Key Stage Four

GCSE English Literature:

Macbeth

Name:
Class:
Teacher:
 EVENTS
Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3 Scene 4
ACT ONE

Scene 1 Scene 2
ACT TWO

Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3

ACT THREE

Scene 1 Scene 2
ACT FOUR

Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3 Scene 4

ACT FIVE

2
TRACKER
Scene 5 Scene 6 Scene 7 ACT 1 SUMMARY

Scene 3 Scene 4 ACT 2 SUMMARY

Scene 4 Scene 5 Scene 6 ACT 3 SUMMARY

Not by
Shakespeare.
Hecate speaks
to the witches
about their evil
plans
“riddles and
affairs of death”

Scene 3 ACT 4 SUMMARY

Scene 5 Scene 6 Scene 7 Scene 8 ACT 5 SUMMARY

3
 QUOTATION
Quotation Said by About Moment Methods
- Juxtaposition creates confusion
that will continue throughout the
“Fair is foul and The N/A Act 1 play – it is unclear what is good/bad
foul is fair” Witches scene 1 - Repetition emphasises the
confusion and how good (fair) and
bad (foul) are hard to tell apart

“brave”
“noble”
“worthy”
“valiant”

“Stay, you
imperfect
speakers”

“instruments of
darkness”

“let not light

see my black
and deep
desires”

“milk of human
kindness”

“Take my milk
for gall”
“look like the
innocent flower
but be the
serpent
under’t”
“vaulting
ambition which
o’erleaps itself
and falls ”

“when you durst

do it, then you
were a man”
“Are you a
man?”

4
TRACKER
Quotation Said By About Moment Methods

“Give me the
daggers”

“Will all great

Neptune’s
ocean wash
this blood clean
from my
hands?”

“Oh horror,
horror,
Horror”

“There’s
daggers in
men’s smiles”

“fruitless
crown”
“barren
sceptre”
“hell” “devil”
“black”
“tyrant”
“Turn hell-
hound, turn”
“All the
perfumes of
Arabia will not
sweeten this
little hand”
“What’s done is
done”
“What’s done
cannot be
undone”

“dead butcher
and his fiend-
like queen”

5
1.3 Macbeth/Banquo & the witches: 5.7 Malcolm’s army attacks
MACBETH – Quick Timeline Macbeth’s castle. He thinks he’s
safe because of the prophecies.

1.7 Macbeth’s changed mind: 2.4 Macbeth to be crowned King 4.1 Back to the witches:
5.1 Lady Macbeth’s downfall:

3.4 Banquo’s ghost:

“What, can the devil speak true?”
“We shall proceed no further”
“assist your struggling family”
1.4
2.2 The murder:

“Let not light see my

black and deep desires” “Blood will have blood” “What’s done cannot be undone”
“Give me the daggers” “Beware Macduff”

ACT 1 ACT 2 ACT 3 ACT 4 ACT 5

1.2 Macbeth to take Thane 3.3 Banquo is 4.2 Macbeth has 5.8 Macbeth is killed
of Cawdor from traitor murdered by the Macduff’s family
2.1 Macbeth imagines murderers but
“noble Macbeth hath won” murdered
a dagger leading him Fleance escapes
to murder Duncan
4.3 Malcolm&Macduff in England:
1.1 The witches:
3.2 Plans are discussed:
2.3 Macduff finds murder:

“Fair is foul and foul is fair” “Turn, hell-hound, turn”

“Macbeth is ripe for shaking” 5.5 Macbeth awaits attack

1.5 Lady Macbeth greets Macbeth:
“daggers in men’s smiles” “full of scorpions is my mind”
5.4 Malcolm’s army advances:

3.1 Banquo’s suspicions:

“Look like the innocent flower, but
“every soldier hew him down a bough”
be the serpent under’t” “I fear thou playd’st most foully” “Our fears in Banquo stick deep”
“out, out brief candle”
 ACT 1
A MURDER IS PLANNED
SCENE I. A DESERT PLACE.
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches 1.1 – The witches prepare
to meet Macbeth
First Witch
When shall we three meet again COMMENT PAUSE:
In thunder, lightning, or in rain? What atmosphere is
Second Witch
established in this scene?
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
Third Witch
5 That will be ere the set of sun.
First Witch
Where the place?
Second Witch
Upon the heath.
Third Witch
There to meet with Macbeth. ANALYSIS PAUSE:
First Witch
“Fair is foul and foul is fair”
I come, Graymalkin!
Second Witch
Paddock calls.
Third Witch
Anon.
ALL
10 Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A CAMP NEAR FORRES.
Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, with 1.2 – King Duncan gets a
Attendants, meeting a bleeding CAPTAIN battle report
DUNCAN
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
MALCOLM
This is the CAPTAIN
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
5 'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
CAPTAIN
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--
10 Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him--from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
15 Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, MOTIF MOMENT:
SWORDS/DAGGERS=
Which smoked with bloody execution, HONOUR/BETRAYAL
Like valour's minion carved out his passage
20 Till he faced the slave;
COMMENT PAUSE:
Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Give three adjectives to describe
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, Macbeth and how he is seen:
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
®
DUNCAN
O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! ®
CAPTAIN ®
25 As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had with valour arm'd
30 Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men
Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN
Dismay'd not this COMMENT PAUSE:
Our CAPTAINs, Macbeth and Banquo? What impression do we get of
CAPTAIN Macbeth in this scene before
Yes; we meet him? Why is it
35 As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion. important to get it from other
If I say sooth, I must report they were characters?
As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
40 Or memorise another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honour both. Go get him surgeons.
Exit CAPTAIN, attended
45 Who comes here?
Enter ROSS
MALCOLM
The worthy thane of Ross.
LENNOX
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.
ROSS
God save the king!
DUNCAN
Whence camest thou, worthy thane?
ROSS
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
50 And fan our people cold. Norway himself,
With terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
55 Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm.
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
8
 DUNCAN
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Great happiness!
“brave” “valiant”
ROSS
That now
“worthy” “noble”
Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition:
60 Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colme's inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN
No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death,
65 And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS
I'll see it done.
DUNCAN
What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE III. A HEATH NEAR FORRES. 1.3 – The witches give
Thunder. Enter the three Witches their prophecies
First Witch
Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch
Killing swine.
Third Witch
Sister, where thou?
First Witch
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
5 And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--
'Give me,' quoth I:
'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail, COMMENT PAUSE:
Give three adjectives to describe
10 I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
the witches in this scene:
Second Witch
I'll give thee a wind.
®
First Witch ®
Thou'rt kind. ®
Third Witch
And I another.
First Witch
I myself have all the other,
15 And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
20 Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
25 Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.
Second Witch
Show me, show me.
9
 First Witch
Here I have a pilot's thumb,
Wreck'd as homeward he did come.
Drum within
Third Witch
30 A drum, a drum!
Macbeth doth come.
ALL
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land, COMMENT PAUSE:
Thus do go about, about: Why are Macbeth’s first
35 Thrice to thine and thrice to mine words interesting?
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm's wound up.
Enter MACBETH and BANQUO
MACBETH
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO
How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
40 So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
45 Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
Speak, if you can: what are you? What do the audience already
First Witch know in relation to these
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! prophecies and why is this
Second Witch significant?
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
50 All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
55 You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
60 Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
First Witch
Hail!
Second Witch
Hail!
Third Witch
Hail!
First Witch
65 Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
Second Witch
10
 Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third Witch
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First Witch
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail! ANALYSIS PAUSE:
MACBETH “Stay you
70 Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: imperfect speakers”
By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
75 No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
Witches vanish
BANQUO
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
80 And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
MACBETH
Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
BANQUO
Were such things here as we do speak about? COMMENT PAUSE:
Or have we eaten on the insane root How do Macbeth and Banquo’s
85 That takes the reason prisoner? reactions to the supernatural
MACBETH vary?
Your children shall be kings.
BANQUO
You shall be king.
MACBETH
And thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?
BANQUO
To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?
Enter ROSS and ANGUS
ROSS
The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
90 The news of thy success; and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
95 He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail
Came post with post; and every one did bear
Thy praises in his kingdom's great defence,
100 And pour'd them down before him.
ANGUS
We are sent
To give thee from our royal master thanks;
Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee.
ROSS

