Cooney, Caroline. 2007. Enter Three Witches.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Act IV, Scene I
Caroline B. Cooney's latest novel, Enter Three Witches, is rich with Shakespeare. Told from the point of view of a young girl, Mary, the reader gets a new perspective of the ever-required play MacBeth.
Back to Enter Three Witches. Mary is a young girl, a daughter of one of the characters who is accused of treason and executed. She had been "adopted" for a time by the Macbeth family and had been staying with them for quite a while when the book (and play) opens. We first meet her visiting and chatting with the servant girls/kitchen staff. Although Mary has not revealed it to another soul, she's been experiencing weird tingles in her thumbs. She's almost convinced it's a sign. A sign that only the three weird sisters could interpret. But everyone is scared of the witches, right? Yet her curiousity leads Mary to be in just the right place to overhear a prophecy--a deadly prophecy given to Macbeth. (The reader will notice that this happens to Mary a lot. She always happens to be in the background, the shadows, listening and watching as all the big drama happens.)
What can I say about Enter Three Witches? It blends original characters with classic Shakespeare characters. It quotes a bit of Shakespeare now and then. While it is told mainly through Mary's point of view, it also includes a bit of the young prince's point of view--Fleance. It is very dramatic. Of course it has its dark moments. Lots of blood. Lots of schemes. Lots of villains.
Looking for another Macbethian novel to read? Try Something Wicked by Alan Gratz.
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Reduced Shakespeare Company:
Animated Macbeth in three parts
One:
Two:
Three:
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Manga Shakespeare: Macbeth. Illustrated by Robert Deas. 2008.
This Macbeth graphic novel is set "in a future world of post-nuclear mutation." (That little fact will explain away why Macduff has four arms.) I'll be honest with you now. I rarely understand or "get" the art and design of the Manga itself. Why set Shakespeare's Scottish play in a post-nuclear-disaster future?...for example. But while I sometimes fail to appreciate the illustrative story that has nothing whatsoever to do with the text of the book itself, I almost always love, love, love the adaptation of the play itself. The series has done a wonderful job in adapting these plays and presenting them in new and imaginative ways.
Manga Shakespeare begins with several pages of color art work. Each character is introduced along with a phrase or two that sums up their character or their influence on the play itself. For example, Lady Macbeth's is "But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail!" which is a great line to sum up everything she brings to the play.
Most of the graphic novel is in black and white. This is an action-filled play. And the text really works well here. Everything that is memorable and important from Shakespeare's original play is presented within the book. (In other words, all the lines that are apt to be on the test or vital to class discussion.) I love that the language is all Shakespeare. I love that the text becomes more accessible because of the format.
I think Lady Macbeth is a great example of this. With her well-endowed cleavage, corset, mini-skirt, and thigh-high boots. Her manipulations and insults to Macbeth's manhood (and courage) become even more obvious.
Highlights of their relationship:
LADY MACBETH
Give him tending;MACBETH
He brings great news.Exit Messenger
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'Enter MACBETH
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.
My dearest love,LADY MACBETH
Duncan comes here to-night.
And when goes hence?MACBETH
To-morrow, as he purposes.LADY MACBETH
O, neverMACBETH
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
We will speak further.LADY MACBETH Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.
***
MACBETH
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere wellLADY MACBETH
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.Enter LADY MACBETH
How now! what news?
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:LADY MACBETH
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Was the hope drunkMACBETH
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
Prithee, peace:LADY MACBETH
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
What beast was't, then,MACBETH
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
If we should fail?LADY MACBETH
We fail!MACBETH
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him--his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
Bring forth men-children only;LADY MACBETH
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
That they have done't?
Who dares receive it other,MACBETH I am settled, and bend up
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
***
MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.Exit Servant
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.A bell rings
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.Exit
SCENE II. The same.
Enter LADY MACBETHLADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;MACBETH
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.
Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd
their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.
[Within] Who's there? what, ho!LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,MACBETH
And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.Enter MACBETH
My husband!
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.MACBETH
Did not you speak?
When?LADY MACBETH
Now.MACBETH
As I descended?LADY MACBETH
Ay.MACBETH
Hark!LADY MACBETH
Who lies i' the second chamber?
Donalbain.MACBETH
This is a sorry sight.LADY MACBETHLooking on his hands
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.MACBETH
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one criedLADY MACBETH
'Murder!'
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
Again to sleep.
There are two lodged together.MACBETH
One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other;LADY MACBETH
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'
When they did say 'God bless us!'
Consider it not so deeply.MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?LADY MACBETH
I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.
These deeds must not be thoughtMACBETH
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!LADY MACBETH
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,--
What do you mean?MACBETH
Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:LADY MACBETH
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,MACBETH
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
I'll go no more:LADY MACBETH
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
Infirm of purpose!MACBETH
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.Exit. Knocking within
Whence is that knocking?LADY MACBETH
How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.Re-enter LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shameMACBETH To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
To wear a heart so white.Knocking within
I hear a knocking
At the south entry: retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.Knocking within
Hark! more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
Knocking within
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!(This one would pair well with Something Wicked by Alan Gratz.)
