..Macbeth A Study Guide

Type of Work

.......Macbeth is a stage play in the form of a tragedy. It is one of several Shakespeare plays in which the protagonist commits murder. Other such plays are Richard III, Othello, and Julius Caesar (Brutus). Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies. It has no subplots. 
Key Dates
Date Written: Probably by 1605 but no later than 1607.
First Performance of Play: Probably between 1605 and 1607 at the Globe Theatre. 
Publication: 1623 as part of the First Folio, the first authorized collection of Shakespeare's play..
Sources
.......Shakespeare based Macbeth primarily on accounts in The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (Holinshed’s Chronicles), by Raphael Holinshed (?-1580?), who began work on this history under the royal printer Reginald Wolfe. The first edition of the chronicles was published in 1577 in two volumes. Shakespeare may also have used Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures (1603), by Samuel Harsnett; Rerum Scoticarum Historia (1582), by George Buchanan; and published reports of witch trials in Scotland.
Settings
.......Macbeth takes place in northern Scotland and in England. The scenes in Scotland are set at or near King Duncan’s castle at Forres, at Macbeth’s castle on Dunsinane Hill in the county of Inverness, and in countryside locales where the three witches meet. A scene is also set at a castle in England.
Characters
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Protagonist: Macbeth
Antagonists: Psychological and Supernatural Forces, Including the Witches and the Three Apparitions
Foils of Macbeth: Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, Lady Macbeth 
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Macbeth: Ambitious army general in Scotland. His hunger for kingly power, fed by a prophecy of three witches, causes him to murder the rightful king, Duncan I of Scotland, and take his place. Macbeth presents a problem for the audience in that he evokes both sympathy and condemnation; he is both hero, in a manner of speaking, and villain.
Lady Macbeth: Wife of Macbeth, who abets his murder. Her grandfather was a Scottish king who was killed in defense of his throne against the king who immediately preceded King Duncan I. On the surface, she appears ruthless and hardened, but her participation in the murder of Duncan gnaws at her conscience and she goes insane, imagining that she sees the blood of Duncan on her hands.
Duncan I: King of Scotland.
Malcolm, Donalbain: Sons of King Duncan. Malcolm, the older son, is the Prince of Cumberland. He becomes King of Scotland (as Malcom III) at the end of the play.
Banquo: Army general murdered on Macbeth's orders to prevent Banquo from begetting a line of kings, as predicted by the three witches whom Macbeth and Banquo encounter on a heath. Banquo’s ghost later appears to Macbeth.
Three Witches: Hags who predict Macbeth will become king. Shakespeare refers to the three witches as the weird sisters. Weird is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word wyrd, meaning fate. Thus, the witches appear to represent fate, a force that predetermines destiny. The Greek poet Hesiod (eighth century BC) was the first writer to represent fate as three old women. These three hags were actually goddesses. Clotho was in charge of weaving the fabric of a person's life. Lachesis determined a person's life span and destiny. Atropos cut the threads of the fabric of life when it was time for a person to die. No one–not even the mightiest god–could change the decisions of the Fates. Collectively, the Greeks called them Moirae. Latin speakers referred to them as Parcae. The given name Moira means fate.
Hecate, Witch 4: Mistress of the witches' charms and queen of Hades. She is the fourth witch in the play (or the fifth for those who believe Lady Macbeth, in view of her invocations of evil, is a witch.) 
Macduff: Scottish nobleman and lord of Fife who is known for his wisdom and integrity. He becomes Macbeth's enemy. He and Macbeth cross swords at the end of the play.
Lady Macduff: Wife of Macduff. She is murdered on Macbeth’s orders.
Son of Macduff: One of the Macduff children who are murdered on Macbeth’s orders.
Lennox, Ross, Menteith, Angus, Caithness: Scottish noblemen
Fleance: Son of Banquo.
Siward:  Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces.
Young Siward: Son of Siward.
Seyton: Officer attending Macbeth.
Sweno: King of Norway during the war against Scotland. Sweno, referred to in Act I, Scene II, has no speaking part in the play.
English Doctor: He treats the King of England (who does not appear in the play) for an illness while Macduff and Malcolm are at the king’s palace planning the overthrow of Macbeth.
Scottish Doctor: Doctor who attends Lady Macbeth during her descent into madness.
Soldier
Porter
Old Man
Gentlewoman: Lady Macbeth's attendant.
First Apparition: : A head with arms. This apparition, conjured by the witches, warns Macbeth to beware of Macduff..
Second Apparition: : A bloody child. This apparition, conjured by the witches, tells Macbeth that no one born of woman can kill him.
Third Apparition: : A crowned child holding a tree. This apparition, conjured by the witches, tells Macbeth that no one can defeat him until a forest, Birnham Wood, marches against him. Macbeth is heartened, believing it is impossible for a forest to march.
Sinel: Macbeth's deceased father. Macbeth refers to him in Act I, Scene III, when he says, "By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis. . ." (1.3.75).
Minor Characters: Lords, gentlemen, officers, soldiers, murderers, attendants, and messengers.
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Plot Summary

