Macbett’s coronation and wedding present a violent seizure of power as a triumphant public union, then reveal that the bride is a witch wearing Lady Duncan’s appearance. The ceremony’s crowns, robes, scepter, and cheering crowd lend the new regime a polished image of legitimacy; its immediate aftermath strips that image away, exposing both the impersonation and the coercive ambition behind the throne.

Prophecy and the Road to Power

The pageant answers a promise made by the First Witch: Macbett would become Archduke and rule the country, and would ultimately be king. He protests that he is not ambitious, presenting service to Duncan as his only aim. The Second Witch, however, warns that Duncan will take advantage of him by granting him a title while keeping the lands for himself. The prediction thus finds leverage in Macbett’s loyalty: his stated devotion to the sovereign sits beside a grievance that can be turned toward advancement.

Banco’s response makes the prophecy politically dangerous rather than privately reassuring. He recognizes the witches as spies working for Duncan’s enemies and tries to run them through with his sword. As they escape in opposite directions, the First Witch again declares that Macbett will replace Duncan, and the Second confirms that he will mount the throne. Banco’s failed attempt to stop them leaves the prediction in circulation, while his later appearance at the wedding feast will give that earlier resistance a spectral return.

The immediate inducement to violence comes from Lady Duncan’s dagger. She offers it as the instrument of Macbett’s ambition and their rise, urges him to act boldly, and promises that he will take Duncan’s place beside her. The blade is imagined not merely as a means to power but as a lasting reminder of success and a spur to further deeds. Macbett hesitates even as he calls her a siren; her persuasion makes desire, ambition, and political ascent part of the same bargain. At the wedding feast, Lady Duncan will identify Macbett as the murderer of his master and friend, revealing what the celebratory union has concealed.

The Public Coronation and Wedding

After a blackout, the scene opens on shouts acclaiming Macbett and the bride. They enter in robes of state, crowns, and purple robes; Macbett carries his scepter. Bells ring as the crowd cheers, and the pair stand at center stage with their backs to the audience, waving toward the spectators on either side. They turn, salute, wave, and blow kisses. The choreography presents rule as a performance for a watching public: the new sovereigns display themselves, while the crowd’s acclamation supplies the sound of consent.

The bride is hailed as the Archduchess, and Macbett’s exchange with her hints that the spectacle rests on arrangements he has already discovered. He tells her that they will discuss matters later; she replies that she can explain, but not in public. He says he has canceled her prediction, discovered her arrangements, and taken steps to prevent her from having the upper hand. Their smiles and continued greeting of the crowd keep the public image intact, even as their private words suggest distrust and a struggle over who controls the outcome. The stage does not resolve this dispute in the ceremony itself; instead, it lets the carefully maintained display proceed under the shadow of what the pair know.

The Bride’s Disguise

After the couple leave, the apparent bride returns with her Lady-in-waiting, still in the ceremonial costume. The attendant praises her bearing and the couple’s appearance, but the bride says Macbett has fallen asleep after drinking too much and that the wedding feast is still to come. She then discards the sacred crown and removes the cross she had worn, saying that it has been burning her and that she has doused the wound with curses. The objects that had just certified her public status become, in private, things she cannot bear to wear.

Her account of the ceremony turns its sacred gestures into ordeals she endured for the disguise. She says the white dress burns as well, that she spits out the Host that stuck in her throat, and that the icons nearly made her faint when she was required to touch them. She even kissed one, describing the act with disgust; strong, spiced magic vodka, by contrast, is to her no more than mineral water. These details make the wedding’s religious signs instruments of concealment: the apparent bride has performed reverence while inwardly rejecting the objects and rites that made her seem an appropriate sovereign consort.

The Lady-in-waiting helps her change back into a witch’s costume. The transformation is made materially visible through an old, foul-smelling dress, an apron covered in vomit, dirty gray hair, false teeth, and a pointed nose. The First Witch urges haste, and the Second Witch says she is hurrying. Their exchange confirms the impersonation as a coordinated deception rather than a mistaken resemblance. One of them concludes that Macbett will no longer be able to escape the arrangement, while the other says that the boss will be pleased. The bride’s public likeness to Lady Duncan has served the ceremony; the change of clothes exposes the machinery behind that likeness.

Exposure at the Feast and the Ceremony’s Reversal

The wedding feast brings the concealed truth into the same public space as the new regime’s celebration. Banco suddenly appears in a doorway and advances; his arrival recalls the man who had tried to attack the witches when he first heard their prophecy. The apparition interrupts Macbett’s claim to rule without opposition. Later, when Macbett invites the woman he believes to be his wife to take the place of honor, a guest acclaims Lady Macbett, but she rejects the name: she declares herself Lady Duncan, the unhappy but faithful widow of the rightful Archduke.

Macbett insists that she is his wife and appeals to the guests’ presence at the wedding. Lady Duncan distinguishes the ceremony they witnessed from her own marriage: Macbett, she says, married a sorceress who had taken her face, voice, and body. The witch imprisoned her in the palace dungeons, but her chains have just fallen and the bolts drawn back as if by magic. She refuses complicity with Macbett and calls him an usurper and imposter, as well as the murderer of Duncan. The crowd’s recollection of the wedding cannot undo her account; instead, it demonstrates how effectively the impersonation passed before witnesses.

Macbett asks how Lady Duncan knows what has been happening, while a guest echoes the question. The interruption leaves the exposure unresolved as an explanation but decisive as a political and personal reversal: the woman presented as his bride refuses the role, and the wedding’s apparent union is shown to have been a witch’s performance imposed upon an imprisoned widow. The later forest procession sharpens the irony of Macbett’s confidence. When Macol confronts him, Macbett still insists that he can be beaten only when the forest marches against him; people then approach carrying placards with trees, and Macol announces that the forest is on the march. The ceremony that advertised a secure new order therefore stands within a sequence of false appearances and overturned predictions, not as a stable settlement.