Macbeth Group

Question:

destiny0909
destiny0909
Student
High School - 12th Grade

In Macbeth, what are the witches doing, when they are discovered at the beginning of Act 4?

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Posted by destiny0909 on Monday March 2, 2009 at 8:44 PM and tagged with act 4, brew, cauldron, cavern, macbeth, shakespeare, witches.

Answers:


  1. robertwilliam

    Put simply, they are in a cavern, moving around a cauldron and brewing some sort of hallucinogenic mixture:

    FIRST WITCH:
    Round about the cauldron go:
    In the poison'd entrails throw.
    Toad, that under cold stone
    Days and nights has thirty-one
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

    ALL:
    Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

    The witches are waiting for Macbeth to arrive, and brewing a mixture which (in most productions) they then feed to Macbeth in order to bring on the hallucinations that follow: the apparitions that appear to him and make their predictions.

    Hope it helps!

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

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    Posted by robertwilliam on Tuesday March 3, 2009 at 7:52 AM