'When Shall We Iii Come across Again' is the opening line of William Shakespeare'south great tragedy, Macbeth. Spoken by the First Witch, the line immediately ushers united states into a globe of witches, prophecy, and black magic, elements which Shakespeare probably chose to include because 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 See Again' scene is to summarise it, stage by stage. But first, here's the scene:

Thunder and lightning. Enter three WITCHES

FIRST WITCH

When shall we three run into again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2d WITCH

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

THIRD WITCH

That will be ere the ready of sun.

Get-go WITCH

Where the place?

SECOND WITCH

Upon the heath.

THIRD WITCH

There to see with Macbeth.

FIRST WITCH

I come, 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, let'south get through the scene, bit by bit, and summarise what'south going on, offering some words of analysis as nosotros go.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three WITCHES

This scene, according to the stage directions, takes place in 'an open identify'. Immediately, Shakespeare establishes an temper of foreboding: the storm which begins Macbeth heralds the turbulent events which are going to follow, all of which the Witches accept prophesied. From the start, things are strange, out-of-kilter: fair is foul, and foul is off-white, every bit the Witches will later (collectively) say.

FIRST WITCH

When shall we three meet once more?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

The Kickoff Witch asks her two fellow Witches when they will next get together. Not how the second line, 'In thunder, lightning, or in rain' is – equally Frank Kermode noted in his vivid Shakespeare's Language – non really a choice, since thunder usually accompanies lightning and vice versa, and rain tends to accompany both.

As Kermode goes on to observe, such a deceptive and subtle line, which seems to offer choice that is in fact no selection, 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 own actions.

2d WITCH

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

Every bit Kermode also notes, battles which are lost by one side are also won by another: every battle is both lost and won. More choices which plow out not to be choices, or mutually exclusive outcomes. Of grade, the final battle between Macbeth and Macduff, which will see Macbeth defeated, will be both lost past Macbeth and won by Macduff, then this line is another which prefigures the play to come. But the 'boxing' more directly referred to here is the i which Duncan and Macbeth hash out shortly later on this scene – the battle at which the traitorous rebel, the Thane of Cawdor, is defeated and Macbeth wins the praise of the Male monarch, Duncan.

'Hurly-burly' ways tumult or uproar: the word may imply here the tumult of insurrection or defection (the Thane of Cawdor who is executed for his treason confronting the King), but also suggestions that alter is in the air and the kingdom is well-nigh to be plunged into vehement chaos.

The word 'done' ('When the hurly-burly's done') will resonate throughout Macbeth: it will recur in Macbeth'southward own speeches ('If it were washed when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done chop-chop') and it is there as a homophonic presence in both Duncan and Dunsinane. Hither nosotros have the word's outset appearance, but it will return again and again throughout this brusk play.

THIRD WITCH

That will be ere the set of sun.

Things are moving swiftly: the 3rd Witch believes that the boxing will be over before sunset.

FIRST WITCH

Where the identify?

SECOND WITCH

Upon the heath.

THIRD WITCH

At that place 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 will be Male monarch of Scotland after Duncan.

FIRST WITCH

I come, Graymalkin!

Graymalkin or 'Grimalkin' in some versions literally means 'grey Mary', and is the name of the First Witch'south true cat. Witches' familiars are ofttimes cats in accounts of witchcraft, although 'gray' suggests something slightly different from the usual clichéd black true cat. This is one of the primeval uses of Graymalkin/Grimalkin in literature, although not quite the get-go: nosotros tin find a Grimalkin in the remarkable 1550s work Beware the Cat, a London-prepare narrative which might be described as 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 instance, a toad. The word 'paddock' is an old English dialect term for the toad.

THIRD WITCH

Anon.

ALL

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

Exeunt

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

Once again, hither, we have the natural order beingness overturned and inverted, with the pair of opposites dissolving into one: fair has been rendered foul, and foul has become off-white. Practiced and evil appear to have swapped places. Just as that boxing is both lost and won, so off-white and foul are indistinguishable.

'When Shall We Iii Meet Again' is amidst Shakespeare's more than famous opening lines, and for many it immediately conjures the world of witchcraft and prophecy in which the events of Macbeth take place. But, perhaps surprisingly, the scene has non proved universally popular with critics. The actor Harley Granville-Barker, an influential critic of Shakespeare's plays, went and then far equally to describe it equally a 'pointless scene'.

Yet others accept seen how the Witches' opening exchange sets the tone and mood for the play itself. Samuel Taylor Coleridge pointed out that this opening scene establishes an 'invocation' which is 'fabricated at once to the imagination'. And so it is a powerful opening scene, even though it works quite differently from many other opening scenes we detect in Shakespeare.