11
 And, for an earnest of a greater honour, COMMENT PAUSE:
105 He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: Why is Macbeth getting this
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! title particularly significant?
For it is thine.
BANQUO
What, can the devil speak true?
MACBETH
The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me
In borrow'd robes?
ANGUS
Who was the thane lives yet;
110 But under heavy judgment bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
115 But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
Have overthrown him.
MACBETH ANALYSIS PAUSE:
[Aside] Glamis, and thane of Cawdor! “instruments of darkness”
The greatest is behind. To ROSS and ANGUS Thanks for your pains.
Aside To BANQUO
Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
When those that gave the thane of Cawdor to me
120 Promised no less to them?
BANQUO
Aside to MACBETH That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
125 Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
MOTIF MOMENT:
In deepest consequence. LIGHT/DARK=
Cousins, a word, I pray you. GOOD/EVIL
MACBETH
[Aside] Two truths are told, COMMENT PAUSE:
As happy prologues to the swelling act What does Macbeth’s
Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen. reaction here tell us?
130 [Aside] This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
135 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
140 Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.
BANQUO
Look, how our partner's rapt.
MACBETH
[Aside] If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.
12
 BANQUO
New honours come upon him,
145 Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.
MACBETH
[Aside] Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
BANQUO
Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH
Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought
150 With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are register'd where every day I turn
The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.
[Aside to Banquo] Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time,
The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
155 Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO
Very gladly.
MACBETH
Till then, enough. Come, friends.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.
1.4 – Duncan thanks
Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, and Macbeth and Banquo
Attendants
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet return'd?
MALCOLM
My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die: who did report
5 That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,
Implored your highness' pardon and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died COMMENT PAUSE:
As one that had been studied in his death Duncan realises that you can’t
10 To throw away the dearest thing he owed, know what someone is thinking
As 'twere a careless trifle. by looking at them. How does
DUNCAN this continue ideas from the
There's no art last scene?
To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS, and ANGUS
O worthiest cousin!
15 The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
20 Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
13
 Is to receive our duties; and our duties COMMENT PAUSE:
25 Are to your throne and state children and servants, Why might Macbeth be shocked
Which do but what they should, by doing every thing to see Malcolm crowned heir to
Safe toward your love and honour. the throne?
DUNCAN
Welcome hither:
I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
30 That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
No less to have done so, let me enfold thee
And hold thee to my heart.
BANQUO
There if I grow,
The harvest is your own.
DUNCAN
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves
35 In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
40 Not unaccompanied invest him only,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
And bind us further to you.
MACBETH
“Let not light see
The rest is labour, which is not used for you:
45 I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyful
The hearing of my wife with your approach;
So humbly take my leave.
DUNCAN
My worthy Cawdor!
MACBETH my black and deep desires”
[Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
50 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
Exit
DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,
55 And in his commendations I am fed;
It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome: MOTIF MOMENT:
LIGHT/DARK=
It is a peerless kinsman.
GOOD/EVIL
Flourish. Exeunt
SCENE V. INVERNESS. MACBETH'S CASTLE. 1.5 – Lady Macbeth
Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter reacts to the prophecies
LADY MACBETH
[Reads]'They met me in the day of success: and I have
learned by the perfectest report, they have more in
them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
to question them further, they made themselves air,
5 into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
14
 the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who COMMENT PAUSE:
all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, What impression do we get of
before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s
me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that relationship?
10 shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver
thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou
mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being
ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it
to thy heart, and farewell.'
15 Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
20 The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
“full of the milk of human
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
25 Than wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither, kindness”
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
30 To have thee crown'd withal.
Enter a Messenger
What is your tidings?
Messenger
The king comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH
Thou'rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
Would have inform'd for preparation.
Messenger
So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:
35 One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
LADY MACBETH
Give him tending; MOTIF MOMENT:
He brings great news. BLOOD=
Exit Messenger GUILT
The raven himself is hoarse ANALYSIS PAUSE:
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
“take my milk for gall”
40 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,
45 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
50 You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
15
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, MOTIF MOMENT:
To cry 'Hold, hold!' LIGHT/DARK=
GOOD/EVIL
Enter MACBETH
Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!
55 Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.
MACBETH
My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH
And when goes hence?
MACBETH
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
60 To-morrow, as he purposes.
LADY MACBETH
“Look like the innocent flower
O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
65 Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming but be the serpent under’t”
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
70 Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
MACBETH
We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH
Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.
Hautboys and torches. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, 1.6 – Duncan arrives at
BANQUO, LENNOX, MACDUFF, ROSS, ANGUS, and Attendants the Macbeths’ castle
DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air COMMENT PAUSE:
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself How does Shakespeare create
Unto our gentle senses. dramatic irony in this scene?
BANQUO
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
5 By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
10 The air is delicate.
Enter LADY MACBETH
DUNCAN
See, see, our honour'd hostess!
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
16
 How you shall bid God 'ild us for your pains,
And thank us for your trouble.
LADY MACBETH
All our service
15 In every point twice done and then done double
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,
And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
20 We rest your hermits.
DUNCAN
Where's the thane of Cawdor?
We coursed him at the heels, and had a purpose
To be his purveyor: but he rides well;
And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
25 We are your guest to-night.
LADY MACBETH
Your servants ever
Have theirs, themselves and what is theirs, in compt,
To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,
Still to return your own.
DUNCAN
Give me your hand;
Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,
30 And shall continue our graces towards him.
By your leave, hostess.
Exeunt
SCENE VII. Macbeth's castle.
Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes
1.7 – Macbeth has second
and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH thoughts but Lady
MACBETH Macbeth convinces him
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
5 Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach MOTIF MOMENT:
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return BLOOD=
10 To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice GUILT
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
15 Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
20 The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
17
25 That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself “vaulting ambition which
And falls on the other. o’erleaps itself and falls”
Enter LADY MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
30 Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:
He 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,
35 Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
40 To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that COMMENT PAUSE:
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, Give three adjectives to
And live a coward in thine own esteem, describe Lady Macbeth’s
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' behaviour in this scene:
45 Like the poor cat i' the adage?
®
MACBETH
®
Prithee, peace:
®
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then, ANALYSIS PAUSE:
That made you break this enterprise to me? “When you durst do it,
When you durst do it, then you were a man; then you were a man”
50 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
55 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.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!
60 But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him--his two chamberlains
18
 Will I with wine and wassail so convince
65 That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
70 The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;
MOTIF MOMENT:
For thy undaunted mettle should compose BLOOD=
Nothing but males. Will it not be received, GUILT
75 When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend up
80 Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Exeunt

