Jacobean anxieties about the supernatural are embodied in the unholy trinity of the three ‘weird sisters’ whose arrival on stage at the beginning of the play, during a literal and metaphorical storm, underlines their affinity with chaos. Their incantatory, anarchic avowal that ‘fair is foul’ contaminates the drama and reveals their uncanny influence on Macbeth even before he encounters them: ‘ So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’ This supernatural seeming ‘echo’ or imprinting, unnerves the Jacobean audience who have already ‘met’ the witches and know of their desire to upset the natural order of things through their disruptive, trouble-making expressions of Ill will. Even their ‘bearded’ and therefore ‘unfeminine’ appearance would have unsettled the Jacobean audience as their powers give emphasis to society’s fears about strong and therefore ‘unnatural’ women, anticipating Lady Macbeth’s malign and subversive, ‘unsex me here’ speech and her disavowal of maternal affection by the end of Act One, ‘And dashed the brains out.’Thus, the influence of the supernatural is established from the opening scene and engenders a dismal sense of inevitability which infects the whole drama. Such a sense of inevitability raises questions about Macbeth’s personal contribution to his terrible fate and whether his submission to the witches’ temptation is due to his human hubris or to their overpoweringly malevolent powers.
