Macbeth Fair is foul and foul is fair
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Shakespeare's- Macbeth
"Fair is foul and foul is fair"
This essay is on the theme Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair. The theme appears many times throughout the play and means that what seems good at first is really evil and what seems evil at first is really good.
The theme first appears in Act 1 scene 1 line 11-12 when the witches say Fair is foul and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. This is when the weird sisters are waiting for Macbeth to return from the battle before they twist his mind with thier prophecies.
In act 1 scene 2 the sergeant says As whence the sun 'gins his reflection, Ship wrecking storms and direful thunders break, So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come Discomfort swells. This is where the sergeant tells King Duncan of Macbeth's battle. Just as Macbeth's army defeated an enemy, and it was thought to be safe, another army attacked. The actual translation of the quote means that just as the coming of fair weather in the spring brings comfort and we expect the weather to stay good, foul weather an bring extreme "discomfort".
The next manifestation of the theme is in Act 1 scene 3. Banquo says to Macbeth, just after he is pronounced Thane of Cawdor But 'tis strange: And oftentimes, to win us harm, The instruments if darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray' In deepest consequence...