ACT 2
REGICIDE IS COMMITED
SCENE I. COURT OF MACBETH'S CASTLE.
2.1 – Macbeth imagines a
Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE bearing a torch before him dagger leading to Duncan
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 MOTIF MOMENT:
Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven; SWORDS/DAGGERS=
HONOUR/BETRAYAL
5 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!
Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch
Give me my sword.
10 Who's there?
MACBETH
A friend.
BANQUO
What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:
He hath been in unusual pleasure, and

19
 Sent forth great largess to your offices.
15 This diamond he greets your wife withal,
By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
In measureless content.
MACBETH
Being unprepared,
Our will became the servant to defect;
Which else should free have wrought.
BANQUO
All's well.
20 I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
To you they have show'd some truth.
MACBETH
I think not of them:
Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
We would spend it in some words upon that business,
If you would grant the time.
BANQUO
At your kind'st leisure.
MACBETH
25 If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,
It shall make honour for you.
BANQUO
So I lose none
In seeking to augment it, but still keep
My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
I shall be counsell'd.
MACBETH
Good repose the while!
BANQUO
30 Thanks, sir: the like to you!
Exeunt BANQUO and FLEANCE
MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. COMMENT PAUSE:
Exit Servant If swords represent honour and
Is this a dagger which I see before me, daggers represent betrayal, why
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. might Macbeth be imagining a
35 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. dagger at this point?
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
40 I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
45 Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
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. Now o'er the one halfworld
50 Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
GUILT
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
20
 Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, COMMENT PAUSE:
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. Give three adjectives to describe
55 With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Macbeth’s thoughts and feelings
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, during his soliloquy:
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear ®
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
®
And take the present horror from the time,
®
60 Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
A bell rings
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Exit
--------- SCENE II. The same.
2.2 – Macbeth commits
Enter LADY MACBETH the murder of Duncan
LADY MACBETH
That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:
5 The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.
MACBETH
[Within] Who's there? what, ho!
LADY MACBETH
Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,
10 And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
Enter MACBETH
My husband!
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
15 I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH
When?
LADY MACBETH
Now.
MACBETH
As I descended?
LADY MACBETH
Ay.
MACBETH
Hark!
Who lies i' the second chamber?
LADY MACBETH
Donalbain.
MACBETH
20 This is a sorry sight.
Looking on his hands
21
 LADY MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. Why is Macbeth concerned about
MACBETH his inability to pray? What does
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried 'Murder!' this link to?
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
25 Again to sleep.
LADY MACBETH
There are two lodged together.
MACBETH
One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,'
When they did say 'God bless us!'
LADY MACBETH
30 Consider it not so deeply.
MACBETH
But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?
I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.
LADY MACBETH
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACBETH
35 Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
40 Chief nourisher in life's feast,--
COMMENT PAUSE:
LADY MACBETH
Give three feelings Macbeth
What do you mean?
has following the murder:
MACBETH
®
Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
®
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
®
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
LADY MACBETH
Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, MOTIF MOMENT:
45 You do unbend your noble strength, to think SWORDS/DAGGERS=
HONOUR/BETRAYAL
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
MOTIF MOMENT:
Why did you bring these daggers from the place? BLOOD=
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear GUILT
50 The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH ANALYSIS PAUSE:
I'll go no more: “Give me the daggers”
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH
Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
55 That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.
Exit. Knocking within
22
 MACBETH
Whence is that knocking? MOTIF MOMENT:
How is't with me, when every noise appals me? BLOOD=
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes. GUILT
60 Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather “Will all great Neptune’s
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine, ocean wash this blood clean
Making the green one red. from my hand?”
Re-enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour; but I shame
65 To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within] I hear a knocking
At the south entry: retire we to our chamber;
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended. [Knocking] Hark! more knocking.
70 Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.
MACBETH
To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
Knocking within MOTIF MOMENT:
LIGHT/DARK=
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
GOOD/EVIL
Exeunt
--------- SCENE III. The same. 2.3 – Duncan’s murder is
Knocking within. Enter a Porter discovered by Macduff
Porter
Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter
of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.
Knocking Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of
Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on
5 the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins
enow about you; here you'll sweat for't. Knocking within
Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name?
Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both
the scales against either scale; who committed treason
10 enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to
heaven: O, come in, equivocator. Knocking Knock,
knock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an English
tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose:
come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose.
15 Knocking Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are you?
But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no
further: I had thought to have let in some of all
professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting
bonfire. Knocking Anon, anon! [Opens gate] I pray
20 you, remember the porter.
Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
Porter
'Faith sir, we were carousing till the
second cock: and drink, sir, is a great
provoker of three things.
MACDUFF
23
25 What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes
the desire, but it takes away the performance:
30 therefore, much drink may be said to be an
equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars
him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades
him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not
stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and,
35 giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me: but I
requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong
for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I
40 made a shift to cast him.
MACDUFF
Is thy master stirring?
Enter MACBETH
Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
45 He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH
I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physics pain.
50 This is the door.
MACDUFF
I'll make so bold to call,
For 'tis my limited service. COMMENT PAUSE:
Exit Why might Shakespeare
LENNOX emphasise nature’s reaction the
Goes the king hence to-day? night of Duncan’s murder?
MACBETH
He does: he did appoint so.
LENNOX
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
55 Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
24
 Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
60 Was feverous and did shake. ANALYSIS PAUSE:
MACBETH “O horror, horror, horror”
'Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
Re-enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH AND LENNOX
What's the matter?
MACDUFF
65 Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope sacrilegious: (adjective)
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence going against something
The life o' the building! that is sacred – and going
MACBETH against God/religion
What is 't you say? the life?
LENNOX COMMENT PAUSE:
Mean you his majesty? How does this link to Macbeth’s
MACDUFF behaviour following the murder?
70 Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX
Awake, awake!
Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
75 Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see
The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.
Bell rings. Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
80 What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
MACDUFF
O gentle lady,
'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
85 Would murder as it fell. Enter BANQUO
O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master 's murder'd!
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
BANQUO
Too cruel any where.
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so.
Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS
MACBETH
25
 90 Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There 's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
95 Is left this vault to brag of.
Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN
DONALBAIN
What is amiss?
MACBETH
You are, and do not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
MOTIF MOMENT:
Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
BLOOD=
MACDUFF GUILT
Your royal father 's murder'd.
MALCOLM MOTIF MOMENT:
O, by whom? SWORDS/DAGGERS=
LENNOX HONOUR/BETRAYAL
100 Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
Their hands and faces were an badged with blood; COMMENT PAUSE:
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found Why do you think Macbeth killed
Upon their pillows: Duncan’s guards?
They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
105 Was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
110 The expedition my violent love
MOTIF MOMENT:
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, BLOOD=
His silver skin laced with his golden blood; GUILT
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers, MOTIF MOMENT:
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers SWORDS/DAGGERS=
115 Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain, HONOUR/BETRAYAL
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
COMMENT PAUSE:
Courage to make 's love kno wn?
Macbeth mentions his “violent
LADY MACBETH
love” for Duncan. Why is this an
Help me hence, ho!
interesting description?
MACDUFF
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN] Why do we hold our tongues,
120 That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN
[Aside to MALCOLM] What should be spoken here,
where our fate, Hid in an auger-hole,
may rush, and seize us? Let 's away;
Our tears are not yet brew'd.
MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN] Nor our strong sorrow
125 Upon the foot of motion.
26
 BANQUO
Look to the lady:
LADY MACBETH is carried out
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet, MOTIF MOMENT:
And question this most bloody piece of work, BLOOD=
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us: GUILT
130 In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF
And so do I.
ALL
So all.
MACBETH
Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i' the hall together.
ALL
Well contented.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.
MALCOLM
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
135 What will you do? Let's not consort with them: “daggers in men’s smiles”
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
DONALBAIN
To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
140 There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM
This murderous shaft that's shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, MOTIF MOMENT:
145 But shift away: there's warrant in that theft BLOOD=
Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left. GUILT
Exeunt
SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle. 2.4 – The events of the
Enter ROSS and an old Man evening are discussed
Old Man
Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.
ROSS
Ah, good father, MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
5 Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, GUILT
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp: MOTIF MOMENT:
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, LIGHT/DARK=
That darkness does the face of earth entomb, GOOD/EVIL
10 When living light should kiss it?
Old Man
'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,

