| [Edit]
top
Date and revision
Macbeth cannot be precisely dated, but the likeliest date of composition is between 1603 and 1606. The play is unlikely to be earlier than 1603 given that it seems designed to celebrate King James's ancestors following the Stuart accession to the throne (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo). Many editors of the play suggest a more specific date of 1605-6; the principal reason for this is a number of possible allusions to the Gunpowder Plot and its ensuing trials: in particular the porter's line about "equivocation" may allude to the trial of Father Garnet in spring, 1606. However, the concept of "equivocation" was also the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Eilzabeth's chief councillor Lord Burghley as well as the 1584 Doctrine of Equivication by the Spanish prelate Martin Azpilcueta that was disseminated across Europe and into England. Conventional scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at Oxford in summer, 1605 which featured three 'sibyls' not unlike the weird sisters; Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the three witches. However, A.R. Braunmuller in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605-6 arguments inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603. The play is not considered to be any later than 1607, since, as Kermode notes, there are "fairly clear allusions to the play in 1607". The earliest account of a performance of the play is April, 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing it at the Globe theatre.
There is considerable evidence that the text of the play incorporates later revisions by Thomas Middleton, who inserted passages from his own play The Witch (1615), most notably an extra scene involving the witches and Hecate, because these scenes have proven highly popular with audiences. These revisions, which include all of Act III, Scene v, and a portion of Act IV, Scene i, are usually indicated as such in modern texts.
top
Synopsis
: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The play opens amid thunder and lightning, with three Witches—the Weïrd Sisters—deciding that their next meeting shall be with a certain Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded soldier reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals, Macbeth (who is the Thane of Glamis) and Banquo have just defeated an invasion by the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald.
When Macbeth and Banquo wander into a heath, the three Witches greet them with prophecies. The first hails Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis", the second as "Thane of Cawdor", while the third proclaims that he shall "be King hereafter". The Witches also inform Banquo he shall father a line of kings. While they wonder at these pronouncements, the Witches disappear. The Thane of Ross, a messenger from the King, arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly-bestowed title—Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled. Immediately, Macbeth begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king.
Macbeth writes to his wife about the Witches' prophecies. Duncan decides to stay at Macbeth's castle at Inverness. Lady Macbeth hatches a plan to murder him and secure the throne for her husband. While Macbeth raises concerns about the regicide, Lady Macbeth eventually manages to persuade him.
In the night, Macbeth kills Duncan. Lady Macbeth arranges to frame Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by planting bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. The porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's corpse. In a sham fit of fury, Macbeth murders the servants before they can protest their innocence. Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth. Fearing for their lives, Duncan's sons flee, Malcolm to England and his brother Donalbain to Ireland. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspect, and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman to the dead King.
Despite his success, Macbeth remains uneasy regarding the prophecy that Banquo would be the progenitor of kings. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet and discovers that Banquo and his son, Fleance, will be riding that night. He hires two men to kill Banquo and Fleance. While they succeed in murdering Banquo, Fleance is able to escape. At the banquet, Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth is the only person who can see it, and his display of terror convinces many attending lords of his guilt.
Disturbed, Macbeth goes to the Witches once more. They conjure up three spirits which tell him to "beware Macduff", but also that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" and he will "never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him". Since Macduff is in exile, Macbeth massacres everyone in Macduff's castle, including Macduff's wife and children.
Lady Macbeth eventually becomes racked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. In a famous scene, she sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary bloodstains off her hands.
In England, Malcolm and Macduff plan an invasion of Scotland. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishman Siward (the Elder), the Earl of Northumbria, against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers, thus fulfilling the Witches' second prophesy. Meanwhile, Macbeth delivers a famous nihilistic soliloquy ("Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow") upon learning of Lady Macbeth's death (the cause is undisclosed, but it is assumed by some that she committed suicide).
A battle ensues, culminating in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, as he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was born by Caesarean section (before his mother's actual delivery)—and was therefore not "''of woman born''". Too late, Macbeth realises the Witches have misled him. A fight ensues, which ends with Macduff beheading Macbeth offstage, thereby fulfilling the last of the prophecies.
In the final scene, Malcolm is crowned as the rightful King of Scotland, suggesting that peace has been restored to the kingdom. However, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo, "Thou shalt beget kings", was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true, as James I of England was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.
top
Recurring motifs and themes
Paradoxes/Things in Twos. Throughout Macbeth, there are many situations and characters' internal conflicts which are paradoxical. There are also many things which come in twos; these are similar, but not always identical. From almost the beginning of the play ("when the battle's lost and won"), parodoxes/doubles appear regularly. Examples include:
"when the battle's lost and won" (1.1.4)
"fair is foul and foul is fair" (1.1.13)
"they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe." (1.2.42)
"the service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself." (1.4.25-6)
"I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." (2.1.46)
"double, double, toil and trouble..." (4.1.10)
Ambition and Betrayal. Macbeth's tragic flaw is likely his own ambition, which leads him to betray his king and, later, murder his friend Banquo. He becomes thane of Cawdor only after the previous thane rebels against the king; Macbeth thus continues a tradition of betrayal among those in power. The play dwells on ambition's ability to be a morally corrupting agent. It has the same effect on Lady Macbeth, whose sins drive her to madness and suicide.
Visions. There are several hallucinations in the play. In Act 2 Scene 1, Macbeth sees a bloody dagger floating in the air, pointing to King Duncan’s resting chamber, perhaps encouraging his upcoming deed. In Act 5 Scene 1 Lady Macbeth hallucinates that her hands are covered in blood, despite her obsessive washing. Macbeth also sees the ghost of Banquo at the royal banquet. The precise meaning and origins of these visions is ambiguous. They could possibly be conjured by the three witches, who are actively involved in the play's events. Or they could be simple products of madness, reinforcing the play's thesis that betrayal is corrupting in the mind. (The ghost, at least, would not be unusual to see in a Shakespeare play that already involves the supernatural.)
Blood and bloodshed. Macbeth is one of the bloodiest of Shakespeare's plays. As the play opens, Macbeth’s army has just defeated Norwegian invaders in a gruesome battle. As a gravely-wounded captain arrives, Duncan remarks: “What bloody man is that? He can report, as seemeth by his plight” (1.2). In this and other examples, blood might signify the advent of a messenger, the admonitions of God, or a warning for the future. The witches' cauldron too is filled with blood. Macbeth of course serves a bloody term in office, ordering the murder of opponents and potential rivals. Lady Macbeth's hallucination of blood on her hands seems to represent her feeling of guilt. At the play's end, Macduff presents the new king (and the audience) with Macbeth's severed head, clearly a gruesome spectacle, illustrating the price of treason and murder. Shakespeare uses the word blood well over 100 times throughout the play.
Infants and children. Children are frequently referenced, though hardly seen, in the play. Their innocence is frequently contrasted with the guilty meditations of Macbeth and other characters. Lady Macbeth provides the most graphic example, making an analogy to her level of commitment: "I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: / I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you / Have done to this" (1.7).
Natural Order. The 'unnatural' replacement of Duncan by Macbeth disturbs the natural order of the royal lineage. Those in Shakespeare's time valued the divinity of the king, i.e. the king's preordained selection by God. Thus, by unnatural replacement of the king, Macbeth has invoked the wrath of greater beings. Nature is disturbed and thrown into turmoil: horses cannibalise each other, and a small owl kills a regal hawk.
Insomnia. Sleep is referenced several times through out the play; Duncan is murdered in his sleep, while his guards sleep. Following the murder, Macbeth states, "Sleep no more!/Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,/Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care... (2.2). Indeed, following the crime, both Macbeth and his wife are cursed with insomnia and sleepwalking. These seem to be tangible expressions of each character's guilt. Fear of sleep might also represent Macbeth's fear of his inevitable death.
Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Ambiguity. Shakespeare shows in the play a connection between masculinity and violence, as well as ambition. Lady Macbeth goads Macbeth on to treason by saying, "when you durst do it, then you are a man" (1.7.48). Even more explicit is her early soliloquy: "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!" The women of the play manipulate Macbeth into doing their bidding. The witches awaken Macbeth's ambitions, and then Lady Macbeth drives Macbeth to kill Duncan.
Moral Ambiguity. The witches, servants of the devil, and their dark prophecy steer Macbeth through the play. Early on, they set an overall tone of moral uncertainty with their chanting. The evil in Macbeth grows throughout the play. In the beginning he is reluctant to commit murder, but it slowly becomes easier for him. At the turning point of the play Macbeth says, "Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er." (3.4.138-139) He has decided it would be just as easy to keep killing and murdering as it would to repent and turn back.
Conflict and Opposition. The play is full of contradictory statements, beginning with the witches' conversation in Act 1: "When the battle's lost and won," (1.1.4) and "Fair is foul, and foul is fair", (1.1.12)I. Macbeth's first line in the play is: "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." (1.3.38) Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth's world as a confusing and chaotic one. This mirrors the moral dilemma involved in the plot to kill the King, and Macbeth's own indecision.
Corrupting Power of Pure Emotion. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth respects societal expectations of him and thus falters in his ambitions to commit regicide. Only through the influence of the witches and Lady Macbeth does he gather the will to murder Duncan. From this point, however, Macbeth begins to act more and more compulsively, such as when he orders the murders of Banquo and Fleance. In Act 4, he commits himself completely to living based on his bare impulses: "From this moment / The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand" (4.1.168-170). After making this pledge, Macbeth becomes a highly erratic mess of fitful remarks and emotional outbursts, and eventually tosses himself into inevitable defeat at the hands of Macduff after spending the entire play jealously guarding his life and crown.
Internal Struggle. In the first two acts of the play, Macbeth struggles with morality and ambition, trying desperately to reconcile the two. After Act 2, he struggles instead to reconcile with his regicidal 'new self,' finally failing in the task and falling into utter moral darkness and abandoning all optimistic perspective. His former greatness decays until his "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" speech, when shows he has given up on all hope of self-reconciliation.
top
The "Scottish Play"
Actors and other theatre people often consider it to be bad luck to mention Macbeth by name while inside a theatre, and usually refer to it superstitiously as The Scottish Play. This is due to the theatre convention of cancelling a production if it fails to draw in the crowds and replacing it with Macbeth. Thus, to say the name of the play inside a theatre is believed to doom the production to failure, and perhaps cause physical injury or worse to cast members. The characters are sometimes referred to as Mackers and Lady Mackers.
top
Text of the play
|
Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The Folio is the only authoritative source for the text. This is regrettable, as the text has been plainly altered by later hands. Most notable is the inclusion of two songs from Thomas Middleton's later play The Witch, on the basis of which many scholars reject all three of the interludes with the goddess Hecate as inauthentic and added by a later editor, possibly Middleton himself. Even with the Hecate material, the play is conspicuously short, indicating that the Folio text may derive from a promptbook that had been substantially cut for performance.
|
top
King James VI of Scotland (King James I of England)
The parade of eight kings which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV is generally taken to represent the Stuart line, and be intended as a compliment to King James VI of Scotland, who had recently been crowned James I of England when the play was written.
top
Shakespeares sources
Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft
Macbeth's words on dogs and men in Act 3, scene 1, (91-100), likely came from Erasmus' Colloquia
top
Film versions
See also Shakespeare on screen (Macbeth)
Men of Respect, 1991 film, set as a Mafia power struggle in New York, in modern English, but otherwise very closely tracking the original.
Macbeth, 2005 independent film, neo-noir version of the play, set in an alternate universe where the United States is led by a totalitarian government
top
Literary versions
The Third Witch — 2001 novel by Rebecca Reisert, told from the point of view of one of the witches in the play.
top
Television versions (a selection)
Macbeth — 1960 television remake of the 1954 production, again produced for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, and again starring Evans and Anderson, but this time featuring an all-British supporting cast, and filmed on location in England and Scotland. Ian Bannen and Jeremy Brett are also featured.
The BBC's ShakespeaRe-Told series in 2005 included a present-day modern-language Macbeth set in a Glasgow restaurant.
top
Musical adaptations
top
See also
|
|
