Character: The Three Witches. (The Maiden, The Mother and The Crone)
Accusation: "By telling Macbeth of the prophecy about his future, the three Witches started, and are responsible, for all the events that followed"
Accused by: Superstitious villagers.
How now, who are you, to blame this tragedy on we, Maiden, Mother, Crone, sister witches three. You tell us we are at fault, that our words rolled the stone. That Duncan, the too-trusting King; Banquo, a father of royal sons; and Macbeth; the great, failed Macbeth, who ignored his own weaknesses, that they all passed from this world to the next, through events and actions of our doing. That Lady Macbeth was sent mad by our whisperings, before she jumped to her death.
Ignorant peasants, you falsely lay charge against us with no concept of true blame. Do you accuse the sun in the sky of ill will, simply because it watches over our Earth? My sisters and I did as we were meant, we observed and we told, and that is the end. A prophecy will come to pass, whether someone knows of it or not. Macbeth chose his own actions, and therefore his demise. Duncan and Banquo died at his hands, as did Lady Macduff and all the little Macduffs. His are the hands stained with blood, for his path is his own, prophecy or no. As for his death, Macbeth chose that himself, by ignoring our warnings about Macduff, he who was of no woman born.
Paths of destiny set themselves, with no ordering from any, have they beyond mortal knowledge or no knowledge at all. To a few, however, it is given the gift to see beyond the mundane, to see the twists and turns of destiny. This is the gift we sisters three received, and used, with no gift however to change fate. One may observe the course of a mighty river, but do nothing to deter its flow, and this is the situation Macbeth found us three in.
It is true that we told Macbeth he would be Thane of Cawdor, and King thereafter, but in stating this, facts where told. If we told you that the sun would rise tomorrow, it would come to pass whether we had told you or not. The same is true of the raise of Macbeth, like the sun raising, he would become that which he was, even if we had kept our peace and greeted him with silence. The seeds of his deeds were already hidden in his mind, hidden deep, but not deep enough that he would not have acted upon them, in time.
Macbeth's hesitation was not overcome with the whisperings of our voices, but with those of his own lady wife, the Lady Macbeth, who doubted the brave Thane's courage and ambition. Her words were the ones that pushed him to commit so foul a deed, her insistence that he take Duncan's throne from beneath him, and lay charge upon the two who were born from the great King. She challenged him to prove himself, doubted his manhood, and the male Macbeth rose to challenge as only a man would. He took the knife, and ended the existence of the trusting king, whose trust ended him. This he did upon the orders of his wife, with no added whisperings from we sisters.
And such a wife, treacherous and cruel, but unable to handle such traits. Driven mad with remorse and guilt, when it is she who pushed the blood letting to begin with. The whisperings she heard in the night were her own tormented mind, playing for her the song of lunacy and death, so loud that it drowned out her rational thought.
To you who tell us we are to blame, who throw stones and burn our sisters, to you who look for a culprit, we ask of you this. When the brave, mighty Macbeth died, who was it that killed him? Witches or Man? Paths of destiny for their own connections, and as observers we observed, and did not change, and as actors they played their parts loyally, each unknown, except for Macbeth and Banquo, Banquo and Macbeth. Each chose their own path through, though the course was already chosen.
Banquo did not stop his friends rise to power, and so suffered with the greatest cost, that of his life. Macbeth followed our words when they suited him, and when they did not he ignored our warnings, leading to the removal of his crown and his head both, each still attached to the other. The mad lady could not handle a soul so charged with blood and murder, and so jumped to her own death, rambling as only the mad do, when the murders and deaths were her own idea, and so too her downfall was her own, figuratively and literally.
We witches three keep our own company, for mortal struggles and strife shall be undone and done of their own accord, with little help from us.