27
 A falcon, towering in her pride of place, COMMENT PAUSE:
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd. Why might Shakespeare return
ROSS to nature’s strange reactions?
And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--
15 Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.
Old Man
'Tis said they eat each other.
ROSS
They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
20 That look'd upon't. Here comes the good Macduff.
Enter MACDUFF
How goes the world, sir, now?
MACDUFF
Why, see you not?
ROSS
MOTIF MOMENT:
Is't known who did this more than bloody deed? BLOOD=
MACDUFF GUILT
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
ROSS
Alas, the day!
What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF
They were suborn'd:
25 Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons,
Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.
ROSS
'Gainst nature still!
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up COMMENT PAUSE:
Thine own life's means! Then 'tis most like We learn that Macbeth is going
30 The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. to be crowned. Why might
MACDUFF Shakespeare choose not to
He is already named, and gone to Scone show this on stage?
To be invested.
ROSS
Where is Duncan's body?
MACDUFF
Carried to Colmekill,
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
35 And guardian of their bones.
ROSS
Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF
No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
ROSS
Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF
Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!
Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
ROSS
Farewell, father.
Old Man
40
28
 God's benison go with you; and with those
That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!
Exeunt

ACT 3
POWER IS NEVER ENOUGH
SCENE I. Forres. The palace.
3.1 – Banquo is suspicious.
Enter BANQUO A murder is arranged.
BANQUO
Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, COMMENT PAUSE:
As the weird women promised, and, I fear, Give three words to describe
Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said Banquo’s feelings towards
It should not stand in thy posterity, Macbeth:
5 But that myself should be the root and father ®
Of many kings. If there come truth from them-- ®
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine-- ®
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
10 And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.
Sennet sounded. Enter MACBETH, as king, LADY MACBETH, as queen,
LENNOX, ROSS, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants
MACBETH
Here's our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH
If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
To-night we hold a solemn supper sir, How and why has the power
15 And I'll request your presence. dynamic between Macbeth
BANQUO and Banquo changed since act
Let your highness 1, scene 3 ?
Command upon me; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit.
MACBETH
Ride you this afternoon?
BANQUO
Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH
20 We should have else desired your good advice,
Which still hath been both grave and prosperous,
In this day's council; but we'll take to-morrow.
Is't far you ride?
BANQUO
As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
25 'Twixt this and supper: go not my horse the better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
MACBETH
Fail not our feast.
BANQUO
My lord, I will not.
MACBETH

29
30 We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow'd
In England and in Ireland, not confessing MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers GUILT
With strange invention: but of that to-morrow,
When therewithal we shall have cause of state COMMENT PAUSE:
35 Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse: adieu, Why is it important to Macbeth
Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you? to know where Fleance is?
BANQUO
Ay, my good lord: our time does call upon 's.
MACBETH
I wish your horses swift and sure of foot;
And so I do commend you to their backs. Farewell.
40 Exit BANQUO
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night: to make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till supper-time alone: while then, God be with you!
Exeunt all but MACBETH, and an attendant
45 Sirrah, a word with you: attend those men
Our pleasure?
ATTENDANT
They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
MACBETH
Bring them before us. Exit Attendant ANALYSIS PAUSE:
To be thus is nothing; “fruitless crown”
But to be safely thus.--Our fears in Banquo
50 Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
55 Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him: then prophet-like
60 They hail'd him father to a line of kings: ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, “barren sceptre”
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 't be so,
65 For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man,
70 To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come fate into the list.
And champion me to the utterance! Who's there!
COMMENT PAUSE:
Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers
Give three words to describe
Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
Macbeth’s feelings towards
Exit Attendant
Banquo:
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
®
First Murderer
®
It was, so please your highness.
MACBETH ®

30
75 Well then, now
Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
That it was he in the times past which held you
So under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self: this I made good to you
80 In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you,
How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,
Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
To half a soul and to a notion crazed
Say 'Thus did Banquo.'
First Murderer
You made it known to us.
MACBETH
85 I did so, and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature
That you can let this go? Are you so gospell'd
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
90 Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave
And beggar'd yours for ever?
First Murderer
We are men, my liege.
MACBETH
Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept
95 All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
100 Particular addition. from the bill
That writes them all alike: and so of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say 't;
And I will put that business in your bosoms,
105 Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
Second Murderer
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
110 Have so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
First Murderer
And I another
So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my lie on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on't.
MACBETH
Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
Both Murderers
True, my lord.
115 MACBETH
31
 So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my near'st of life: and though I could
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
120 And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For certain friends that are both his and mine,
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
Who I myself struck down; and thence it is,
That I to your assistance do make love,
125 Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.
Second Murderer
We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.
First Murderer
Though our lives--
MACBETH
Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
130 Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,
The moment on't; for't must be done to-night,
And something from the palace; always thought COMMENT PAUSE:
That I require a clearness: and with him-- Why does Macbeth want Fleance
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-- to be murdered too?
135 Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:
I'll come to you anon.
Both Murderers
We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH
I'll call upon you straight: abide within.
140 Exeunt Murderers
MOTIF MOMENT:
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul's flight,
LIGHT/DARK=
If it find heaven, must find it out to-night. GOOD/EVIL
Exit
SCENE II. The palace. 3.2 – Macbeth does not tell
Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant his wife about his plans
LADY MACBETH
Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant
Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
Servant
Madam, I will.
Exit
LADY MACBETH
5 Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Enter MACBETH

