---
author: William Shakespeare
pdate: 1606
rdate: 2021
rating: 10
genre: Tragedy
---
#english_literature #books #classicbooks #fiction
[[Power corrupts]]

## Play's analysis
Arguments linking Macbeth with King James I could be studied as 'topical': as a general repository of references to events, ideas in the years immediately after [[The Stuarts#^598366|James I]]'s accesion; and 'occasional': as a more specific response to the unprecedented 'occasion' of a Scottish king becoming England's king. 
Although it is certain that writing Macbeth was extremely problematic, as it was almost impossible to avoid censorship when writing about a living monarch.

### Topical Macbeth
There are several arguments that Macbeth is topical:
1. Possible reference within the Porter's speech to the imprisonment, trial, and execution of Henry Garnet, a Gunpowder plotter, who was an equivocator and used the nickname "Farmer".
2. Possible reference to the tumultuous voyage of the ship "Tiger" in 1606
3. etc

### Occasional Macbeth
Macbeth has been called an 'occasional' play in two senses because:
1. Shakespeare wouldn't have composed a play on a Scottish subject had not a Scottish king come to the English throne
2. Some scholars  believe Shakespeare composed the play as a compliment to James, perhaps even as an entertainment when King Christian IV of Denmark, James' brother-in-law, visited England in 1606
3. James's interest in witchcraft, and his belief that he descended from Banquo are possible links between the new king and Shakespeare's play.

### Documental sources
Shakespeare appropriated the basis for his tragedy from Raphael Holinshed's 1577 *Chronicles*, where the story about the reign and murder of King Duncan I and the rise and reign of 'Macbeth' is tolds, who basically also murders the king because of his wife's urges. According to Holinshed, Banquo is a fully committed co-conspirator, but is murdered after the passage of some time. Holinshed elaborately details Macbeth's ten-year-long reign as a good and responsible ruler, his trust in witches and wizards, the coming of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane and many other events that were later adapted to Macbeth.
Shakespeare also could have used "Rerum Scoticarum historia", "Scotorum historiae" and other sources.



### Macbeth in the mind
Primogeniture, tanistry, and Duncan's intermediate proposal all attempt to assure a monarchy's and therefore a family's continuity, its triumpth over time, but primogeniture and Duncan's proposal both value father-to-eldest-son successions exclusively and thus strongly imply the metaphor of the king as 'father' to his subjects. Here, experiences and words in which all people share to some degree - parenthood and birth, adolescence, etc - metaphorically legitimate a particular political structure.

The crisis of succession in Macbeth is expressed as a crisis of metaphor. When Macbeth first speaks of regicide explicitly, he treats father-son succession as the obstacle. Duncan the metaphorical father-king has created a metaphorical son-successor - has combined fatherhood with political succession. The same union of patrilineal succession and thinking-through-metaphor leads Macbeth to kill Lady Macduff and her children.

As the sisters suggest Macbeth will gain the throne through interrupting generation, he rarely reflects upon the corollary that he himself would or might thus lack a lineal successor. Consequently, he first envisages, and then undertake to create a world in which acts have no consequences, no duration beyond the moment of their enactment, no reach in time and beyond time into eternity.
Lady Macbeth soon ridicules her husband's anxiety about the consequences of his actions and persuades him to screw his courage to the sticking-place because she has already accepted that regicide is necessarily an attack on time's progression and duration. But if the order of time itself is to be attacked, so must the order of procreation also become vulnerable and put in question. Macbeth's need to make the moment the be-all and end-all, to condense future and hence duration into the instant, means human procreation must cease - in fact, cannot exist.
These episodes and paradoxes (Macduff is mothered, yet motherless, his son is fathered, yet fatherless) express some of the play's most obsessive interests: the way political and dynastic succession-in-time depends upon a cycle (birth, death, birth); the importance of motherhood and fathering, etc.
Macduff is as isolated in time as Macbeth. Macduff's paradoxical birth meets the Second Apparition's condition. Yet that same birth and the actions it entails place Macduff so far outside traditional genealogical or familial narrative that his wife denies him as husband, etc. Macbeth initially claims a secure place in genealogy and succession, but soon his security melts away, dissolved by a complex acid of ambition, murder, etc until - in a strange echo of Macduff - Macbeth ends outside lineal successions, stripped of family ties, helplessly wading in blood, finally treading-in-place without advance or retreat or change. The 'good' but flawed revenger Macduff and the criminal hero mirror each other and confound empathy and interpretation. According to Ross, Macbeth's rule melds birth and family with tyranny - under him, Scotland cannot be called our mother, but our grave. Similarly, Macduff's mother's body is also a place of birth and death, a place untimely. Thus, Macduff is thus 'untimely' in every possible way.

