The Witches Return & Tyranny
Macbeth Seeks the Witches (Act 4, Scene 1)
After the banquet disaster, Macbeth actively seeks out the witches. This is a crucial shift from Act 1, where they came to him. He is no longer a passive recipient of prophecy — he demands answers: “I conjure you, by that which you profess.” The imperative verb “conjure” places Macbeth in the role of one who summons evil spirits, aligning him with the witches themselves.
Shakespeare shows that Macbeth has fully embraced the supernatural forces he once feared. He tells the witches he is willing to let “the treasure / Of nature’s germens tumble all together, / Even till destruction sicken” — he would rather let nature itself be destroyed than remain ignorant of his fate. This willingness to destroy the natural order echoes and surpasses Lady Macbeth’s earlier “unsex me here” speech.
In Act 1, the witches came to Macbeth; in Act 4, Macbeth seeks them out. This shift shows his total moral collapse — he has moved from being tempted by evil to actively pursuing it. He now willingly participates in the supernatural world.
The Three Apparitions
The witches summon three apparitions to deliver new prophecies. Each apparition is carefully designed by Shakespeare to combine a truthful prediction with a deceptive reassurance:
An Armed Head
“Beware Macduff.” This confirms Macbeth’s existing suspicion and leads directly to the murder of Macduff’s family.
A Bloody Child
“None of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.” This seems to guarantee his invincibility — but Macduff was born by Caesarean section, making him technically not “of woman born.”
A Crowned Child with a Tree
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him.” Macbeth laughs — a forest cannot move. But Malcolm’s soldiers will carry branches as camouflage.
The apparitions are masterpieces of equivocation. Every prophecy is literally true but designed to mislead. “None of woman born” exploits a loophole; Birnam Wood does “come” to Dunsinane — just not in the way Macbeth imagines.
For a Jacobean audience, equivocation had a specific political resonance. The Jesuit priest Henry Garnet, executed for involvement in the Gunpowder Plot (1605), had defended the practice of equivocation — lying through ambiguous language. The Porter in Act 2 directly references “an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale.” Shakespeare weaves this contemporary anxiety into the witches’ deceptions.
False Confidence and the Turn to Tyranny
Emboldened by the prophecies, Macbeth declares: “I will not be afraid of death and bane, / Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.” His confidence is entirely misplaced. Shakespeare uses hubris to drive Macbeth’s final descent: believing himself invincible, he commits atrocities without hesitation.
His first act of unrestrained tyranny is ordering the murder of Macduff’s entire family — his wife, children, and servants. Unlike Duncan’s murder, which Macbeth agonised over, or Banquo’s, which he at least planned carefully, this massacre is impulsive and purposeless. Macduff has already fled to England. The murders serve no strategic purpose — they are pure cruelty.
The murder of Macduff’s family marks Macbeth’s complete moral collapse. Unlike Duncan’s murder, there is no agonising soliloquy and no Lady Macbeth pushing him. He acts on impulse: “The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand.” Thought and violent action are now one.
Shakespeare stages the murder of Lady Macduff’s young son, then has her hunted down offstage moments later, to maximise the audience’s horror. The son’s brave defiance of the murderers — “He has killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you!” — is one of the play’s most distressing moments. The child’s innocence contrasts absolutely with Macbeth’s cruelty.
This scene ensures the audience fully turns against Macbeth. Whatever sympathy remained after the earlier murders is destroyed here. Shakespeare needs this shift for the play’s conclusion to work: the audience must support Malcolm and Macduff’s campaign to overthrow Macbeth and see it as just.
Macbeth as Tyrant
By Act 4, Scotland under Macbeth has become a place of fear and suffering. Ross tells Lady Macduff that “cruel are the times” and that people “float upon a wild and violent sea.” The motif of Scotland as a diseased or storm-tossed nation runs through the second half of the play, contrasting with Duncan’s Scotland, which was characterised by growth and natural order.
Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s tyranny as the inevitable consequence of seizing power through murder. A king who comes to power by killing the rightful monarch can only maintain power through more killing. Violence breeds violence. This was a powerful political message for James I, who had survived assassination attempts and needed to reinforce the idea that legitimate succession was the only path to stability.
“None of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” (Act 4, Scene 1) — The equivocal prophecy that gives Macbeth false confidence.
“The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand” (Act 4, Scene 1) — Macbeth acts on impulse without moral reflection.
“I will not be afraid of death and bane, / Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane” (Act 5, Scene 3) — Hubris — Macbeth believes himself invincible.
“He has killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you!” (Act 4, Scene 2) — The young son’s death removes any remaining audience sympathy for Macbeth.