32
10 How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making, ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died “What’s done is done”
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
MACBETH
15 We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
20 In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
COMMENT PAUSE:
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
What do you notice about
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
Shakespeare’s use of
25 After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
imperative verbs in this scene?
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH
Come on;
Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
30 MACBETH
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo; vizards: (noun) a mask/disguise
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue: COMMENT PAUSE:
Unsafe the while, that we What are Macbeth’s words
35 Must lave our honours in these flattering streams, here an echo of?
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
LADY MACBETH
You must leave this.
MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
“Full of scorpions is my mind”
LADY MACBETH
But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
40 MACBETH
There's comfort yet; they are assailable;
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH
45 What's to be done? COMMENT PAUSE:
MACBETH Why is it interesting that Macbeth
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, does not tell Lady Macbeth about
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Banquo’s murder?
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
50 And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
33
 Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
55 While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So, prithee, go with me.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE III. A park near the palace. 3.3 – Banquo is murdered,
Enter three Murderers but Fleance escapes
First Murderer
COMMENT PAUSE:
But who did bid thee join with us?
Why might Macbeth choose to
Third Murderer
send a 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.
5 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.
Third Murderer
Hark! I hear horses.
BANQUO
[Within] Give us a light there, ho!
Second Murderer
Then 'tis he: the rest
10 That are within the note of expectation COMMENT PAUSE:
Already are i' the court. In the motif, light represents
First Murderer good – how does Shakespeare
His horses go about. use light in this scene?
Third Murderer
Almost a mile: but he does usually,
So all men do, from hence to the palace gate
Make it their walk.
Second Murderer
A light, a light!
Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE with a torch
Third Murderer
'Tis he.
First Murderer
15 Stand to't.
BANQUO
It will be rain to-night.
First Murderer
Let it come down. [They set upon BANQUO]
BANQUO
O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge. O slave!
Dies. FLEANCE escapes
Third Murderer
Who did strike out the light?
First Murderer MOTIF MOMENT:
Was’t not the way? LIGHT/DARK=
GOOD/EVIL
Third Murderer
34
 20 There's but one down; the son is fled.
Second Murderer
We have lost
Best half of our affair.
First Murderer
Well, let's away, and say how much is done.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE IV. The same. Hall in the palace.
3.4 – A banquet with
A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Banquo’s ghost
Lords, and Attendants
MACBETH
You know your own degrees; sit down: at first
And last the hearty welcome.
Lords
Thanks to your majesty.
MACBETH
Ourself will mingle with society,
And play the humble host.
5 Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;
For my heart speaks they are welcome.
First Murderer appears at the door
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
10 Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:
Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
The table round.
Approaching the door MOTIF MOMENT:
There's blood on thy face. BLOOD=
GUILT
First Murderer
'Tis Banquo's then.
MACBETH
15 'Tis better thee without than he within.
Is he dispatch'd?
First Murderer
My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
20 Thou art the nonpareil.
First Murderer COMMENT PAUSE:
Most royal sir, Why does Fleance’s escape
Fleance is 'scaped. bother Macbeth so much?
MACBETH
[Aside] Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air:
25 But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?
First Murderer
Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.
MACBETH
35
 Thanks for that:
30 There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow
We'll hear, ourselves, again.
Exit Murderer
LADY MACBETH
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
35 That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,
'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;
From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.
MACBETH
Sweet remembrancer!
Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
40 And health on both!
LENNOX
May't please your highness sit. COMMENT PAUSE:
The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH's place What is Shakespeare’s stage
MACBETH direction telling us here?
Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance!
ROSS
His absence, sir,
45 Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness
To grace us with your royal company.
MACBETH
The table's full.
LENNOX
Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH
COMMENT PAUSE:
Where?
Why is it dangerous for a king
LENNOX
to appear unstable?
Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness?
MACBETH
50 Which of you have done this?
Lords
What, my good lord?
MACBETH
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
ROSS
Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.
LADY MACBETH
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus, ANALYSIS PAUSE:
55 And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat; “Are you a man?”
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well: if much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion:
Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
60 Which might appal the devil.
36
 LADY MACBETH
O proper stuff! MOTIF MOMENT:
This is the very painting of your fear: SWORDS/DAGGERS=
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, HONOUR/BETRAYAL
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
COMMENT PAUSE:
Impostors to true fear, would well become
How is Lady Macbeth feeling
65 A woman's story at a winter's fire,
towards Macbeth at this point?
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
®
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
®
You look but on a stool.
MACBETH ®
Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! How say you?
70 Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.
GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes
LADY MACBETH
What, quite unmann'd in folly?
MACBETH
If I stand here, I saw him.
75 LADY MACBETH
Fie, for shame! MOTIF MOMENT:
MACBETH BLOOD=
Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, GUILT
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
80 And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: this is more strange
Than such a murder is.
LADY MACBETH
My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lack you.
85 MACBETH
I do forget.
Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full. Enter Ghost
I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
90 And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.
Lords
Our duties, and the pledge.
MACBETH
MOTIF MOMENT:
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! BLOOD=
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; GUILT
95 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
LADY MACBETH

37
 Think of this, good peers,
But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
100 MACBETH
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
105 Shall never tremble: or be alive again, MOTIF MOMENT:
And dare me to the desert with thy sword; SWORDS/DAGGERS=
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me HONOUR/BETRAYAL
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes
Why, so: being gone,
I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.
110 LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admired disorder.
MACBETH
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
115 Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think you can behold such sights, COMMENT PAUSE:
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, How does Lady Macbeth take
When mine is blanched with fear. control in this scene?
ROSS
What sights, my lord?
LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
120 Question enrages him. At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
LENNOX
Good night; and better health
Attend his majesty!
LADY MACBETH
A kind good night to all!
Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH MOTIF MOMENT:
MACBETH BLOOD=
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: GUILT
125 Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; COMMENT PAUSE:
Augurs and understood relations have What does it tell us about
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth Macbeth that he now start to
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night? worry about Macduff’s behaviour?
LADY MACBETH
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
MACBETH
130 How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH
I hear it by the way; but I will send:
There's not a one of them but in his house
38
 I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
MOTIF MOMENT:
135 And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
BLOOD=
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, GUILT
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood COMMENT PAUSE:
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Why is it important that Macbeth
140 Returning were as tedious as go o'er: decides to go to the witches?
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
MACBETH
Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.
--------- Exeunt
SCENE V. A Heath. 3.5 – Hecate instructs
It is believed that this scene was not written by Shakespeare and the witches
therefore it is not included in this booklet. It includes Hecate, the
Goddess of witchcraft, telling the witches her plan for Macbeth and his
--------- downfall.
SCENE VI. Forres. The palace. 3.6 – Macduff has fled to
Enter LENNOX and another Lord Malcolm in England
LENNOX
My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
Which can interpret further: only, I say,
Things have been strangely borne. The
gracious Duncan
5 Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;
Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
10 It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight
In pious rage the two delinquents tear,
That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
15 Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too;
For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive
To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,
He has borne all things well: and I do think
That had he Duncan's sons under his key--
20 As, an't please heaven, he shall not—they should find
What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
But, peace! for from broad words and 'cause he fail'd
His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear
Macduff lives in disgrace: sir, can you tell
Where he bestows himself?
Lord
25 The son of Duncan,
From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth
Lives in the English court, and is received
Of the most pious Edward with such grace
That the malevolence of fortune nothing
30 Takes from his high respect: thither Macduff
39
 Is gone to pray the holy king, upon his aid
To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward:
That, by the help of these--with Him above
To ratify the work--we may again MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
35 Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,
GUILT
Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,
Do faithful homage and receive free honours: COMMENT PAUSE:
All which we pine for now: and this report Macduff has joined Malcolm
Hath so exasperate the king that he in England. What does this tell
Prepares for some attempt of war. us about Macduff?
LENNOX
Sent he to Macduff?
40 Lord
He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not I,'
The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
And hums, as who should say 'You'll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.'
LENNOX
And that well might
45 Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England and unfold
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accursed!
Lord
I'll send my prayers with him. Exeunt

ACT 4
A TYRANT IS EXPOSED
SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
4.1 – Macbeth returns to
Thunder. Enter the three Witches the witches for three
First Witch new prophecies
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.
First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
5 In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
ALL
10 Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
15 Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,

