Macbeth
Possibly Shakespeare’s most intense tragedy, and certainly his most Jacobean—in that its interests in *Scotland, in *witches, and in the Stuarts’ ancestor Banquo suggest that Shakespeare was here deliberately catering to the tastes of his company’s patron King *James—Macbeth was probably first performed in 1606. The Porter’s remarks about equivocation and treason appear to allude to the trial of the *Gunpowder Plot conspirators, which took place from January to March of 1606, and the First Witch’s undertaking to condemn a ship called ‘the Tiger’ to 81 weeks of storms (1.3.6–24) may allude to a real ship of that name which reached Milford Haven in June 1606 after a traumatic voyage of just that duration. Banquo’s ghost may be glanced at in two plays written in 1607, the anonymous The *Puritan and perhaps *Beaumont and *Fletcher’sThe Knight of the Burning Pestle. Internal evidence, moreover, particularly the play’s metre, also suggests that Macbeth was composed in 1606, after King Lear but just before Antony and Cleopatra: Macbeth even mentions Antony (3.1.58) in a manner which suggests that Shakespeare was already revisiting *Plutarch in preparation for the latter tragedy while composing his Scottish play.
Text: Macbeth was first printed in the *Folio in 1623, which provides its only authoritative text, unfortunately in many ways a defective one. The play is unusually short: many editors have suspected cutting, wondering, for example, whether the murderers’ description of the killing of Banquo was originally a separate scene between 3.3 and 3.4, or whether King Edward the Confessor originally made an appearance in 4.3. More conspicuously, three episodes in which the goddess Hecate appears in person to the Witches (3.5, 4.1.38–60, 141–8), which have little or no effect on the plot and are different in style to the surrounding dialogue, seem to be non-Shakespearian *interpolations. Since these episodes call for the performance of two songs found in Thomas *Middleton’s play The Witch, it is now generally believed that the text of Macbeth in the Folio derives from a promptbook of the play as adapted by Middleton for a later Jacobean revival.
Sources: Shakespeare’s principal source was *Holinshed’s account of the reigns of Duncan and Macbeth, supplemented by material borrowed from elsewhere in Holinshed’s history of Scotland: Lady Macbeth, for example, is largely based on the wife of Donwald, who prompted her husband to kill King Duff. Shakespeare restructures Holinshed’s material, however, making the historical Macbeth’s long and peaceful reign look like a short-lived usurpation, and framing his play by the appearance of the three witches who tempt Macbeth and Banquo with their prophecies. Shakespeare may have consulted other accounts of Macbeth’s reign too, including George Buchanan’s Rerum Scoticarum historia (1582) and Andrew of Wyntoun’s poem The Original Chronicle of Scotland (c.1424), in which Macbeth is incited to kill Duncan by three women who appear to him in a dream. It is likely that Shakespeare also knew of a playlet by Matthew Gwinne, Tres sibyllae, performed before King James at St John’s College, Oxford, in 1605. The three sibyls of the title reminded James that they had once prophesied endless dominion to Banquo’s descendants, and saluted him in turn with the words ‘Hail, thou who rulest Scotland!’ ‘Hail, thou who rulest England!’ ‘Hail, thou who rulest Ireland!’ (cf. 1.3.46–8).
Synopsis: 1.1 Three witches agree to meet again on a heath in order to accost Macbeth after the day’s battle.
1.2 King Duncan, fighting against the rebel Macdonald, receives a report from a bleeding captain about Macbeth’s valiant deeds in the battle: Macbeth has killed Macdonald, and he and his comrade Banquo have met the fresh assaults of Macdonald’s Norwegian allies. Ross brings the news that Macbeth has defeated the King of Norway and his associate, the traitorous Thane of Cawdor: Duncan condemns Cawdor to death and confers his title on Macbeth.
1.3 The three witches hail Macbeth by his current title, Thane of Glamis, and then as Thane of Cawdor and as future king: before vanishing they tell Banquo that though he will not be king his descendants will. Ross and Angus bring the news that Macbeth is now Thane of Cawdor: reflecting on the witches’ prophecy, now partly fulfilled, Macbeth is already imagining the murder of Duncan.
1.4 Duncan, after hearing a report from his son Malcolm of the death of the former Cawdor, welcomes Macbeth and Banquo, before declaring Malcolm the Prince of Cumberland and his heir. Duncan means to be Macbeth’s guest at Inverness, towards which Macbeth sets off to inform his wife, conscious that he must now remove both Malcolm and Duncan if the witches’ prophecy is to be fulfilled.
1.5 Lady Macbeth reads a letter from Macbeth describing his meeting with the witches, and, aware of the conscience which may hold back his ambition, she is ready to urge him on to the murder of Duncan. A servant brings the news of Duncan’s impending arrival: Lady Macbeth calls on the forces of darkness to make her cruel and unwomanly enough to be an instigator of Duncan’s murder. When Macbeth arrives she urges him to dissemble with Duncan and promises to do her part.
1.6 Duncan and his nobles, including his sons Malcolm and Donalbain along with Macduff, the Thane of Fife, are welcomed to Inverness by Lady Macbeth.
1.7 Briefly alone while Duncan dines, Macbeth reflects in horror on the crime he is on the verge of committing, for no motive but ambition, and when Lady Macbeth comes to find him he renounces their plot to kill the King. By taunting him for unmanliness and inconstancy, however, she persuades him to resume his original purpose, saying she will get Duncan’s chamberlains drunk so that the Macbeths can make it appear that they are the culprits.
2.1 After midnight, Banquo and his son Fleance are met by Macbeth: Banquo opens the subject of the witches, but Macbeth says they will discuss them on another occasion. After the departure of Banquo and Fleance, Macbeth, awaiting the bell which will be Lady Macbeth’s signal that it is time to kill Duncan, sees a vision of a dagger, at first clean but then bloodstained, beckoning him towards Duncan’s chamber. The bell rings and he goes to commit the murder.
2.2 Lady Macbeth, having drugged Duncan’s grooms and left their daggers ready for her husband to use, awaits Macbeth. When he arrives he is terrified by what he has done and fearful of discovery, convinced he has heard a voice cursing him with eternal insomnia: he is still clutching the bloodstained daggers, which Lady Macbeth has to take back to Duncan’s chamber. Macbeth feels he will never be able to get his hands clean of the blood. He is frightened by the sound of knocking at a door: Lady Macbeth leads him away to wash his hands and change into a nightgown.
2.3 A drunken porter, also disturbed by knocking, indulges a fancy that he is the porter at the gates of Hell before finally admitting Macduff and Lennox, to whom he discourses about the effects of drink. Macbeth arrives and conducts Macduff, calling by appointment to awaken the King, to Duncan’s door: Lennox describes the ominous storms of the past night. A horrified Macduff brings the news of Duncan’s murder and awakens the household while Macbeth and Lennox go to the chamber: Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Macbeth, Lennox, Malcolm, and Donalbain assemble and learn both of Duncan’s death and of Macbeth’s sudden killing of the two apparently guilty chamberlains on reaching the fatal chamber with Lennox. While Macbeth is explaining that righteous anger overcame his judgement, Lady Macbeth faints. Banquo urges the others to dress and arm themselves: left alone, Malcolm and Donalbain, convinced that they too are intended victims, resolve to flee.
2.4 Ross is discussing further omens with an old man when Macduff arrives: he reports that it is thought the two chamberlains had been paid to kill Duncan by the fugitive Malcolm and Donalbain, and that Macbeth, chosen as Duncan’s successor, has gone to Scone to be crowned. Although Ross means to attend the coronation, Macduff is on his way home to Fife.
3.1 Banquo recognizes that the witches’ prophecies to Macbeth have been fulfilled, and suspects him of Duncan’s murder; he wonders if their remarks about his own descendants will also come true. Macbeth, arriving with Lady Macbeth, Lennox, Ross, and other nobles, invites Banquo to a feast that evening and asks in detail about where he and Fleance mean to ride that afternoon. Dismissing his court, the insecure Macbeth summons two murderers, reflecting bitterly on the pointlessness of his crime if Banquo’s descendants are destined to inherit the throne. He instructs the murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance.
3.2 Lady Macbeth also feels that their achievement of an anxious throne is worthless. When Macbeth arrives, envying the dead Duncan’s freedom from fear, she urges him to feign cheerfulness at the feast. He hints darkly at the impending murder of Banquo and Fleance but does not confide that he has already commissioned it.
3.3 The two murderers, joined by a third, kill Banquo, but Fleance escapes.
3.4 Macbeth is called away from the feast by the two murderers, who report their partial success. Rejoining the party, he alone sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in his place, and speaks in guilty horror. Taking him aside, Lady Macbeth rebukes him for his visible distraction, and after the ghost leaves he is able to compose himself and apologize to his guests for what he claims is merely an indisposition. The ghost returns, however, and Macbeth speaks to it in such terror that Lady Macbeth has to dismiss the company. Left alone with his wife, Macbeth comments on Macduff’s absence from the feast, and resolves to consult the witches again.
3.5 The three witches are rebuked by Hecate for their dealings with Macbeth: Hecate is summoned away by spirits, with whom she sings.
3.6 Lennox, recognizing that Macbeth is responsible for the murders of Duncan and Banquo, talks with a Lord, who reports that Macduff has gone to the English court to join Malcolm and to urge the English king to provide military aid against Macbeth.
4.1 The witches, subsequently joined by Hecate, prepare a dreadful potion. Macbeth arrives and insists that they call forth their spirits to provide him with further insights into the future. An armed head warns him to beware of Macduff; a bloody child tells him he cannot be harmed by any man born of woman; and a crowned child holding a tree tells him he will never be defeated until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. Encouraged, Macbeth insists that the witches tell him whether Banquo’s descendants will indeed rule Scotland: to his horror he is shown a procession of eight kings, the last holding a mirror, with Banquo’s ghost smiling and indicating that they are his descendants. After the witches vanish, Lennox brings the news that Macduff has fled to England. Alone, Macbeth resolves to have Macduff’s family killed at once.
Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh as the Macbeths in Glen Byam Shaw’s production, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, 1955
4.2 Lady Macduff laments her husband’s absence to Ross, and speaks of it with her young son after Ross leaves. A messenger warns that they are in immediate danger, and flees: shortly afterwards murderers arrive, stab the boy to death, and pursue the screaming Lady Macduff.
4.3 In England Malcolm speaks warily with Macduff, professing a suspicion that he may have been sent by Macbeth, especially since he has left his family in Macbeth’s power. Malcolm goes on to tell Macduff that he is unfit to be king in Macbeth’s place, claiming to be lascivious, greedy, and generally vicious: when Macduff, despairing for Scotland, finally repudiates him, Malcolm says he is now convinced of Macduff’s sincerity and is in fact innocent of all crimes, having maligned himself only as a test. He has indeed already secured English aid. A doctor tells of the English King’s miraculous ability to cure scrofula. Ross brings the news that Macduff’s wife, children, and servants have all been killed: overcome by grief and self- reproach, Macduff vows revenge on Macbeth.
5.1 A gentlewoman has brought a doctor to witness Lady Macbeth’s habitual sleepwalking: Lady Macbeth duly arrives, obsessively washing her hands, and speaking guiltily of Duncan’s murder and the deaths of Lady Macduff and Banquo.
5.2 Scottish nobles, including Lennox, go to Birnam to rendezvous with Malcolm’s English army.
5.3 At Dunsinane Macbeth, convinced of his invulnerability, learns of the English army’s approach: he reflects that he may as well die, however, having forfeited the respect and friendship that make life worth living. He asks the doctor about Lady Macbeth’s health, but despairs of a cure for her sorrows. Angry and coarse with his staff, he dons his armour.
5.4 Malcolm instructs his army to carry boughs cut in Birnam Wood as camouflage.
5.5 Macbeth, with his servant Seyton and soldiers, learns that Lady Macbeth is dead: he feels life is futile. A messenger brings the news that Birnam Wood is apparently coming to Dunsinane: Macbeth feels that he is doomed, but resolves to fight defiantly.
5.6 Malcolm places the English nobleman Siward and his son in the vanguard of their army.
5.7 In the battle Macbeth, convinced he can only be killed by a man not born of woman, kills Young Siward.
5.8 Macduff seeks Macbeth.
5.9 Siward tells Malcolm Macbeth’s castle has surrendered.
5.10 Macduff confronts Macbeth: they fight, but Macbeth tells Macduff of his presumed invulnerability. Macduff, however, tells Macbeth he was born by Caesarean section. Despairing, and cursing the witches’ equivocation, Macbeth still refuses to surrender, and the two resume their combat. Macbeth is killed.
5.11 Malcolm and his nobles, knowing they have won the battle, await news of the missing. Siward stoically accepts the reported death of his son. Macduff brings Macbeth’s head, and Malcolm is hailed as King of Scotland: he makes his nobles earls.
Artistic features: The structure of Macbeth resembles that of Julius Caesar—following the tense, suspense-filled preparations for an assassination, after which the perpetrators fall into discord and anticlimax—but Shakespeare’s focus on the consciousness of Macbeth and his wife, achieved by a succession of extraordinarily dense and rich soliloquies, goes far beyond his comparatively dispassionate investigation of Brutus’ more intellectual motivations. The vividness with which the play thus renders the psychological experiences not only of committing murder but of anticipating and remembering doing so, coupled with its depiction of the witches, make even reading the play seem a genuine engagement with the forces of evil, an effect no doubt partly responsible for the superstition according to which it is unlucky to mention Macbeth by name in the precincts of a theatre.
Critical history: Macbeth has been of crucial importance not only to Shakespeare’s reputation as a master of tragic pity and terror, possessed of uncanny psychological insight, but also to the work of subsequent artists, whether writers (from *Byron to the authors of countless *Gothic novels and detective thrillers), musicians such as *Verdi, painters such as *Fuseli, or film-makers from Hitchcock (on whom the play exerted a palpable influence) to *Welles, Polanski, and *Kurosawa. In the modern theatre alone, the play’s offshoots range from the American political skit Macbird (an attack on President Johnson, 1965, one of a long line of Macbeth *burlesques and travesties) to Heiner *Müller’s radical adaptation Macbeth nach Shakespeare (1972) and Ionesco’s *Macbett (1972). Quite apart from anything else, the play has influenced all subsequent notions of *ghosts and *witches.
The force with which Macbeth depicts terror and the supernatural gave it a special place in the canon for 18th-century and *Romantic commentators, with their interest in the sublime, while the density of its *imagery has made it a perennially important test case for studies of Shakespeare’s style. Although the success with which Sir William *Davenant’s verbally simplified adaptation displaced Shakespeare’s text from the stage between the 1660s and the 1740s suggests that Restoration playgoers found this very density objectionable, Macbeth was by the mid-18th century one of the most highly regarded of the tragedies. Dr *Johnson, who cites it more often than any other play in his Dictionary, found it more satisfactorily moral than most of Shakespeare’s work. Romantic critics were less interested in the play’s morality than in its intense theatrical and psychological effects; Macbeth, for example, inspired one of Thomas De *Quincey’s best literary essays, ‘The Knocking at the Gate’ (London Magazine, 1823). Following *Coleridge, many 19th-century critics examined how Shakespeare created the play’s distinctive atmosphere: A. C. *Bradley, for example, in Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), pursued the play’s recurrent references to darkness, anticipating 20th-century discussions (by *Spurgeon and others) of its imagery of blood. This increased sense of the play’s literary technique led to an impatience with earlier, realist accounts of its plot and characters, famously voiced in L. C. *Knights’s 1933 essay ‘How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?’ The play has fascinated *psychoanalytic criticism since the time of *Freud himself (who felt that the play resembled a dreamlike account of Elizabeth I’s presumed guilt over the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots), with *feminist critics in particular pursuing the connections between the uncertain gender of the witches, Lady Macbeth’s imagined unsexing, and the mother-ripping birth of Macduff. Historically oriented critics, meanwhile, continue to muse on the play’s relations to Jacobean politics.
Stage history: Although Macbeth probably enjoyed its first performances in 1606, the first to be recorded took place in April 1611, when the astrologer and diarist Simon *Forman saw it at the Globe. Forman was especially struck by the prophecies, Banquo’s ghost, and the sleepwalking scene, but despite his interest in supernatural affairs he says nothing of the cauldron scene, or Hecate, and refers to the witches as ‘fairies or nymphs’. It was probably a little after this, around 1613, that Middleton adapted the script, adding Hecate, and a tendency to elaborate on the witches’ scenes would be even more spectacularly visible when the play enjoyed its next recorded revivals 50 years later. Sir William Davenant rewrote the play to suit the tastes and concerns of Restoration audiences and the scenic possibilities of Restoration playhouses in 1664. As well as developing its opportunities for music and special effects (with singing, flying witches, a cloud for Hecate to ride, and a disappearing cavern for the apparition scene), Davenant updated the play’s interest in the Stuart monarchy, so that his usurping, regicidal Macbeth becomes a figure analogous to Oliver Cromwell and his Malcolm to the recently restored Charles II. More pervasively, Davenant simplified Shakespeare’s diction, cut the indecorous Porter, and gave the play an unambiguous, symmetrical moral scheme by expanding the roles of Macduff and Lady Macduff to make them into virtuous counterparts to the Macbeths.
With Thomas *Betterton and his wife Mary in the leading roles, this adaptation was immensely successful (Samuel *Pepys saw it eight times in less than four years, describing it as ‘a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in divertisement’), and Macbeth remained one of Betterton’s greatest roles down to his retirement in 1709. His most important successor in the part as reshaped by Davenant was James *Quin, who played it at different times from 1717 (at *Drury Lane) until 1751 (by which time he had moved to *Covent Garden), but by then his dignified, oratorical performance as Macbeth, and indeed the lucidly neoclassical script he was using, had been overshadowed by the arrival of David *Garrick. In 1744 Garrick advertised Macbeth at Drury Lane ‘as written by Shakespeare’ (‘What does he mean?’, Quin is said to have remarked, ‘don’t I play Macbeth as written by Shakespeare?’), and though his own version retained Davenant’s operatic witches and still excluded the Porter and the murder of the Macduffs’ children (as well as supplying Macbeth with a longer and more penitent onstage dying speech), from Garrick onwards the great soliloquies of Shakespeare’s script, and the unaltered dialogues between Macbeth and his Lady (played with particular success by Hannah *Pritchard), were again the heart of the play.
Since Garrick’s time, however, Macbeth, though one of Shakespeare’s most regularly revived tragedies, has occasioned more conspicuous disasters in the theatre than successes (another factor, perhaps, contributing to actors’ superstitions about the play), and the much shorter role of Lady Macbeth has been far luckier for performers than that of her husband. Charles *Macklin was ahead of his time in his 1773–6 production at Covent Garden, which gave the play a consistent, ‘authentic’ old Scottish design, much ridiculed. Between 1777 and 1817 Lady Macbeth was by common consent Sarah *Siddons’s greatest role, but her brother J. P. *Kemble’s Macbeth was less successful. Edmund *Kean cut some of Davenant’s added witch material in 1814 (the rest disappeared finally from Samuel *Phelps’s revival of 1847), and he was followed by William Charles *Macready, who played Macbeth (in tartans) between 1820 and 1848. Macready’s performance, however, is remembered less vividly than that of his Lady Macbeth, Charlotte *Cushman, just as Henry *Irving’s nervy and unwarlike Thane (*Lyceum, 1875, 1888) was a critical flop compared to Ellen *Terry’s Lady Macbeth. Cushman upstaged the American actor Edwin *Forrest just as successfully during his visit to London in 1845, and Forrest’s own Macbeth is remembered principally for its riot-provoking rivalry with that of Macready in New York in 1849, which further contributed to the play’s evil reputation.
Unequivocally successful 20th-century revivals of the play were equally rare. Sybil *Thorndike and Flora *Robson were both praised as Lady Macbeth, but opinions were divided about the Macbeths offered by the most prominent Shakespearian actors of the time. John *Gielgud, in 1930 at the *Old Vic, was sensitive and introverted but unsoldierly; Donald *Wolfit forceful but mannered (1937, 1945–6, 1953); Laurence *Olivier was felt to be simplistic opposite Judith *Anderson’s operatic Lady at the Old Vic in 1937, but was more impressive in Glen Byam *Shaw’s Stratford production in 1955. Notable disasters include Barry *Jackson’s ‘tweedy’ modern-dress production (1928), Orson *Welles’s ‘voodoo’ design (1936), and Peter O’Toole’s notoriously gory, melodramatic performance (1976). Perhaps the period’s only legendary success was Trevor *Nunn’s studio production for the *RSC in 1976, with Ian *McKellen and Judi *Dench. Further afield, meanwhile, the play inspired Welcome Msomi’s popular Zulu adaptation uMabatha, premièred in Natal in 1972, which toured throughout the world between 1973 and 1998. Notable Macbeths in more recent years have been Sir Antony *Sher (RSC, 1999), