i

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Saturday March 21, 2009 at 3:46 AM