40
 For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
20 Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
25 Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
30 Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL
35 Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Enter HECATE to the other three Witches
HECATE
O well done! I commend your pains;
40 And every one shall share i' the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Live elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
Music and a song: 'Black spirits,' & c
HECATE retires
Second Witch
By the pricking of my thumbs,
45 Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!
Enter MACBETH
MACBETH MOTIF MOMENT:
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags! LIGHT/DARK=
What is't you do? GOOD/EVIL
ALL COMMENT PAUSE:
A deed without a name. Why is it important that Macbeth
MACBETH knows all the evil the witches can
50 I conjure you, by that which you profess, do? What does this reveal?
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
55 Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germens tumble all together,
41
60 Even till destruction sicken; answer me
To what I ask you.
First Witch
Speak.
Second Witch
Demand.
Third Witch
We'll answer.
First Witch
Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,
Or from our masters?
MACBETH
Call 'em; let me see 'em.
First Witch
Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
65 Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten
From the murderer's gibbet throw
Into the flame.
ALL COMMENT PAUSE: Apparition 1
Come, high or low; How does an armoured head
Thyself and office deftly show! link to this prophecy?
Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head
MACBETH
Tell me, thou unknown power,--
First Witch
He knows thy thought:
70 Hear his speech, but say thou nought.
First Apparition
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;
Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough. [Descends]
MACBETH
Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;
Thou hast harp'd my fear aright: but one
word more,--
First Witch
COMMENT PAUSE: Apparition 2
75 He will not be commanded: here's another, How does a bloody child link to
More potent than the first. this prophecy?
Thunder. Second Apparition: A bloody Child
Second Apparition
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
MACBETH
Had I three ears, I'ld hear thee.
Second Apparition
Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
80 The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth. [Descends]
MACBETH
Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?
But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live;
85 That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.
Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned, with a tree in his hand
What is this
That rises like the issue of a king,

42
 And wears upon his baby-brow the round COMMENT PAUSE: Apparition 3
And top of sovereignty? How does a crowned child with
ALL a tree link to this prophecy?
Listen, but speak not to't.
Third Apparition
90 Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
Descends
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
That will never be Give three adjectives to
95 Who can impress the forest, bid the tree describe Macbeth following
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good! these prophecies:
Rebellion's head, rise never till the wood ®
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth ®
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath ®
100 To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art
Can tell so much: shall Banquo's issue ever
Reign in this kingdom?
ALL
Seek to know no more. COMMENT PAUSE:
MACBETH Macbeth threatens to curse
I will be satisfied: deny me this, the witches – what does this
105 And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know. tell us?
Why sinks that cauldron? and what noise is this?
Hautboys
First Witch
Show!
Second Witch
Show!
Third Witch
Show!
ALL
110 Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart! COMMENT PAUSE:
A show of Eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand; GHOST OF Which of the prophesies from
BANQUO following 1.3 does this link to?
MACBETH
Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo: down!
Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls. And thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
115 A third is like the former. Filthy hags!
Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!
What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more:
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
120 Which shows me many more; and some I see
That two-fold balls and treble scepters carry:
Horrible sight! Now, I see, 'tis true;
For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,
And points at them for his. MOTIF MOMENT:
Apparitions vanish BLOOD=
GUILT
What, is this so?
43
 First Witch
125 Ay, sir, all this is so: but why
Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
And show the best of our delights:
I'll charm the air to give a sound,
130 While you perform your antic round:
That this great king may kindly say,
Our duties did his welcome pay.
Music. The witches dance and then vanish, with HECATE
MACBETH
Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour
Stand aye accursed in the calendar!
135 Come in, without there!
Enter LENNOX
LENNOX
What's your grace's will?
MACBETH
Saw you the weird sisters?
LENNOX
No, my lord. ANALYSIS PAUSE:
MACBETH Why is it interesting that
Came they not by you? Macbeth links the witches to
LENNOX an infection?
No, indeed, my lord.
MACBETH
Infected be the air whereon they ride;
And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear
140 The galloping of horse: who was't came by?
LENNOX
'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH
Fled to England?
LENNOX
Ay, my good lord. COMMENT PAUSE:
MACBETH Macbeth plans to kill Macduff’s
Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits: family. Why is this different to
145 The flighty purpose never is o'ertook his previous murders?
Unless the deed go with it; from this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
150 The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.
155 But no more sights!--Where are these gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE II. Fife. Macduff's castle. 4.2 – The murder of
Enter LADY MACDUFF, her Son, and ROSS Macduff’s family
LADY MACDUFF
What had he done, to make him fly the land?
ROSS
44
 You must have patience, madam.
LADY MACDUFF
He had none:
His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
ROSS
You know not
5 Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
LADY MACDUFF
Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
His mansion and his titles in a place
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,
10 The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.
ROSS
My dearest coz,
15 I pray you, school yourself: but for your husband,
He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further;
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour
20 From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and move. I take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
25 To what they were before. My pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!
LADY MACDUFF
Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.
ROSS
I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
30 I take my leave at once.
Exit
LADY MACDUFF
Sirrah, your father's dead;
And what will you do now? How will you live?
Son
As birds do, mother.
LADY MACDUFF
What, with worms and flies?
Son
With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
LADY MACDUFF
Poor bird! thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,
35 The pitfall nor the gin.
Son
Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
LADY MACDUFF
Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
45
 Son
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
LADY MACDUFF
40 Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Son
Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
LADY MACDUFF
Thou speak'st with all thy wit: and yet, i' faith,
With wit enough for thee.
Son
Was my father a traitor, mother?
LADY MACDUFF
45 Ay, that he was.
Son
What is a traitor?
LADY MACDUFF
Why, one that swears and lies.
Son
And be all traitors that do so?
LADY MACDUFF
50 Every one that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
Son
And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
LADY MACDUFF
Every one.
Son
Who must hang them?
LADY MACDUFF
Why, the honest men.
Son
55 Then the liars and swearers are fools,
for there are liars and swearers enow to beat
the honest men and hang up them.
LADY MACDUFF
Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
But how wilt thou do for a father?
Son
60 If he were dead, you'ld weep for
him: if you would not, it were a good sign
that I should quickly have a new father.
LADY MACDUFF
Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!
Enter a Messenger
Messenger
Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
65 Though in your state of honour I am perfect.
I doubt some danger does approach you nearly:
If you will take a homely man's advice,
Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
70 To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
I dare abide no longer.
Exit
LADY MACDUFF

46
 Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now COMMENT PAUSE:
75 I am in this earthly world; where to do harm In terms of staging, how do
Is often laudable, to do good sometime each of the murders differ?
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas, Duncan:
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say I have done no harm?
Enter Murderers
What are these faces?
First Murderer Banquo:
Where is your husband?
80 LADY MACDUFF
I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.
First Murderer Macduff’s family:
He's a traitor.
Son
Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!
First Murderer
85 What, you egg!
Stabbing him
Young fry of treachery!
Son
He has kill'd me, mother:
Run away, I pray you!
Dies
Exit LADY MACDUFF, crying 'Murder!' Exeunt Murderers, following her 4.3 – Malcolm and
--------- SCENE III. England. Before the King's palace. Macduff in England
Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF
MALCOLM
Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there COMMENT PAUSE:
Weep our sad bosoms empty. What is Macbeth’s reign
MACDUFF doing to Scotland?
Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn
5 New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour.
MALCOLM
What I believe I'll wail,
tyrant: (noun) a leader who
What know believe, and what I can redress,
controls in a cruel way
10 As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
What you have spoke, it may be so perchance. COMMENT PAUSE:
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, How are opinions of Macbeth
Was once thought honest: you have loved him well. changing at this point?
He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young;
but something
15 You may discern of him through me, and wisdom
To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb
To appease an angry god.
MACDUFF
I am not treacherous.
MALCOLM