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.......In a desert place during a thunderstorm, three witches conclude a meeting. They decide to convene next on a heath to confront the great Scottish general Macbeth on his return from a war between Scotland and Norway. As they depart, they recite a paradox that foreshadows events in the play: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1. 1. 14). In other words, what is perceived as good will be bad; what is perceived as bad will be good. 
.......While camped near his castle at Forres in the Moray province of northeastern Scotland, the Scottish king, Duncan, receives news of the fighting from a wounded sergeant: Macbeth has defeated and beheaded a turncoat rebel leader named Macdonwald and “fix’d his head upon our battlements” (1.2.27). When the Norwegians launched a new assault, the sergeant says, Macbeth and another general, Banquo, set upon their foes like lions upon hares. Ross, a Scottish lord, then arrives to report the coup de grâce: Duncan’s forces have vanquished the Norwegians and a Scottish defector, the thane (lord) of Cawdor¹. The Scots extracted a tribute of ten thousand dollars from the Norwegian king, Sweno, who is begging terms of peace. After ordering Cawdor’s execution, Duncan decides to confer the title of the disloyal Cawdor on the heroic Macbeth.
.......Meanwhile, on their way to the king’s castle, Macbeth and Banquo happen upon the three witches, now reconvened in the heath, while thunder cracks and rumbles. The First Witch addresses Macbeth as Thane of Glamis², a title Macbeth inherited from his father, Sinel. When the Second Witch addresses him as Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth is dumbfounded. (He has not yet received news that the king has bestowed on him the title of the traitorous Cawdor.) The Third Witch then predicts that Macbeth will one day become king and that Banquo will beget a line of kings, although he himself will not ascend the throne. Macbeth commands the witches to explain their prophecies, but they vanish. Shortly thereafter, other Scottish soldiers–Ross and Angus–catch up with Macbeth and Banquo to deliver a message from the king: He is greatly pleased with Macbeth’s battlefield valor and, says Ross, “He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor” (1.3.112). The almost immediate fulfillment of the Second Witch’s prophecy makes Macbeth yearn for the fulfillment of the Third Witch’s prophecy, that he will become king. He begins to think about murdering Duncan even though the prospect of committing such a deed “doth unfix my hair / And make my seated heart knock at my ribs” (1.3.147-148). 
 

Forres Castle .......Forres is in northeastern Scotland. After William I became King of Scotland in 1165, the castle at Forres served as a sort of hunting lodge for royalty. The real-life Macbeth and Duncan were among those said to have used the castle. Nearby is a curious tourist attraction, the Witches’ Stone, where accused witches were burned. .

.......After Macbeth presents himself before Duncan, the king heaps praises on the general for his battlefield prowess and announces that he will visit Macbeth at his castle at Inverness. Macbeth is in his glory, but his jubilation is tempered by the fact that the king’s son–Malcolm, Prince of Cumberland–is heir to the Scottish throne. In a whisper, he says to himself:
.......The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
.......On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,
.......For in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires,
.......Let not light see my black and deep desires. (1.4.58-61)
Thus his appetite is further whetted for murder. Bursting with pride and ambition, Macbeth sends a letter home to his wife, Lady Macbeth, informing her of the prediction of the witches, who “have more in them than mortal knowledge” (1. 5. 3), that he will one day become king. Lady Macbeth immediately wonders why he should wait for that “one day.” He could murder Duncan and gain the throne now. But she fears he lacks what it takes to do the deed. She says that his nature “is too full ‘o the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way [murder]. . .” (1.5.6-7). A messenger arrives to tell Lady Macbeth that King Duncan will visit her and Macbeth that very night. Excited by the prospect of the king’s visit–and the murderous reception he will receive–Lady Macbeth recites some of the most chilling and cold-hearted lines in all of Shakespeare:
........A messenger arrives to tell Lady Macbeth that King Duncan will visit her and Macbeth that very night. Excited by the prospect of the king’s visit–and his death–Lady Macbeth recites some of the most chilling and cold-hearted lines in all of Shakespeare:
............................The raven himself is hoarse
..............That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
..............Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
..............That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
..............And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
..............Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
..............Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
..............That no compunctious visitings of nature
..............Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
..............The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
..............And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
..............Wherever in your sightless substances
..............You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
..............And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
..............That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
..............Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
              To cry 'Hold, hold!' (1.5.31-46)
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.......When Macbeth arrives home, he and his wife read murder in each other’s eyes. In anticipation of Duncan’s visit, she tells her husband to 
.............. look like the innocent flower,
..............But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming
..............Must be provided for; and you shall put
..............This night’s great business into my dispatch. (1.5.63)
.......After Duncan arrives at Macbeth's castle with his sons and his entourage, Lady Macbeth greets the king while Macbeth broods elsewhere in the castle. He is having second thoughts about the murder plot. After the feast begins, Macbeth enters the dining hall, still ruminating about his sinister plans. To kill a king is a terrible thing. His wife, who has been looking for him, follows not far behind him. Macbeth speaks his mind to her:
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..............We will proceed no further in this business
..............He [Duncan] hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
..............Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
..............Which would be worn now in their newest gloss
..............Not cast aside so soon. (1.7.36-40)
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.......But Lady Macbeth holds him to his vow to kill Duncan, telling him that
.......        I have given suck, and know
.......How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me: 
.......I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
.......Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, 
.......And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you 
.......Have done to this.” (1.7.62-67)
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.......Macbeth, swayed, asks her: “If we should fail–?” (1.7.68) She answers, “But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail” (1.7.70-71).  She then lays out the plan. While the king sleeps, she will ply his guards with “wine and wassail"³ (1.7.74), enough to make them fall into deep repose. Macbeth will then kill the king with the guards’ daggers and stain their clothing with blood to cast suspicion on them.
.......After midnight, while King Duncan sleeps, Lady Macbeth gives the guards a nightcap of milk and ale (called a posset) spiked with a drug. She then rings a bell signaling Macbeth that all is ready. Before going into the king’s chamber, Macbeth hallucinates, seeing a dagger in mid-air that leads him to the king’s bedside. After committing the murder, he tells Lady Macbeth that he thought he heard a voice saying, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep” (2. 2. 46-47) and that he “shall sleep no more” (2.2.47). Lady Macbeth attempts to hearten him, telling him not to dwell on “brainsickly” things (2.2.58). When she notices that Macbeth is still carrying the bloodied daggers, she tells him to return them to the king’s chamber and plant them on the guards as they had planned. But Macbeth, guilt-stricken, cannot bring himself to return to the room. Lady Macbeth, still bold with resolve, scolds him, then plants the daggers herself, smearing blood on the guards. 
.......Early in the morning, two noblemen, Macduff and Lennox, call at the castle to visit Duncan. “O horror, horror, horror!” (2.3.42), Madcuff exclaims upon entering Duncan’s chamber and discovering the body. Macbeth and Lennox, standing outside, ask what the matter is. Macduff says, 
 
..............Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
..............With a new Gorgon⁴. Do not bid me speak. 
..............See, and then speak yourselves. (2.3.51-53)
.......Macduff then awakens everyone, shouting, “Murder and treason!” (2.3.55). Before anyone can investigate, Macbeth kills the guards, claiming their bloodied daggers are proof  that they committed the foul deed. Duncan’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, do not for a moment believe Macbeth. However, fearing for their own lives, they flee Scotland–Malcolm for England and Donalbain for Ireland. Because their hasty departure makes them appear guilty–Macduff speculates that they may have bribed the guards to kill Duncan–the crown passes to the nearest eligible kin, Macbeth. Duncan’s body is removed to Colmekill, a burial place for the kings of Scotland.
.......But now that he is king, Macbeth cannot rest easy. He remembers too well the prophecy of the witches that Banquo will father a kingly line. So Macbeth sends two hired assassins to murder Banquo and his son Fleance as they travel to Macbeth’s castle (now the royal palace at Forres) for dinner. Ambushing their prey, the assassins slay Banquo “with twenty trenched gashes on his head” (3.4.32), the First Murderer tells Macbeth. But Fleance escapes. 
.......Just as the dinner begins, one of the assassins reports the news to Macbeth. When Macbeth sits down to eat, the bloodied ghost of Banquo appears to him but to no one else. Macbeth begins to act and speak strangely, and one guest, Ross, says, “Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well” (3.4.64). But Lady Macbeth entreats the guests to remain in their seats, for “my lord is often thus, / And hath been from his youth. . . .The fit is momentary; upon a thought / He will  again be well. . .” (3.4.65-68).  After the ghost vanishes, Macbeth regains himself and tells his guests that he has a strange infirmity “which is nothing / To those that know me” (3.4.103-104). The ghost then reappears and Macbeth shouts,
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..............Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! 
..............Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; 
..............Thou hast no speculation in those eyes 
..............Which thou dost glare with! (3.4.112-115)
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.......When Ross questions Macbeth about what he has seen, Lady Macbeth says the king’s fit has grown worse, and she sends the guests away. Later, preoccupied with the fear of being discovered, Macbeth begins to suspect that Macduff, who refused to attend the feast, is onto him. 
.......When Macbeth meets with the witches again–this time in a cavern–they conjure an apparition of an armed head that tells him he has good reason to fear Macduff. But they also ease his fears when they conjure a second apparition, that of a bloody child, which tells him that no one born of woman can harm him. A third apparition, that of a crowned child holding a tree, tells him that no one can conquer him until Birnham Wood comes to Dunsinane. 
.......After the meeting, Macbeth learns that Macduff is urging Duncan's son, Malcolm, to reclaim the throne. In revenge, Macbeth has Macduff's wife and son murdered. When Macduff hears the terrible news, he organizes an army to bring down Macbeth. 
.......Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth's conscience–long absent earlier–now begins to torture her. She talks to herself and hallucinates, imagining that her hands are covered with blood. After the forces of Malcolm and Macduff arrive at Birnham Wood and advance on Macbeth’s castle, Macbeth prepares for battle just as Lady Macbeth's battle with her conscience ends in her suicide.
.......As they advance, the invaders cut branches of trees to hold in front of them as camouflage. Birnham Wood is coming to Dunsinane–a hill near the castle–just as the witches predicted. Finally, Macbeth meets Macduff in hand-to-hand combat, bragging that he will win the day because (according to the apparition of the bloody child) no man born of a woman can harm him. However, Macduff reveals that he was not of woman born but was “untimely ripp’d” (5.7.62) from his mother’s womb (in a cesarean birth). Macduff then kills Macbeth, and Malcolm becomes king.
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Themes
Ambition
.......Great ambition, or inordinate lust for power, ultimately brings ruin. For ignoring this ancient rule of living, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth pay with their lives. 
Deceit
.......In Macbeth, evil frequently wears a pretty cloak. Early in the play, the three witches declare that  “fair is foul,” a paradox suggesting that whatever appears good is really bad. For example, murdering Duncan appears to be a “fair” idea to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, for Macbeth would accede to the throne. But the Macbeths soon discover that only bad has come of their deed, and their very lives–and immortal souls–are in jeopardy. Macbeth also perceives the prophecies made by the “armed head” and the “bloody child” as good omens; in fact, these prophecies are deceptive wordplays that foretell Macbeth’s downfall. In a further exposition of the theme of deceptive appearances, King Duncan speaks the following lines when arriving at Macbeth’s castle: “This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses” (1. 6.3-5). 
.......Other quotations that buttress this theme are the following:

Look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under ’t. (1.5.63-64)

Away, and mock the time with fairest show: 
False face must hide what the false heart doth know. (1.7.94-95)
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office 
Which the false man does easy. (2.3.135-136)

Temptation

.......Temptation can defeat even the strongest human beings. On the battlefield, Macbeth is a lion and a leader of men. But when the witches tempt him by prophesying that he will become king of Scotland, he succumbs to the lure of power. When his resolve weakens, Lady Macbeth fortifies it with strong words. 
Guilt
.......Guilt haunts the evildoer. Whether from prick of conscience or fear of discovery, Macbeth’s guilt begins to manifest itself immediately after he murders Duncan and the guards (Act II, Scene II). “This is a sorry sight” (2.2.29), he tells Lady Macbeth, looking at the blood on his hands. When he speaks further of the guilt he feels, Lady Macbeth–foreshadowing her descent into insanity–says, “These deeds must not be thought / After these ways; so, it will make us mad” (2.2.44-45). Macbeth then says he thought he heard a voice saying, “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep” (2.2.46-47). When they hear knocking moments later at the castle door, it is the sound of their guilt as much as the sound of the knocker, Macduff..
Climax
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.......The climax of a play or another literary work, such as a short story or a novel, can be defined as (1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the final and most exciting event in a series of events. The climax of Macbeth occurs, according to the first definition, when Macbeth murders Duncan and becomes king. According to the second definition, the climax occurs in the final act when Macduff corners and kills Macbeth.
 

Imagery

Darkness
.......Shakespeare casts a pall of darkness over the play to call attention to the evil deeds unfolding and the foul atmosphere in which they are taking place. At the very beginning of the play, Shakespeare introduces an image of dark clouds suggested in the words spoken by the First Witch:

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain? (1.1.3-4)

Near the end of the third scene in Act I, Banquo foreshadows the terrible events to come with an allusion to the witches as “instruments of darkness” that sometimes speak the truth in order to bring their listeners to ruin. Banquo says that 

       [O]ftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray ’s [betray us]
In deepest consequence. (1.3.133-137) 

Lady Macbeth later entreats blackest night to cloak her when she takes part in the murder of Duncan, saying: 

  Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark. (1.5.43-46)

Late at night in Inverness Castle, after the King Duncan goes to bed and the Macbeths make final plans for his murder, Banquo and Fleance meet in a courtyard within the castle walls while a servant holds a torch. Their conversation centers on the blackness of the night and on sleep:

BANQUO   How goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE   The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO   And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE   I take’t, ’tis later, sir.
BANQUO   Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!

.......In his analysis of the images of darkness in Macbeth, Shakespearean scholar A.C. Bradley writes:

It is remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take place either at night or in some dark spot. The vision of the dagger, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The witches dance in the thick air of a storm, or, 'black and midnight hags' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The blackness of night [makes] the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play."–Quoted in Eastman, A.M., and G.B. Harrison, eds. Shakespeare's Critics: From Jonson to Auden. Ann Arbor, Mich.: U of Michigan, 1964 (Pages 238-239)

Blood

.......Shakespeare frequently presents images of blood in Macbeth. Sometimes it is the hot blood of the Macbeths as they plot murder; sometimes it is the spilled, innocent blood of their victims. It is also blood of guilt that does not wash away and the blood of kinship that drives enemies of Macbeth to action. In general, the images of blood–like the images of darkness–bathe the play in a macabre, netherworldly atmosphere. Here are examples from the play:

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood. (Lady Macbeth: 1.5.48-51)

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
.............................[ellipsis of seven lines]
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes (Speaker, Macbeth: 2.1.44-46, 57-60)

MACBETH...Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
LADY MACBETH...My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white. (2.2.75-80)

To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody. (Donalbain: 2.3.137-140)

In their analysis of the images of blood and darkness in Macbeth, Shakespearean scholars K.L. Knickerbock and H. Willard Reninger write:

The very title of Macbeth conjures up the dense, suffocating metaphoric climate of primeval evil, darkness, blood, violated sleep, and nature poisoned at its source."–Interpreting Literature. 4th ed. New York: Holt, 1969 (Page 854).

Adam and Eve

.......Critic Maynard Mack and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud both noticed that Lady Macbeth resembles Eve in her eagerness to tempt Macbeth to eat of forbidden fruit (in this case, murder) and that Macbeth resembles Adam in his early passivity. Supporting their views are these two passages in Act 1, Scene VII, in which Lady Macbeth goads her wavering husband: 

First Passage: Lady Macbeth tells her husband it is cowardly to hesitate like a scared cat.
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Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage? (1.7.45-51)
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Second Passage: Lady Macbeth challenges her husband to be a man.
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What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this. (1.7 55-67)

Ambition

.......Raging ambition drives Macbeth to murder. After the witches play to his ambition with a prophecy that he will become king, he cannot keep this desire under control. He realizes that Duncan is a good king–humble, noble, virtuous. But he rationalizes that a terrible evil grips him that he cannot overcome.

                I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other. (1.7.27-30)

The Real Macbeth

.......Macbeth was an eleventh-century Scot who took the throne in 1040 after killing King Duncan I, his cousin, in a battle near Elgin in the Moray district of Scotland. Of his reign, Fitzroy MacLean has written the following: "Macbeth appears, contrary to popular belief, to have been a wise monarch and to have ruled Scotland successfully and well for seventeen prosperous years. In 1050 we hear that he went on a pilgrimage to Rome and there [lavished money to the poor]." (Work cited: MacLean, Fitzroy. A Concise History of Scotland. New York: Beekman House, 1970, Page 23.) In 1057, Duncan's oldest son, Malcolm, ended Macbeth's reign by killing him in battle and later assuming the throne as Malcolm III.
The Real Banquo
.......In Holinshed's Chronicles, the historical work on which Shakespeare based his play, the real Banquo is depicted as a conniver who took part in the plot to assassinate King Duncan. Why did Shakespeare portray Banquo as one of Macbeth's innocent victims? Perhaps because James I, the King of England when the play debuted, was a descendant of Banquo. It would not do to suggest that His Royal Majesty's ancestor was a murderer. 
Influence of Seneca
.......The Roman dramatist Seneca (AD 4-65), a tutor to Emperor Nero, wrote plays that described in elaborate detail the grisly horror of murder and revenge. After Elizabethans began translating Seneca's works in 1559, writers read and relished them, then wrote plays imitating them. Shakespeare appears to have seasoned Macbeth and an earlier play, Titus Andronicus, with some of Seneca's ghoulish condiments. 
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Witchcraft in Shakespeare's Time
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.......In Shakespeare's time, many people believed in the power of witches. One was King James I. In 1591, when he was King of Scotland during the reign of Elizabeth I, a group of witches and sorcerers attempted to murder him. Their trial and testimony convinced him that they were agents of evil. Thereafter, he studied the occult and wrote a book called Daemonologie (Demonology), published in 1597. This book–and an earlier one called Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer, 1486), describing the demonic rites of witches–helped inflame people against practitioners of sorcery. 
.......Shakespeare, good businessman that he was, well knew that a play featuring witches would attract theatergoers and put a jingle in his pocket. Moreover, such a play would ingratiate him with James, who became King of England in 1603. So, about two years after James acceded to the English throne, Shakespeare began working on Macbeth. When it was first performed in about 1605, it probably frightened audiences in the same way that The Exorcist, the 1973 film about diabolical possession, scared American audiences. Magically, this play about murder and witches swelled Shakespeare's bank account and reputation. Shakespeare himself, a man of extraordinary intellect and insight, probably regarded witchcraft for what it was: poppycock. 
.......Four named witches appear in Macbeth–the three hags who open the play and later Hecate, the goddess of sorcery. But is there a fifth witch, Lady Macbeth? In fact, she invokes spirits to “unsex” (1.5.34) her and bids “thick night” (1.5.43) to dress “in the dunnest smoke of hell” (1.5.44) so that she may assist her husband in the murder of King Duncan.
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• Lady Macbeth repeatedly washes her hands to expiate her guilt. In modern psychology, what is the term used to describe Lady Macbeth's disorder? If you were a psychologist–or a priest–what would you advise Lady Macbeth to do to unburden her conscience?
• Read the information under Theme 2 (above). Then write an essay about persons, places, things or ideas that appear "fair" when they are really "foul"–or appear "foul" when they are really "fair." 
• Lady Macbeth advises her husband to “Look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under it” (Act I, Scene V, Lines 66-67). Write an essay about things in the modern world that present themselves as "innocent flowers" even though they are really "serpents."

Fascinating Fact

.......The words blood and night (or forms of them, such as bloody and tonight) occur more than 40 times each in Macbeth. Other commonly occurring words that help maintain the mood of the play are terrible, horrible, black, devil, and evil.
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