one to this (1.7.55-60).The Weird Sisters work on Macbeth by addressing him as the " . . . Thane of Cawdor!" (1.3.50), and later they explained that he is nor yet, but soon will be the Thane of Cawdor. By telling him this, the Weird Sisters made Macbeth greedy, and he decides to take the role of king through murder, rather than waiting for it to be given to him legally. After killing Duncan, Macbeth obsesses over the crime that he has committed, and then he is tormented by the question of what the apparitions foretold for his future as king. By showing Macbeth what the future would hold for him, the Weird Sisters display the powers that they actually have. Because the Weird Sisters welcome this power, they are accepting a masculine trait because power and authority was something only men had at that time. It is their transformation into maleness that classifies these women as witches. Gary Wills states, in Witches and Jesuits, that Lady Macbeth is a witch because of the man that researchers believe was cast in her role. His name was John Rice. Some researchers think that he had a history of playing the part of witches. It is believed that he played the role of Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Lucretia in The Devil's Charter, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. All of these plays were probably performed in the same season, and each of these characters that Rice played had similar traits. All of these women have been associated with being witches. "A remarkable feature of all of these plays [was] their fascination with witchcraft" (Wills 78). Antony compares Cleopatra's power to the power of a witch. Lucretia's father is a " . . . conjuring male witch . . ." (Wills 78), and when she wants to murder her husband, she asks for aid from hell. Lady Macbeth asks to be unsexed and offers to nurse spirits from her breast. "All of these heroines ask to be made 'indurate' for their evil tasks" (Wills 79). All of these things were charact...
