Macbeth and the three witches

This blog is courtesy Sai.
When I mentioned that I was having dinner with two other friends, he gave me an SMS asking why we were not waiting for Macbeth.
It took me all of two seconds to realise he was referring to us as the three witches!!! You know, those ugly old crones who meet Macbeth and make the inital predictions which lead to him killing the king and Banquo, and the final predictions warning him to be careful of Macduff, having the woods "marching" to face him in war and finally the prediction "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth".
This led me to thinking of what Macbeth portrays to the audience, the play is among the four great tragedies penned by the Bard (with Othello, King Lear and Hamlet being the other three) and is by far, the shortest of them all.
Yet, it deals with choices made by a man by hearing what he thought was the future being predicted. Would he have behaved differently if he was not met by the witches or if they did not dole out what they saw in the times ahead?
Perhaps.
Which is why maybe it is better that we not know what is in store for us through astrologers etc, but just be ready for anything.
Nothing I have written in this post makes sense when I read it, all I wanted to write was " Sai, why witches? Three people usually remind others of the Three Musketeers (I would have settled for three little pigs too, by the way!!)", but I got sidetracked into thinking about choices and acting on too little information provided in the wrong format (maybe Shakespeare should just have sent those witches to communication classes where they are taught the art of effective communication.....)