Macbeth

He has imagined someone saying that he has killed sleep, and that Macbeth will sleep no more. This means that no visitor will be safe in Macbeth's home, for they can be doomed to the same fate King Duncan had endured. Because of his guilt, Macbeth will no longer sleep peacefully.

There's a party going on at the palace. People would notice a murder.

I am having trouble understanding what "date power" means. Possibly you tried to type "fate, power" instead. Anyway, Act I Scene 7, which is the key to understanding this play, shows that power is not something that Macbeth values particularly highly. He sneers at ambition, calling it "vaulting". However, he does put a high value on fearlessness, because his wife is able to motivate him by calling him a coward. Yet ironically, after he commits the murder he is driven by fear; by playing on his self-image as fearless, Lady M has made a coward of him. As for fate, he is wishy-washy. At one point, why if fate would have him king fate would crown him, yet at another he tries to thwart the prophecy that Banquo's issue will be kings.

Macduff and Lennox. They were supposed to arrive early in the morning and wake up the king. Unfortunately everyone in the castle had partied to late at night and they are all sleeping in, so Macduff and Lennox have to bang on the door.

Duncan appoints him to that title, after it was stripped from the previous Thane. The former Thane of Cawdor was stripped of all titles and executed after joining a Norwegian invading force which was defeated at Fife. Macbeth at the time was at Forres, nowhere near Fife.

Act I, Scene 4. Macbeth's line "Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my black and deep desires." is sort of quoted in the song. The song lyric goes, "Stars, hide your fires, these here are my desires".

The quotation in which this contraction appears is from Act II Scene 3. Macbeth says, "who could refrain,/ That had a heart to love, and in that heart/ Courage to make's love known?" In this particular quotation, the contraction is of "make his".

By playing on audiences fears

"The bell invites me. Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell which summons thee to heaven or to hell." A knell is the sound of a bell, in this case the signal bell which Lady M has rung. It has an especial connection with bells rung at funerals, which is appropriate under the circumstances.

"The king" here is Macbeth. He is exasperated by the attempts of Malcolm to raise an army against him. Therefore he "prepares for some attempt of war", and what does it mean to prepare for war? To raise an army, train and arm soldiers, that sort of thing.

The "filthy witness" which Lady Macbeth talks about washing from Macbeth's hands is, of course, Duncan's blood. "Filthy" because it is dirty and smells unpleasant. (Have you ever been covered in blood?) "Witness" because its presence on his hands marks him as the murderer--it testifies against him.

Well, they first met long before the play started because they are good friends at the start. At the beginning of the play they are fighting side by side against "the merciless Macdonweald." When we first meet them, they are travelling together from the field of battle. They meet again twice at Macbeth's castle at Inverness both before and after Duncan is murdered. They meet again for the last time in Act III Scene 1 just before Banquo is murdered.

King Edward is portrayed as a healer, whereas Macbeth is portrayed as delivering death. Edward has "a heavenly gift of prophecy" which he gets from "holy prayers", whereas Macbeth has no gift of prophecy, and the prophecies he gets from the witches are deceptions.

In about 1950, a scholar by the name of Henry N. Paul published a book in which he claimed that Macbeth had been written explicitly to please King James, and was premiered at court. Although his ideas were totally speculative and not backed by any evidence, people jumped on the bandwagon, as they tend to do when someone advances a new and interesting theory. After sixty years, everyone has forgotten that this idea comes from the imagination of one man. However, the facts are these: Shakespeare did not materially change the story he got from Holinshed, and in particular did not add witches or the idea that Banquo was the ancestor of the Stuarts to the story; there is no evidence that any monarch ever directed any playwright which story to dramatize, despite rumours about Queen Elizabeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor; there is no evidence that Macbeth was ever played at court, even though we have several records of groups of plays performed; there is no evidence of what King James thought of the play, although we know that it was less popular with the public than other plays of Shakespeare. So there is no real reason to suppose that King James had anything to do with the creation of this play at all, any more than he had with any other play. Very possibly, Shakespeare may have thought that the public would be interested in Scottish history as opposed to English history after the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, but there is no evidence of that either. It's pure speculation.

the porter

Successful were the murderers in Macbeth partly;
Banquo dead because of them becomes,
But still alive is Fleance afterwards.Successful were in Act IV the murderers also,
Who slaughter they made of the family of Macduff
Entirely without exception.

Second Murderer: "I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world" First Murderer: "And I another . . ."

In the play, Lady Macbeth is more aggressive, insightful, and reactive than Lady Macduff. Lady Macbeth looks at a situation and a person and analyzes their strengths and their weaknesses. Then she comes up with a winning strategy. Readers and viewers see this in Act 1 Scene 5. The Lady sees the possibility of crowns for her and her husband, identifies the kind streak that her husband has and that she lacks, and goes straight for the jugular in calling up the evil spirits to bring her ambitions to success. In contrast, in Act 4 Scene 3, Lady Macduff shows herself more passive, naive and reflective. She gets caught up in her husband's flight, in terms of how that impacts on her personally. She doesn't seem to know her husband wel, because she sees his departure as a personal betrayal. And yet the entire kingdom is falling to pieces around them all! She doesn't think of the consequences to the safety of her or her household. In fact, she doesn't pay attention to the messenger's warning of imminent danger.

Act 1 Scene 3, d'ya think?

Your MOM... and your dad do it and they made that huge mistake to have YOU

Hecate

In Act II Scene 3 we hear this conversation:

Lennox: The night has been unruly: where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,

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

Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth

Was feverous and did shake.

Macbeth: "Twas a rough night.

In scene 4 the stories get wilder.

Ross: Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,

That darkness does the face of earth entomb,

When living light should kiss it?

Old Man: 'Tis unnatural,

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,

A falcon, towering in her pride of place,

Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.

Ross: And Duncan's horses--a thing most strange and certain--

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.

So there you have it: Winds so strong they blow chimneys down, making weird screaming noises, earthquakes, darkness during the daytime, birds singing at night who don't usually, owls killing hawks, and horses breaking out of their stalls. And eating each other, 'tis said.

they do not include her in the plan to mess with macbeth, which makes her angry

There are four scene threes in the play: that gives me a 75% chance of guessing the wrong scene.In Act V Scene 3, he imagines what his old age ought to be like, with "honour, love, obedience, troops of friends" and realizes that he has no chance of this old age. Also, when he is talking to the doctor he wonders whether the doctor could diagnose the disease which affects the country.In Act III Scene 3 we find that Macbeth has sent a third murderer to join the two he talked to earlier. Did he imagine that something would go wrong and sent someone further to check?In Act II Scene 3 he very quickly thinks up the idea of murdering the grooms and then comes up with a plausible excuse when Macduff calls him on it.In Act I Scene 3 he says "why do I yield to that suggestion which doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs . . ?" which means he is clearly imagining the murder of Duncan as a way to make the witches' prediction come true.There is an answer of sorts for all four. Although I would have said that Act II Scenes 1 and 2 contain the best evidence of Macbeth's imagination.

Banquo doesn't commit any crime but is murdered at Macbeth's command. -APEX