47
 But Macbeth is. COMMENT PAUSE:
20 A good and virtuous nature may recoil Give three adjectives to
In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon; describe Scotland at this point:
That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose:
®
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell;
®
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
®
Yet grace must still look so.
MACDUFF
I have lost my hopes.
MALCOLM
25 Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,
30 But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.
MACDUFF MOTIF MOMENT:
Bleed, bleed, poor country! BLOOD=
Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure, GUILT
For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou thy wrongs;
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
The title is affeer'd! Fare thee well, lord:
Why might Shakespeare
35 I would not be the villain that thou think'st
personify Scotland as a female
For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,
that is bleeding?
And the rich East to boot.
MALCOLM
Be not offended:
I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
40 It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds: I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right; MOTIF MOMENT:
And here from gracious England have I offer SWORDS/DAGGERS=
Of goodly thousands: but, for all this, HONOUR/BETRAYAL
45 When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
MOTIF MOMENT:
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
LIGHT/DARK=
Shall have more vices than it had before, GOOD/EVIL
More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
MACDUFF
What should he be? “tyrant” “
MALCOLM
50 It is myself I mean: in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted ” “hell” “devil”
That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
55 With my confineless harms.
MACDUFF
Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd
In evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLM
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
48
 60 That has a name: but there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up
GUILT
The cistern of my lust, and my desire
All continent impediments would o'erbear ANALYSIS PAUSE:
65 That did oppose my will: better Macbeth What does this list of sins,
Than such an one to reign. beginning with “bloody” tell
MACDUFF us about Macbeth?
Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
The untimely emptying of the happy throne
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
70 To take upon you what is yours: you may
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
We have willing dames enough: there cannot be
That vulture in you, to devour so many
75 As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclined.
MALCOLM
With this there grows
In my most ill-composed affection such
A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
80 Desire his jewels and this other's house:
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth.
MACDUFF
This avarice
85 Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will.
Of your mere own: all these are portable,
90 With other graces weigh'd.
MALCOLM
But I have none: the king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
95 I have no relish of them, but abound
In the division of each several crime,
Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
100 All unity on earth.
MACDUFF
O Scotland, Scotland!
MALCOLM
If such a one be fit to govern, speak:
I am as I have spoken.
MACDUFF
Fit to govern!
No, not to live. O nation miserable,
49
 With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
105 When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
Since that the truest issue of thy throne GUILT
By his own interdiction stands accursed,
And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee, Macbeth’s “barren sceptre” is
110 Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, now visibly “bloody”. If blood
Died every day she lived. Fare thee well! represents guilt, what does
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself this suggest?
Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,
Thy hope ends here!
MALCOLM
Macduff, this noble passion,
115 Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
120 From over-credulous haste: but God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
125 For strangers to my nature. I am yet
Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
At no time broke my faith, would not betray
The devil to his fellow and delight
130 No less in truth than life: my first false speaking
Was this upon myself: what I am truly,
Is thine and my poor country's to command:
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
135 Already at a point, was setting forth.
Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
MACDUFF
Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
'Tis hard to reconcile.
Enter a Doctor
MALCOLM
140 Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you?
Doctor
Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch--
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand--
145 They presently amend.
MALCOLM
I thank you, doctor.
Exit Doctor
MACDUFF
What's the disease he means?
MALCOLM
'Tis call'd the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good king;
50
 Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
150 Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
155 To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.
Enter ROSS
MACDUFF
See, who comes here?
MALCOLM
160 My countryman; but yet I know him not.
MACDUFF
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
MALCOLM
I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
The means that makes us strangers!
ROSS
Sir, amen.
MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSS
Alas, poor country!
165 Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
170 A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF
O, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLM
What's the newest grief?
ROSS
175 That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:
Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF
How does my wife?
ROSS
Why, well.
MACDUFF
And all my children?
ROSS
Well too.
MACDUFF
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
ROSS
51
 No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
MACDUFF
180 But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?
ROSS
When I came hither to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
185 For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.
MALCOLM
Be't their comfort
We are coming thither: gracious England hath
190 Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
An older and a better soldier none
That Christendom gives out.
ROSS
Would I could answer
This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
195 Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF
What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
Due to some single breast?
ROSS
No mind that's honest
But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.
MACDUFF
If it be mine,
200 Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSS
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF
Hum! I guess at it.
ROSS
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
205 Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.
MALCOLM
Merciful heaven!
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
210 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
MACDUFF
My children too?
ROSS
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
MACDUFF
52
 And I must be from thence! COMMENT PAUSE:
My wife kill'd too? What does Macduff’s reaction
ROSS to his family’s murder teach us
I have said. about his character?
MALCOLM
Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
215 To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM
220 Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
225 They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
MOTIF MOMENT:
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
SWORDS/DAGGERS=
MALCOLM HONOUR/BETRAYAL
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. COMMENT PAUSE:
MACDUFF What does Malcolm mean when
230 O, I could play the woman with mine eyes he says “Macbeth is ripe for
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens, shaking”?
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
235 Heaven forgive him too!
MALCOLM
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
240 The night is long that never finds the day.
Exeunt

ACT 5
THE RIGHTFUL KING IS RESTORED
SCENE I. Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.
Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman 5.1 – Lady Macbeth
Doctor sleepwalks
I have two nights watched with you, but can
Perceive no truth in your report. When was it she
last walked?
Gentlewoman
Since his majesty went into the field, I
5 have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown
upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper,

53
 fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and COMMENT PAUSE:
again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast In 1.5 Lady Macbeth wanted
sleep. darkness (“Come thick night”) and
Doctor now “she has light by her
10 A great perturbation in nature, to receive at continually” – what does this
Once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of indicate to the audience?
watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her
walking and other actual performances, what, at any
time, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman
15 That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Gentlewoman
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to
confirm my speech.
Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper (candle)
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise;
20 and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
MOTIF MOMENT:
Doctor
LIGHT/DARK=
How came she by that light? GOOD/EVIL
Gentlewoman
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her MOTIF MOMENT:
continually; 'tis her command. BLOOD=
Doctor GUILT
You see, her eyes are open. COMMENT PAUSE:
Gentlewoman Lady Macbeth imagines blood on
25 Ay, but their sense is shut. her hands. How does this link to:
Doctor a) The motif of blood
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands: I have known her continue in
this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH b) Macbeth’s earlier
Yet here's a spot. comment on “Neptune’s ocean”
Doctor
30 Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from
her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
35 fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him. COMMENT PAUSE:
Doctor Lady Macbeth imagines hell.
Do you mark that? What is this significant?
LADY MACBETH
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
40 What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'
that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
this starting.
Doctor
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman
54
 She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
45 that: heaven knows what she has known. MOTIF MOMENT:
BLOOD=
LADY MACBETH
GUILT
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little ANALYSIS PAUSE:
hand. Oh, oh, oh! “All the perfumes of Arabia
Doctor
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman
50 I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
dignity of the whole body.
Doctor
Well, well, well,--
Gentlewoman will not sweeten this little
Pray God it be, sir. hand”
Doctor
This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known
55 those which have walked in their sleep who have died
holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he
cannot come out on's grave.
Doctor
60 Even so?
LADY MACBETH
To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate: ANALYSIS PAUSE:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
“What’s done is done” (3.2)
done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed! Exit
Doctor
has become “What’s done
Will she go now to bed? cannot be undone” (5.1)
Gentlewoman
65 Directly.
Doctor
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
70 God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
Gentlewoman
75 Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane.
5.2 – The thanes leave
Drum and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, and Macbeth to join Malcolm
Soldiers
MENTEITH
The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
5 Excite the mortified man.
ANGUS
55
 Near Birnam wood COMMENT PAUSE:
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming. How are opinion of Macbeth
CAITHNESS changing?
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LENNOX
For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son,
10 And many unrough youths that even now
Protest their first of manhood.
MENTEITH
What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
15 He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.
ANGUS
Now does he feel MOTIF MOMENT:
His secret murders sticking on his hands; BLOOD=
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; GUILT
Those he commands move only in command,
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
20 Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
“his title hang loose about him
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
MENTEITH
Who then shall blame
His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
25 Itself for being there?
CAITHNESS like a giant’s robe on a dwarfish
thief”
Well, march we on,
To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him pour we in our country's purge
Each drop of us.
LENNOX
Or so much as it needs,
30 To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.
Exeunt, marching
--------- SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle. 5.3 – Macbeth gets news
about the English army
Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
Bring me no more reports; let them fly all: How is Macbeth feeling about
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, his power at this point?
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? ®
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know ®
5 All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
®
'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Why?
Shall e'er have power upon thee.' Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
10 Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.
Enter a Servant

