Macbeth

Well, for a start, he calls it "vaulting ambition". This is a sneer at the ambitious, you know. The ambition wants to jump ahead instead of proceeding by regular steps. And by jumping, it overleaps the mark and falls down. Macbeth has contempt for ambition; he may have an ambition to be the king, but why not, when he is so closely related to Duncan and so much more fit for the job than the effete Malcolm or Donalbain? In the settled order of things he could be next in line for the throne. Primogeniture was not a rule in eleventh-century Scotland. His arguments for not killing Duncan are based on decency, morality, and order, and they convince him. He is quite happy to fight for the king and the established order. Only the persuasiveness of his wife, who really is consumed by ambition, is able to make him swerve from that course of action, but once he has left the strait and narrow he cannot go back.

"This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air sweetly and nimbly commends itself to our senses." What a nice house! (But he doesn't know he will die because of going there.)

"Herein I teach you how you shall bid God'ild you for your pains, and thank us for your trouble." Duncan has basically said, "The party is at Macbeth's place in Inverness!" without consulting the Macbeths first. Now the Macbeths are put to the trouble of hosting the party. But it will be no trouble, says Duncan, it will be worth it. Well, that is what Lady Macbeth is thinking, but not for the reasons Duncan thinks.

Sweno, the Norway's king, craves composition.

nor would we deign him burial of his men

till he disbursed at at saint colme's inch

ten thousand dollars to our general use.

Sweno is the Norwegian king who stood against Duncan at the beginning of the play. He was aided by the traitorous Thane of Cawford, but lost to Macbeth and Duncan's army. And he was not allowed to bury his men until he paid $10,000 to Duncan's coffers (national bank).

We do not have a record of this, but we can guess that it was about 1606 when the play was written. The only record of a performance we have is at the Globe in 1610, but this was almost certainly not a première.

Umm, Macbeth. The title is a hint, although it doesn't always work out that way in Shakespeare.

stop being so indecisive and take immediate action.

"I am in blood stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er". (III, 4) The image of Macbeth wading through an ocean of blood reinforces the many examples of blood imagery throughout the play, including several earlier in the same scene. It is reminiscent of the line "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red." which also reminds us of Lady Macbeth's line "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." All of these images of the Macbeths awash in a sea of blood that cannot be cleaned off enhance the central idea of Macbeth, which is that doing one evil deed changes the doer forever, and the guilt clings to him or to her. (As in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, there is no redemption.)

The most famous line in Macbeth is when Lady Macbeth says, "Out out damned spot." She says this line after she persuades Macbeth to kill the king. She feels guilty and imagines that she can't get the blood off of her hands.

birnam wood marched against dunsinane hill

Banquo describes Macbeth's castle as being in a pleasant location and soothing.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 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." Act V Scene V

Macbeth compares life to a useless actor. This SIMILE highlights his acceptance and apathetic mood towards life.

Because his wife convinced him that he would gain much power. Without her poor influences he probably would not have killed Duncan. he was said to be very loyal, but he never gave off the vibe that he liked the King, and how he was ruling.

The Shakespearean play 'Macbeth' was based largely on facts. What mightn't have been factual might have been the supernatural presences. What else mightn't have been factual might have been the Shakespearean interpretation of the characters. What definitely wasn't factual was the succession of Macbeth [c. 1014-August 15, 1057] by King Malcolm III [d. November 13, 1093]. In between was the less than a year rule by Macbeth's stepson, King Lulach [d. March 17, 1058]. Neither were the two royal murders factual. King Duncan I [d. August 14, 1040] was killed by his own men for having launched an unprovoked, unpopular, unjustified, unjust invasion of Macbeth's lands. As with his stepson, Macbeth was killed not by the fictitious Macduff, but by Duncan's elder son, the subsequent King Malcolm III.

The double trust is in fact a triple trust, as Macbeth says in his soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 7: "He's here is double trust: first as I am his kinsmen and his subject, both strong against the deed, then as his host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself."

Iambic pentameter

This is a matter of perspective and debate. The witches' motive in revealing this might be to cause Macbeth to take the actions he will take to make the prophecy come true, thus creating havoc and turmoil in the realm. Basically, they may be simply troublemakers. But it is also possible that they are the agents of fate, who act in this way to bring about the future which was in any case foretold.

He talks about the meeting with the witches, and how they vanished into thin air. He tells her about the predictions that he will be Thane of Cawdor and King hereafter. Finally, he tells her that the Cawdor prophecy has already come true, so there is good reason to believe in the "king hereafter" part as well.

Macbeth [c. 1014-August 15, 1057] first planned to kill Macduff. Then he planned to kill Macduff's entire family and household. In Act 4 Scene 1 of the Shakespearean play, Macbeth heard the warning of the crowned child against Macduff. Then he heard the warning of the bloody child against the man not born of woman. And then he heard the warning of the crowned child against the movement of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Castle. Finally, he saw the apparition of Banquo's ghost following eight kings who held a mirror that showed an even longer royal line. What with the three warnings and the royal apparition, Macbeth decided to kill the noble Scotsman Macduff. But on his way from the witches' cavern to his royal palace at Forres, he met up with the noble Scotsman Lennox. From their conversation, he learned that Macduff had fled to England. And so Macbeth decided to have Macduff's entire family and household killed instead.

She is the one who, after finding out that 'her' witches (the witches that she taught to do things like casting spells etc) were talking and "spilling too many beans" to Macbeth about the future, she, as the head witch, shows Macbeth the Apparitions, and she is the one who is a little more evil than the witches, as they did not try to trick Macbeth as much as she did, (she said herself that "security/is mortals' chiefest enemy") only obeyed her orders or had some fun.

It means that Macduff was delivered by caesarian section, and therefore, was not "of woman born" in the conventional sense; meaning that, according to the witches' prophecy, he would be capable of killing Macbeth.

He is a good soldier, strong and courageous. Is he violent? Of course! That makes him good at his job.

He feels restless. "A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, yet I would not sleep." He says, "Merciful powers, restrain in me the thoughts that nature gives way to in repose." He is having thoughts that disturb him. Maybe the witches' prophecies are having the same effect on him as they had on Macbeth.