'When Shall We Iii Meet Again' is the opening line of William Shakespeare'due south great tragedy, Macbeth. Spoken by the Beginning Witch, the line immediately ushers united states into a world of witches, prophecy, and black magic, elements which Shakespeare probably chose to include considering the new King of England, James I, had written censoriously about witchcraft in his book Demonologie.

The best way to analyse the meaning of the opening 'When Shall We Three Meet Again' scene is to summarise information technology, stage by stage. But first, hither'southward the scene:

Thunder and lightning. Enter 3 WITCHES

Showtime WITCH

When shall we 3 meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in pelting?

SECOND WITCH

When the hurly-burly'due south done,
When the battle's lost and won.

Tertiary WITCH

That will be ere the fix of sunday.

Starting time WITCH

Where the place?

Second WITCH

Upon the heath.

Third WITCH

There to meet with Macbeth.

FIRST WITCH

I come up, Graymalkin!

Second WITCH

Paddock calls.

Tertiary WITCH

Anon.

ALL

Fair is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt

Now, permit's become through the scene, fleck by bit, and summarise what'south going on, offering some words of analysis as we go.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three WITCHES

This scene, co-ordinate to the stage directions, takes place in 'an open place'. Immediately, Shakespeare establishes an atmosphere of foreboding: the storm which begins Macbeth heralds the turbulent events which are going to follow, all of which the Witches have prophesied. From the showtime, things are foreign, out-of-kilter: off-white is foul, and foul is off-white, equally the Witches will afterwards (collectively) say.

FIRST WITCH

When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in pelting?

The Showtime Witch asks her two boyfriend Witches when they volition next go together. Non how the second line, 'In thunder, lightning, or in pelting' is – as Frank Kermode noted in his bright Shakespeare'due south Language – not really a choice, since thunder usually accompanies lightning and vice versa, and pelting tends to accompany both.

Every bit Kermode goes on to observe, such a deceptive and subtle line, which seems to offer choice that is in fact no option, nicely introduces one of the recurrent themes of Macbeth, which is the extent to which the characters – and most of all, the title character himself – are in control of their ain actions.

SECOND WITCH

When the hurly-burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

As Kermode also notes, battles which are lost by 1 side are too won by another: every battle is both lost and won. More choices which plough out not to be choices, or mutually exclusive outcomes. Of course, the terminal battle between Macbeth and Macduff, which will see Macbeth defeated, will be both lost by Macbeth and won by Macduff, so this line is another which prefigures the play to come up. Merely the 'battle' more directly referred to here is the one which Duncan and Macbeth discuss shortly subsequently this scene – the battle at which the traitorous rebel, the Thane of Cawdor, is defeated and Macbeth wins the praise of the King, Duncan.

'Hurly-burly' means tumult or uproar: the word may imply here the tumult of insurrection or defection (the Thane of Cawdor who is executed for his treason against the King), only likewise suggestions that change is in the air and the kingdom is about to be plunged into violent anarchy.

The word 'done' ('When the hurly-burly's washed') will resonate throughout Macbeth: it volition recur in Macbeth'southward own speeches ('If it were done when 'tis done, and then 'twere well / It were done quickly') and information technology is there every bit a homophonic presence in both Duncan and Dunsinane. Here nosotros have the discussion'south start appearance, just it will render once more and again throughout this short play.

3rd WITCH

That will exist ere the set of sun.

Things are moving swiftly: the 3rd Witch believes that the battle will exist over before dusk.

Offset WITCH

Where the place?

2d WITCH

Upon the heath.

Tertiary WITCH

There to meet with Macbeth.

The Witches have already decided to approach Macbeth after the battle, so they can tell him near the prophecy which foretells that he volition be King of Scotland after Duncan.

Showtime WITCH

I come, Graymalkin!

Graymalkin or 'Grimalkin' in some versions literally ways 'grey Mary', and is the name of the First Witch's cat. Witches' familiars are ofttimes cats in accounts of witchcraft, although 'grey' suggests something slightly different from the usual clichéd black cat. This is one of the earliest uses of Graymalkin/Grimalkin in literature, although not quite the outset: we can discover a Grimalkin in the remarkable 1550s piece of work Beware the True cat, a London-prepare narrative which might exist described every bit the first English novel. (See my AMAZON for more on this fascinating proto-Gothic text.)

SECOND WITCH

Paddock calls.

Paddock is some other witches' familiar – in this case, a toad. The word 'paddock' is an quondam English dialect term for the toad.

Third WITCH

Betimes.

ALL

Off-white is foul, and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt

The line 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' is almost proverbial, and was already so when Shakespeare wrote this line. In Edmund Spenser'southward The Faerie Queene from the 1590s, for instance, we detect the line, 'Then faire grew foule, and foule grew faire in sight'.

One time again, here, nosotros accept the natural society being overturned and inverted, with the pair of opposites dissolving into one: fair has been rendered foul, and foul has get fair. Good and evil appear to have swapped places. Only every bit that battle is both lost and won, so fair and foul are indistinguishable.

'When Shall We Three Run across Again' is amongst Shakespeare's more famous opening lines, and for many it immediately conjures the world of witchcraft and prophecy in which the events of Macbeth accept identify. But, perhaps surprisingly, the scene has not proved universally popular with critics. The actor Harley Granville-Barker, an influential critic of Shakespeare's plays, went so far as to describe information technology equally a 'pointless scene'.

Still others have seen how the Witches' opening commutation sets the tone and mood for the play itself. Samuel Taylor Coleridge pointed out that this opening scene establishes an 'invocation' which is 'made at once to the imagination'. So it is a powerful opening scene, fifty-fifty though it works quite differently from many other opening scenes nosotros detect in Shakespeare.