Macbeth opens with three witches on a moor and a phrase that seems like a tongue twister: "fair is foul, and foul is fair". Beauty is ugly and ugly is beautiful. The straight is crooked and the crooked is straight. In one line, Shakespeare announces the program of the entire play.
What does the phrase mean
It is the declaration of a world turned upside down, where values are inverted and appearances are deceiving. What seems good hides evil, and what seems bad may be the truth. The witches are not just rhyming: they are warning that, from now on, the surface of things cannot be trusted. The reader is warned before the hero even appears.
Inversion as a part system
This opening is not an embellishment. It repeats itself like an echo throughout the text. When Macbeth finally enters, his first words are "I never saw a day so ugly and so beautiful", without knowing that he is mentioning the witches he never even saw. Later, Lady Macbeth performs the same inversion at home: she calls cowardice prudence and crime courage. And the final prophecies are the pinnacle of technique, truths designed to deceive.
When someone manages to change the names of things for you, half the downfall has already happened.
Why is this so dangerous
Because most evil does not announce itself as evil. He arrives renamed: the shortcut becomes "cleverness", betrayal becomes "strategy", haste becomes "healthy ambition". The witches' speech is a lesson in discernment: the first step of temptation is not to do wrong, it is to convince yourself that wrong has another name. Macbeth loses the moment he accepts the change of names.
The phrase as a reading compass
Keeping "the straight is crooked and the crooked is straight" is to have Macbeth's key in your pocket. In each scene, it is worth asking: here, what value is being inverted? Who is calling ugly beautiful? The entire play answers that question, and the answer is also a mirror to life offstage.
Complete class
Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, on video
From the witches' speech to the final fall, the play analyzed scene by scene on the Nous.
Watch the class on YouTubeFrequently asked questions
What does "fair is foul and foul is fair" mean?
In translation, "beautiful is ugly and ugly is beautiful", or "straight is crooked and crooked is straight". It is the witches' speech that opens Macbeth and announces the play's theme: a world where values are inverted and appearances are deceiving.
At what point in the play does this line appear?
In the very first scene of the first act, spoken in chorus by the three witches on the moor, before Macbeth even enters the scene. It works as a thematic opening for everything to come.
How does the inversion of values appear in the rest of Macbeth?
It reappears when cowardice is called prudence and crime, courage; when Macbeth says he has never seen a day so ugly and so beautiful; and in true prophecies designed to deceive. Inversion is the operating system of the piece.
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