Enter three Murderers

FIRST MURDERER    But who did bid thee join with us?

THIRD MURDERER   Macbeth.

SECOND MURDERER            He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers

Our offices and what we have to do

To the direction just.

FIRST MURDERER    Then stand with us.

The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.

Now spurs the lated traveller apace

To gain the timely inn, and near approaches

The subject of our watch.     (3.3.1-8)

So economical, so mysterious, so much chewed over: who is this Third Murderer? He’s appeared some time before the scene begins, it seems, and the conversation has been growing a little tense: but who did bid thee join with us? why are you here, who the hell are you? (And where has he come from? It makes it seem darker, too, that he—or indeed she—has been able to attach himself to this shifty double act, sneaking up on the sneakers-up, ambushing the ambushers.) It’s usually suggested that this is a sign of Macbeth’s paranoia, his inability to trust even men whom he thinks he’s convinced, bribed, bought; here’s someone to make sure they do what they’ve said they’ll do. An early modern audience might also readily think of the well-known Latin aphorism (from Juvenal) quis custodiet ipsos custodes, often translated as ‘who will guard the guards themselves?’ or ‘who watches the watchers?’ it’s about power and accountability, about the possibility of tyranny; it speaks to what Macbeth has done already and will continue to do. (That there are three now also, of course, aligns the murderers with the witches.)

If the Third Murderer is recognisable—Ross, for instance—then it suggests the varying degrees of loyalty among Macbeth’s thanes. And sometimes in performance, the Third Murderer is Macbeth himself, taking his micro-management, his paranoia, his control-freakery to extremes, yes, but also exhibiting a kind of masochism: if he’s decided that the only way is to kill his friend, kill his friend’s child, then he’s going to do it himself, witness it, experience his own moral degradation and damnation first hand.

The Second Murderer placates, perhaps with some frustration (in the earlier scene, he was the weaker one, with less to say): look, there isn’t a problem, he’s just come along to pass on the final orders, deliver our offices and what we have to do to the direction just, so that there’s no confusion, no ambiguity, no possibility of screwing it up. (Is the First Murderer worried about having to split the fee? worried about this other guy taking all the credit, perhaps killing the original two in order to do so?) The First Murderer has no choice but to agree: then stand with us, he says to the Third, because time’s passing. The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day, and that tiny snapshot of a sunset, perhaps the aftermath of a sunset, harks back to the dreadful invocations of night and darkness by the Macbeths. Day’s gone, light’s all but gone. It’s time—because night is dangerous, no one wants to be out too long after nightfall if they can help it. And so now spurs the lated traveller apace to gain the timely inn; he rides faster, urging his horse on, so that he’ll reach shelter and safety in good time: that the traveller is lated, running late, spurring his presumably tired horse, adds a homely, familiar note of anxiety. That’s Banquo, just wanting to be safely back before dark with his boy. And near approaches the subject of our watch—has the First Murderer already heard the horses? Or does he just know that it’s time?