56
 The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look? MOTIF MOMENT:
LIGHT/DARK=
Servant
GOOD/EVIL
There is ten thousand--
MACBETH
Geese, villain!
Servant
Soldiers, sir.
MACBETH
Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
15 Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
Servant
The English force, so please you.
MACBETH
Take thy face hence.
Exit Servant
Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
20 When I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
25 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!
Enter SEYTON
SEYTON
30 What is your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH
What news more?
SEYTON
All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. How is Macbeth behaving at
Give me my armour. this point? Give three adverbs:
SEYTON ®
'Tis not needed yet. ®
MACBETH ®
I'll put it on.
35 Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
MACBETH
Cure her of that.
40 Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote

57
 Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
45 Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself. COMMENT PAUSE:
MACBETH Highlight Macbeth’s use of
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it. imperative verbs. How has this
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff. changed since at one?
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
50 Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--
55 What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?
Doctor
Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.
MACBETH
Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
60 Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
Doctor
[Aside] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE IV. Country near Birnam wood. 5.4 – Malcolm tells the
Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG SIWARD, soldiers to take down a
MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and branch for camouflage
Soldiers, marching
MALCOLM
Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.
MENTEITH
We doubt it nothing.
SIWARD
What wood is this before us?
MENTEITH
COMMENT PAUSE:
The wood of Birnam. How is Shakespeare
MALCOLM
presenting the witches, and
Let every soldier hew him down a bough therefore the supernatural, at
5 And bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow this point in the play?
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.
Soldiers
It shall be done.
SIWARD
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
10 Our setting down before 't.
MALCOLM
'Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,

58
 And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.
MACDUFF
Let our just censures
15 Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.
SIWARD
The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
20 But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
Towards which advance the war.
Exeunt, marching
--------- SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle. 5.5 – Macbeth learns of
Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum and colours Lady Macbeth’s death
MACBETH and the wood moving
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
5 Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.
A cry of women within
What is that noise?
SEYTON
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Exit
MACBETH
I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
10 The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
15 Cannot once start me. COMMENT PAUSE:
Re-enter SEYTON Shakespeare uses Lady
Wherefore was that cry? Macbeth’s death to teach us
SEYTON what about the nature of
The queen, my lord, is dead. power?
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
20 Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
25 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Enter a Messenger
Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
59
 Messenger
30 Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
MACBETH
Well, say, sir.
Messenger
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
35 The wood began to move.
MACBETH
Liar and slave!
Messenger
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH
If thou speak'st false, COMMENT PAUSE:
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, What is Macbeth realising about
40 Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, the witches/supernatural?
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
45 Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
50 And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE VI. Dunsinane. Before the castle. 5.6 – Malcolm and his
Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD, MACDUFF, and their army arrive at the castle
Army, with boughs
MALCOLM COMMENT PAUSE:
Now near enough: your leafy screens throw down. Why is it interesting that
And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle, Malcolm calls Macduff “worthy”?
Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,
Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
5 Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,
According to our order.
SIWARD
Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF
Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
10 Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
Exeunt
--------- SCENE VII. Another part of the field. 5.6 – Malcolm and his
army arrive at the castle
Alarums. Enter MACBETH
MACBETH
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course. What's he
60
 That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none.
Enter YOUNG SIWARD
YOUNG SIWARD
5 What is thy name?
MACBETH
Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.
YOUNG SIWARD
No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell.
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
MACBETH
My name's Macbeth. What does the repetition of
YOUNG SIWARD “devil” and “tyrant” suggest?
The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.
MACBETH
No, nor more fearful.
YOUNG SIWARD
10 Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.
They fight and YOUNG SIWARD is slain
MACBETH COMMENT PAUSE:
Thou wast born of woman How is Macbeth behaving here:
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, ®
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.
®
Exit. Alarums. Enter MACDUFF
®
MACDUFF
That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
15 If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms MOTIF MOMENT:
SWORDS/DAGGERS=
Are hired to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth, HONOUR/BETRAYAL
Or else my sword with an unbatter'd edge
20 I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; COMMENT PAUSE:
By this great clatter, one of greatest note How is Macduff behaving here:
Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune! ®
And more I beg not. ®
Exit. Alarums Enter MALCOLM and SIWARD ®
SIWARD
This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd:
25 The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
The day almost itself professes yours,
And little is to do.
MALCOLM
We have met with foes
That strike beside us.
SIWARD
Enter, sir, the castle.
Exeunt. Alarums
5.8 – Macduff defeats
--------- SCENE VIII. Another part of the field.
Macbeth; Malcolm will be
Enter MACBETH crowned King of Scotland
MACBETH
Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.
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 Enter MACDUFF
MOTIF MOMENT:
MACDUFF
BLOOD=
Turn, hell-hound, turn! GUILT
MACBETH
Of all men else I have avoided thee: MOTIF MOMENT:
5 But get thee back; my soul is too much charged SWORDS/DAGGERS=
With blood of thine already. HONOUR/BETRAYAL
MACDUFF
I have no words:
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain “Turn, hell-hound, turn”
Than terms can give thee out! They fight
MACBETH
Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
10 With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
15 Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
MACBETH
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, COMMENT PAUSE:
For it hath cow'd my better part of man! What is Shakespeare teaching the
And be these juggling fiends no more believed, audience about the supernatural?
20 That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
25 We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'
MACBETH
I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
30 Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Exeunt, fighting. Alarums. Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and
colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers
MALCOLM
35 I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
SIWARD
Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM
Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
ROSS

62
 Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
40 He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
SIWARD
Then he is dead?
ROSS
Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
45 Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
SIWARD
Had he his hurts before?
ROSS
Ay, on the front.
SIWARD
Why then, God's soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
50 And so, his knell is knoll'd.
MALCOLM
He's worth more sorrow,
And that I'll spend for him.
SIWARD
He's worth no more
They say he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.
COMMENT PAUSE:
Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head
Why is it important that Malcolm,
MACDUFF
and not Macduff, becomes King?
Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
55 The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
Hail, King of Scotland!
ALL
ANALYSIS PAUSE:
Hail, King of Scotland! Flourish
“dead butcher
MALCOLM
60 We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour named. What's more to do,
65 Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad and his fiend-like queen”
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
70 Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time and place:
So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
fiend: (noun) a demon or
75 Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
evil spirit
Flourish. Exeunt

63
 ‘Macbeth’ Plot Timeline

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

64