#### Master of His Time
*Macbeth* is deeply interested in the nature of time - time as experienced by the person (our individiual progress from life to death), time as experienced by the family (an individual person's perpetuation through child-bearing), time as experienced by the state (the succession of one monarch by another), and finally and most largely, time as we experience the play's performance.
Dismissing hsi lords and ladies, Macbeth orders: Let every man be master of his time, yet disastrously he does not acknowledge that "Time is the master of man". It masters human beings (we die), but also masters our disposition of our 'free' time, our liberty, our freedom of choice. 
Style in Macbeth has been called 'vehement to violence, compressed to congestion', but so also is the play's very ordering as an audience experiences it. The play's more technical or dramaturgical handling of time makes the reader's or spectator's temporal experience unlike that in any other Shakespearean tragedy.
Brief as a play, *Macbeth* also has many brief scenes, which must be a deliberate dramatic device to give an impression of rapid and bustling action. 
Events and images of the play crowd one another and subdue Englightenment rationality.
Since Shakespeare explores humanity-in-time through narratives of royal succesion, birth and death in time, (or vice versa), the way Shakespeare orders those narratives has special importance, and the ordering of *Macbeth* proves rather strange, e.g. the regicide occurs quite early in Macbeth, a subordinate dramatic position rather than in the 'middle' or at the 'end' of the play - both more 'important' locations for Shakespeare's dramaturgy.
Though there are doubts that Shakespeare very much tailored *Macbeth* to James I's special interests - the play contains too many subversive possibilites for that - the central structural problem in Macbeth. There **are** two competing narratives. One subordinates Duncan's death to Macbeth's becoming king; the other, contradictorily, elevates the future greatness of Banquo and therefore of his descendants, the Stuarts.
Other critics' studies stress theatrical 'rhythms' and finds a 'three-part division' in the play:
1. 'Duncan' (Acts 1,2)
2. 'Banquo' (Act 3)
3. 'Macduff' (Acts 4,5)
The play's language seems to endorse both views through its constant counterpoint of doubleness and triplicity. 
Multiples - doubles, triples, quadruples - are deeply characteristic of the play's language, most famously in the sisters' 'Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble'.
'Twoness' - multiples of 'two' - appears often in *Macbeth*, some authors identify triadic elements - the three sisters themselves, and their 'Thrice to thine' - these contexts are usually evil, satanic.
Numbers and numbering recur throughout *Macbeth*, with each of these timings and each of these numberings finally reduces to a character's (most importantly Macbeth's) linguistic attempt to make time numerable. Were time or timing so submissive to number, they might also submit to a human ordering or even to human control. Time, however, can be neither numbered nor controlled, as Macbeth manifests.

Like literary critics, theatrical critics have puzzled over the structure of Macbeth and its special challenges for actors, e.g. the fact that "Macbeth is given hardly anything to grip the play with", as after the banqueting scene, the apparition scene (where Macbeth is virtually a spectator), Macbeth appears with Seyton, and whether the play is to stand or fall depends upon the power of the actor to suggest the mental damage his mind has received.