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Gratz, Alan. 2008. Something Wicked: A Horatio Wilkes Mystery.
Horatio Wilkes is back in his second adventure, Something Wicked. We first met our mystery-solving hero (who is wonderfully snarky) in Something Rotten. A modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in Denmark, Tennessee. In this second adventure, we have a modern-day spin on Shakespeare's Macbeth set on Mount Birnam during the Scottish Highland Fair. (And although this is his second book, it is not necessary to have read Something Rotten in order to enjoy Something Wicked.)
So who are the stars of Something Wicked? Well, there's Mac (Joe Mackenzie), Beth (Mac's girl friend with attitude), Banks (Wallace Banks, cousin and friend to Mac), Duncan (Mac's grandfather, owner of the mountain and founder of the fair), Mal (Duncan's son and Mac's uncle), Mona (Desdemona, Horatio's older sister), and Megan Sternwood (Horatio's love interest from the Macduff clan). Of course, there are many others as well including a fortune-telling road-side psychic named Madame Hecate.
Here's how the novel begins:
History is full of guys who did stupid things for women. Paris started the Trojan War over Helen. Mark Antony abandoned Rome for Cleopatra. John Lennon gave up the Beatles for Yoko Ono. You can say I'm a dreamer, but they're not the only ones. Like my friend, Joe Mackenzie: He was about to jump off a five-story building just to impress a girl.This group of friends is on their way to the Highland Fair. (Horatio is the only one NOT wearing a kilt.) But before they arrive, they stop and several have their fortunes read by a woman who calls herself Madame Hecate. An activity that proves rather fateful and which sets the tone for the book. Mac is told that he will compete in the decathlon, he will win, and he will become king of the mountain. Banks is told that he is "lesser than your friend, but greater" and "not so happy, yet much happier" and that he will one day own the mountain. These "prophecies" set off a chain of events...
"Come on, you wuss!" Mac's girlfriend Beth yelled. "If you don't jump off that tower, you're not getting any more of this!" She lifted her sweater up over her head, showing her bra and her extraordinary breasts to Mac, me, Banks, and the five or six other people milling around Kangaroo Kevin's Bungee Jump-O-Rama in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. They actually inspired a small round of applause. I won't say what they did to me, but Beth's fun cushions certainly inspired Mac. With a Scottish war cry he charged the end of the platform and jumped headfirst, screaming all the way down. His kilt opened like a daisy as he fell, and everyone saw his stamen. (1)
Something Wicked is a mystery. The mystery in this case? Who murdered Duncan Macrae? The man, the founder of the Fair and highly respected and beloved by all the clans, is found murdered in his tent on opening night. Horatio is the one who discovers the body. Who sees the name 'Malcolm' written in blood. Who reports the crime to the police. Who becomes friends with Sheriff Wood. It is Horatio who starts to piece together just who had the motive, means, and opportunity. He may not like being in the center of this unfolding mystery. (Especially as he discovers he has his own role to play in solving the case.) But Horatio plays a crucial role in bringing justice about.
I loved so many things about this one. It's a smart novel. Great writing. Good humor. Interesting twists.
From the author's site:
Something wicked this way comes,
and only Horatio Wilkes can stop it.
A Scottish Highland Fair turns foul when Horatio discovers the games' founder, Duncan MacRae, dead in his tent. All signs point to Duncan's son as the murderer, but Horatio's not so sure--especially when his friend Mac and Mac's girlfriend Beth start acting like they own the place. And that's just one of many mysteries: Like why are Mac's and Beth's fathers acting so suspiciously? What's the deal with the goth-punk bagpiper corps threatening Horatio's friend Banks? Who is the hot girl spying on everyone? And why, exactly, are there men in kilts tossing telephone poles around?
Horatio will need all his snark and smarts--and maybe a little amazing grace--to thwart the fate a road-side psychic laid out for him and his friends. Not that Horatio believes in that kind of thing anyway . . .Kilts, Celts, and killers: the sequel to Something Rotten is "Macbeth" as you've never seen it before!
For a limited time, you can read Something Rotten for free.
Other reviews: Genre Go Round, Readers' Rants.
To learn more about Alan Gratz, Something Wicked, and/or Shakespeare...visit these other stops on the tour:
the 160acrewoods, A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maggie Reads, Never Jam Today, Reading is My Superpower
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
I like Caroline B. Cooney's books and this sounds pretty good. I'm not big on Shakespeare but Macbeth is one of my favs.
I read Macbeth in high school and again in college, but I must admit I understood it better after reading Enter Three Witches. I love the way she incorporated Shakespeare's language and I find it a good book to give eighth grade girls who love a challenge.
Maybe I'd better read this if it will help me unerstand Shakespeare better. Thanks for your review.
Someone reviewed this last year and I couldn't find a copy anywhere, will start looking again thanks for the reminder. Will see about getting it for my mum too.