Most unusually for a Shakespearean tragedy, *Macbeth* contains little comedy, which may be the result of a subplot. *Macbeth* largely lacks the humourous voices that typically diminish and thereby evaluate the speech, values, and behaviour of high-status, 'heroic' characters in Shakespeare's other tragedies and histories. E.g. when Macduff threatens Macbeth to put him on a pole as an amusement to the rabble, he diminishes him but not exactly evaluates his crimes.

The only characters that are somewhat helping with the comedy are the witches, who provide the ironic and satiric, the unconventional or demystifying, views otherwise almost absent from Macbeth. Usual for 17th century English drama, the witches are potrayed as comic.

#### Prospect of belief: witches, women, and mediated knowledge
For most audiences of Macbeth, the ideas of witchcraft were incomprehensible, and even alien. And yet rural and unlettered people and the most intellectually sophisticated European elites accepted the esistence of witches and witchcraft and imposed their beliefs, often with fatal results. (i.e. persecuted the "witches"). Persecution of the witch and of witchcraft made 'meaningful' the ordinary pracitce of the great mass of individuals of all kinds - who defined themselves as not-witch, not practising witchcraft.
In early modern England, witches and witchcraft were political matters as well as personal, familial, and communal ones. As such, Tudor and Stuart governments sought to regulat various practices labelled witchcraft. English and Scottish witches, though, were different. 
English 'witches' were typically abandoned old women; their supposed 'crimes' were practical and often economically destructive - e.g. causing a cow to stop giving milk. According to both popular belif and legal claims, accused witches contracted their souls to the devil in return for a 'familiar', which assisted their demonic designs.
The common image of a Scottish witch was spread by King James, who, after his visit to marry King Christian IV's daughter, Anna, had procured these opinions. According to the Scots, not only a witch had to contract their soul to the devil, but also had to have sex with Satan, steal and eat children, etc.
At first, the witches in Macbeth were potrayed as silly, but after the early 20th century, they have since become more fearsome and dangerous.

Some producers even cut the play's first scene on the joint grounds that:
1. The scene was not by Shakespeare (an improbable claim)
2. By making the weird sisters open the play, one cannot avoid the implication that they are a governing influence of the tragedy, and that the grandeur of the tragedy lies in the fact that the Macbeths are ruined by precisely those qualities which make them great. This is supposedly undermined by any suggestion that the Weird Sisters are in control of events.
Though some believe that the sisters and Lady Macbeth are not the determining forces behind Macbeth's actions, as the sisters simply showed Macbeth what he wanted. Spectators of Macbeth will probably agree, though, that he wouldn't have done it without Lady Macbeth's urgent taunts and insinuations. 
Melancholy, fantasy, amenorrhea, bearded women form what seems a conventional series of cultural assumptions about witches. They suggest that Lady Macbeth seeks to become, or is, what her culture considered a witch. 
For some members of *Macbeth*'s earliest audiences, another of Lady Macbeth's claims would have been memorable and idiosyncratic - her claim that she would have murdered her own suckling child had she promised to. Furthermore, for the English nobility of the 17th century breastfeeding one's own child was unusual.
Words and images of birth enter the play's dialogue often, but nowhere so complicatedly as in the choric Act 2, Scene 4:
> Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act
> Threatens his bloody stage...
> ... And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp

Here, the bloody stage metaphorically means the moment of birth, and travelling - "birthing." Lamp means the Sun, but metaphorically - Son. That is, dark night kills the son. The same kind of metaphor is seen in Act 3, Scene 3, where the murderers attack Fleance, a son who may grow up to be the 'sun' to darkened Scotland, so, too, 'dark night' strangles the moving light of the sun.

Tragic plots deeply involved with prophecy in Macbeth paradoxically confuse tragedy and human speculation about the tragic. Macbeth manages to recognise the irony of the witches' prophecies, but does not escape either iron or the temptations of prophecy.

A major plot element in the play is the existence of [[free will]] : if the prophecies are true before the play begins, where is the willed action that allows the audience to discover responsibility and hence to experience guilt? If Macbeth could never act otherwise, where is the tragedy? If, alternatively, the prophecies only become true when they are enacted by human agents, how may they be called 'prophecies' at all?
From a Christian perspective, some have noted that 'it nevers occurs to us that Macbeth will turn back, or indeed that he can.' Along with that fact, go 2 other closely related ideas:
1. The murder of Duncan is an act against nature. It is unnatural, it deforms the nature which performs it
2. The irony of retributive justice: the act is performed for an imagined good, but the desire is only granted ironically because the desire is for something forbidden by the very nature of man.
Though we should not unthinkingly assent to such assumptions, it seems unquestionable that Macbeth had choice.

Shakespeare presents but does not solve ageless human anxieties about how freely we may act in time.

#### The Language of Macbeth
Many have criticised Shakespeare for his overuse of metaphors, as in some speeches the meaning becomes so obscure literally nobody is sure about it.
Shakespeare did a great job at combining the posh upper-class eloquence with everyday language that also has great theatrical power.
Simple language, patricularly euphemistic or indefinite, continually counterpoints the play's extravagant rhetoric and dense metaphor. Thus, e.g. murder appears as 'it' in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's speeches.
Appropriately for a play where prophecy and misunderstanding propel the action, paradox, oxymoron, antithesis, and self-contradiction fill the dialogue: e.g. the "fair is foul".
Struggling with time and its consequences - birth and death, crime and punishment - Lord and Lady Macbeth sense time 'at odds' with itself, time now conflicting with time **then** and time **to come**.

### Folio
The [[First Folio]] version of Macbeth (1623) may have been edited by Thomas Middleton, a contemporary to Shakespeare writer.

# The Play's Plot
## Act I
### Scene I
In the scene, 3 witches discuss where they'll meet with Macbeth. They soon depart because they've been called by: Graymalkin (a cat's name) and Paddock (a toad), as it was in Shakespeare's time believed that witches would pick cats, toads, etc as their "familiars".

### Scene II
The King of Scotland (**Duncan**), his sons Malcom and Donaldbain, with Lennox, a **thane** (Head of a [[The Celtic kingdoms of Scotland#^0d5c1d|head of a clan]]) listen to **Captain**'s account of the battle with the rebel Macdonald, who is "worthy to be a rebel", who, despite the Fortune being with him, is brutally defeated by Macbeth, Duncan's cousin and the thane of Glamis.
After Macdonald's defeat by Macbeth and Banquo, the Norwegian lord attacked them, and they continued with unremitting ferocity attack.
Then enter the thane of Ross from **Fife**, and Angus, another thane. Ross tells the King that the Norwegian king, assisted by the treacherous Thane of Cawdor, was defeated by Macbeth, "Bellona's bridegroom" (Bellona - Roman goddess of war). Then Sweno, the king of Norways, craved peace and the Thane of Cawdor is executed, his title gifted to Macbeth.

### Scene III
In thunder the witches talked about what they'd been up to. The 1st witch tells the others she'd met a sailor's wife who'd refused to give her a chestnut, so now she's gonna sail to Aleppo, where her husband is, fuck him and curse him.
Then Macbeth with Banquo arrive and are suprirsed of the witches' appearance. The witches then praise and commend Macbeth, saying he'll become the Thane of Cawdor, and subsequently the king. They then said that Banquo's children will be kings.
The witches vanish and Ross & Angus meet Macbeth and Banquo, telling them that their valiant actions had been recognised by the king, who now grants Macbeth the title of the thane of Cawdor. M&B are confused. Banquo is cautious about this and fears that this might the tribulations of the devil. Macbeth is rapt by this opportunitiy and they all travel to the king's castle.

### Scene IV
Duncan asks Malcolm whether the execution of thane of Cawdor has already been done, and Macbeth and Banquo with Ross and Angus return. Duncan praises Macbeth & Banquo, and announces that Malcolm, the heir apparent, is now the Prince of Cumberland (aka the Scottish Prince of Wales), and tells Macbeth he's going to visit his castle in Inverness. Macbeth is concerned by the king's decision of nominating Malcolm for the title and concludes he must either act or abandon his hopes for kingship.

### Scene V
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth's castle receives her husband's letter, in which he tells her about the witches. She says he's too compassionate to take the shortest route to power, and calls for the villanous spirits to weaken the feelings of her remorse. Macbeth himself arrives later, telling his spouse that the king's coming. Lady Macbeth then replies that he should intervene and that she'll handle everything.

### Scene VI
The king, his sons, and Banquo with Ross & Angus arrive at Macbeth's castle. Banquo remarks that the air is "delicate", arguing that the swallows in a nearby nest, where "they most breed and haunt", usually choose places with heavingly air. They are greeted by Lady Macbeth, who says she's delectated by their arrival and boasts that "all our service ... were poor ... business to contend against those honours ... your majesty loads our house" and that for all the dignities he's given them, they'll "rest his hermits", aka pray for him. Duncan makes a comment that his subjects should thank him for the trouble his presence is causing them. They proceed into the house.

### Scene VII
Macbeth has withdrawn from the off-stage ceremonial dinner to some more private place. He cogitates about his assassination plan. Macbeth momentarily halts time's flow by "standing on a shoal or by grasping the river's bank". He says that the crime he is going to do will eventually return to him, and that Duncan's death will cause his subjects to cry because he was a virtuous person.
Lady Macbeth enters, and Macbeth tells her they shouldn't kill Duncan, as he has honoured Macbeth well, to which she replies that she is like a drunkard, bold only when intoxicated. Lady Macbeth says she'd have killed her own baby had she sworn to, and convinces Macbeth she'll intoxicate Duncan's guards while he is asleep, and kill him with their daggers, and, upon discovery, blame them.
Macbeth, shocked by his wife's cruel plans, says she should bring up boys, as she could make them into real men.

## Act II
### Scene I
Banquo and **Fleance**, his son, are still awake during the night. Fleance tells Banquo the moon has set, but the clock hasn't struck yet. They are interrupted by Macbeth. Macbeth once refers to himself using the royal "we", which is a pretty nice darn hint. Banquo says he wishes to remain free of obligation to Macbeth. Banquo, his son and a servant leave, while Macbeth orders his servant to tell his wife to strike upon the bell. After that, Macbeths laments whether this opportunity is a "dagger with its handle towards [him]", or but a "dagger of the mind". He compares himself to Tarquin (the king who raped Lucretia in the [[Rape of Lucretia]], after which a rebellion happened). The bell rings, and, resolute yet shaken, Macbeth prepares to murder Duncan. Macbeth ponders that the bell summons Duncan to heaven or to hell, while in reality Macbeth is also summoned to damnation.

### Scene II
Lady Macbeths waits for her husband in a secret room somewhere in Macbeth's castle. Macbeths enters with bloody daggers, because he has forgotten to leave them on the scene of murder. Macbeth tells his wife that Donaldbain and Malcolm had awakened from their sleep, but then both returned to it. Macbeth couldn't say a word "Amen" because of his guilt, and, as Lady Macbeth returns to the king's chamber to get rid of the daggers, Macbeth sees supernatural hands plucking out his eyes. He says that rather the blood on his hands will turn the oceans red, than they will wash this blood away. Weird knocking starts, and the couple retreats to their chamber.

### Scene III
A drunk porter ponders that if a man were portert of hellgate, he should have frequently turning the key. After some drunk speeches, he finally opens the door to Macduff (thane of **Fife**) and Lennox. They converse for a while about drunkness, but then Macbeth comes. Macduff tells him he is supposed to wake up the king, and is instructed to his door. Lennox and Macbeth chew the fat for a while, and Lennox tells Macbeth that "the earth shook last night". Macduff rushes out of the king's chamber, and pronounces the king dead. Everybody is agitated. Malcolm and Donaldbain decide they are not ready to show the grief, as they might be murdered as well, so they must flee.

### Scene IV
Thane of Ross converses about what has transpired with an unnamed Old Man. They both agree that unnatural things have been happening, including Duncan's horses being disobedient, going against the natural order (just as the murder of Duncan is also 'gainst the nature). They are then greeted by Macduff, who says that now Malcolm and Donaldbain are suspected due to their disappearance. Ross still says it is unnatural, and the "murderers" of Duncan - his guards - had no clear reason to do the deed. Macduff tells Ross that Macbeth is to be crowned, and Duncan is to be carried to Colmkill for burial. Ross then goes to Scone to see Macbeth's coronation, and Macduff goes to Fife.

## Act III
### Scene I
Banquo ponders about the witches' prophesies, and fears that Macbeth may have killed Duncan himself. He also even considers some criminal action, but Macbeth, as a king, enters the room with Lennox and Ross, and his spouse. Macbeth asks Banquo whether he's any plans, to which Banquo responds he has to ride somewhere. Macbeth says they've got some business to deal with it, but that it can wait until Banquo's return. Banquo leaves, and Macbeth orders everyone to mind their business until 7 at night.
While everybody leaves, Macbeth asks a servant whether the men he has asked for are at the palace gate, and orders him to bring them before him. He then ponders that being a king is nothing, unless being a king safely. He sees a major threat in Banquo, complements his "dauntless temper of his mind, he hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour to act in safety", suspecting he might be up to something. He then goes on to say that if Bamquo is to become king, then all his actions, including "giving his eternal jewel [soul] to the common enemy of man [the devil]" will be useless.
He is interrupted by the servant with the men, who turn out to be murderers he has asked for. He tells that, as he has already mentioned off-stage, Banquo is their common enemy, and they must kill him, as well as his son Fleance. 

### Scene II
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth converse. Macbeth mentions he's been troubled by nightmares, and they both agree it's better to be murdered than to murder and live with doubt and anxiety. Macbeth even goes as far as to say it's better to be with the dead than "on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy [frenzy]". Lady Macbeth cheers him and says he gotta put a metaphorical mask on his meeting tonight. Lady Macbeth tries to say that Banquo and Fleance are not immortal, and Macbeth tells her she has to be joyful that they are vulnerable. He doesn't going to tell her exactly how Banquo will be killed. She is rather shocked by that, and he asks her to remain her compousre, for "crimes are made greater by other crimes".

### Scene III
The two murderers are waiting for Banquo. The Third joins them, and tells them he's from Macbeth. This may indicate Macbeth is so paranoid he assigns spies to his own murderers. They hear Banquo arrive, and prepare to strike. When they see him, the First Murderer, an amateur, strikes upon the torch, and they only manage to kill Banquo, while Fleance flees. They carry Banquo's body away.

### Scene IV
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the various lords attend a feast. The First Murderer enters and conveys Macbeth the message that Banquo is dead, but Fleance has fled, to which Macbeth replies that his "fit" [of panic, anger?] comes again. Soon Banquo's ghost enters the stage and sits in Macbeth's place. Before he notices the ghost, Macbeth laments Banquo's unpresence. He then notices the ghost, and firstly thinks it's a joke, confusing everyone, who cannot see a thing wrong. Then Banquo's ghost nods at him, "accusing" Macbeth of his death. Lady Macbeth deals with the situation by saying that Macbeth is used to these "fits", then confronts him about this panic attack. The ghost then temporarily leaves but soon returns only to make Macbeth almost scream, begging Banquo to take any other appearance but of his [Banquo's] own. Lady Macbeth makes everyone walk Spanish, and the feast is abruptly ended. Macbeth rambles that blood will have blood, and that it is easier to continue his bloody journey than to backtrack. Ultimately, he decides he will meet the witches the next day, and hits the sack with his wife.

### Scene V
The three witches are reprimanded by Hecate for talking to Macbeth and foretelling his future. She laments the fact that Macbeth is but a brat and will only care about his future, not about the advancement of their art [magic]. She decides to meet them and Macbeth at the pit of Acheron (river in [[Hades]]). In the meantime, she will be preparing something that would make Macbeth overconfident so that he would cause his own destruction.

### Scene VI
Lennox and some other lord have a discussion about all the suspicious things that have transpired, hinting that Macbeth might be the guilty person, even goes on to call him "a tyrant". He then asks the lord whether he knows where Macduff is, as he was not present at the feast. The lord then replies that Malcolm has escaped to England and was greeted by Edward the Confessor, and that Macduff is also going to England to pray Edward and Siward, a local warlord, to overthrow Macbeth. Meanwhile, Macbeth has got news of this, and is possibly planning a war. He even sent to Macduff, but Macduff told his messenger to reply with "Sir, I won't". They hope that some holy angel may deliver his message faster and that god will dispose of their tyrant.

// lechery, hideous, lest, bestow, born in hand, imbue, jocund

## Act IV
### Scene I
The three witches cook a some sort of a potion, chanting the ingridients. Then Hecate and three other witches come and praise their work, but soon Macbeth comes. He demands that they give him answers and that he is resolute to hear them no matter what. They summon the first apparition: an armormed head. It tells Macbeth to be afraid of Macduff. Then, they summon the second apparition: a bloody child. It tells Macbeth to be bloody, saucy and resolute, and that not a single man is capable of defeating him. The third apparation then comes, manifesting as a crowned child with a tree in its hand. The entity tells Macbeth he "shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him". Macbeth is reassured that his reign would be successful, until he asks, no, orders the witches to show what would happen with Banquo's children. Then, a line of 8 kings appear, showing Macbeth that his issue would not become kings. The witches then disappear. Lennox then approaches him and breaks the news that Macduff has escaped to England. Macbeth concludes that his must act swiftly, and decides to go to Macduff's castle and murder everyone related to him.

### Scene II
Ross and Lady Macduff speculate about the reasons behind Macduff's escape. Lady Macduff argues that he has done it purely out of fear and lack of the feeling of duty that comes with fatherhood, as even a tiny wren will fight furiously to protect its progenies. Ross, however, argues that she must not think so lowly of him, and that he understands the dangers of the current situation. Ross blesses Macduff's son and leaves. While Lady Macduff and her son converse about how he'll do without a metaphorically dead father, they're interrupted by a missive, who prays Lady Macduff flees before they are in danger. Soon, murderers enter and kill Macduff's son, while the Lady herself escapes

### Scene III
In exile, Macduff and Malcolm converse while waiting for the king of England, Edward the Confessor, to arrive. Malcolm suspects that Macbeth has infected Macduff with his wickedness, while Macduff confirms the contrary. Malcolm then argues that he is unfit as a ruler due to his numerous sins, but Macduff manages to reassure him. Then a doctor arrives and tells them that Edward is coming. They then cogitate about the severity of the situation their country is in. Soon after Ross arrives, and informs Macduff of his children's deaths. Fueled by revenge, he and Malcolm are resolute to face Macbeth in a battle.

## Act V
### Scene I
A doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth's state, as she has started sleepwalking. She then comes in and accidentally spills the beans about all the murders they committed with Macbeth.

### Scene II
Lennox, Angus, and several other rebel lords are marching towards the Great Birnam Wood. They confirm that everybody is sick of Macbeth's rule, and that even he himself is terrifired of what he has done. They swear to cleanse and chastise the sick country, and bring the true king - Malcolm - to power.

### Scene III
Macbeth rants that he, according to the witches, is almost immune to Malcolm and co.'s  attempts to topple him, but is interrupted by a servant. The dude states that an army of ten thousand soldiers is inbound to Birnam, which angers Macbeth. He calls for Seyton (pronounced like Satan), a thane loyal to him, and laments that instead of peacefully dying of old age, he would have to live as a tyrant. He then asks a doctor whether Lady Macbeth is fine, to which the latter replies "She is sick mentally rather than physically" (not an actual quote). As Macbeth orders Seyton to accelerate their preparations, he asks the doctor whether he knows of any medicine that would cure his country. The doctor responds that his war preparation is the medicine. When all leave, the doctor comments that if he leaves Dunsinane safe, profit wouldn't bring him back here.

### Scene IV
Malcolm and the rebel thanes have arrived at Birnam wood. They order the soldiers to cut down a tree branch per person to make it harder for Macbeth's spies to get recon. Macduff suggests waiting before acting, and they exit.

### Scene V
Macbeth is overseeing defense preparations. He boasts that his castle's defense will laugh off any siege. Then, a cry comes. Seyton tells him that his wife died. Numb from his sundry crimes, Macbeth simply laments that this would have happened anyway, and that life's a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing". Suddenly, a messenger appears and tells him that the "Birnam Wood began to move". Macbeth realises that the witches have tricked him. He feels fear and proclaims he is weary of life. He orders his soldiers to take up arms and says that at least he'll die fighting. By saying "ring the alarum bell", he echoes the phrase said by Macduff when Duncan was murdered, indicating that the punishment for Macbeth's crime has come.

### Scene VI
Malcolm orders the soldiers to throw down the branches they've cut. He then orders Siward to lead their first battle with Siward's son, while he (Malcolm uses the royal "we") with Macduff "shall take upon's what else remains to do". Then Macduff commands for the trumpets to be blown.

### Scene VII
Macbeths frantically laments that is he tied to a stake, and cannot escape. Young Siward enters the room, and Macbeth tells him his name. Siward remarks that the devil couldn't say a name more hateful to his ear, while Macbeth adds "No, nor more fearful". They fight, and Young Siward is slain. Macbeth carries his body away, while Siward, Malcolm and Macduff storm the room. Macduff prays to fortune to let him strike Macbeth, otherwise he'll be haunted by his dead (presumably) wife and children, and rushes into another room. In the meanwhile, Siward reports to Malcolm that the castle has surrendered mostly peacefully, and they enter it.

### Scene VIII
Macbeth concludes he won't commit suicide and fight till the end. Macduff storms the room, and they engage in a fight, wherein Macbeth tells his opponent that his attempts are otiose, as not a single man born of a woman can defeat him. Macduff replies that he was born prematurely, which causes Macbeth's courage to fade away. He realises that his ambition was different from what the witches had promised him. Macbeth doesn't want to fight him, but Macduff tells him to surrender then, so they'd have him as a rare animal put on a post and taunted. Macbeth refuses, and they fight until Macbeth is slain.

**[Scene IX]** (This scene formally doesn't exist, but some authors think it should be derived from Scene VIII)

Victory has been achieved. Siward remarks that it didn't cost them much, but immediately after he is told that Macduff is missing and his son is dead. After learning his wounds were on his front, he says it was a honour for him to die this way. Macduff then marches and shows everyone Macbeth's head, and pronounces Malcolm the rightful King of Scotland. Malcolm, now fully using the royal plural, tells them they've got plenty to do, proclaims his thanes earls, and invites everyone to his coronation at Scone.
# Trivia
In Act I Scene V, Lady Macbeth says "That I may pour my spirits in thine ear" to make Macbeth take the shortest route to power. This is a reference to Claudius pouring poison in Hamlet Senior's ears in [[Hamlet]]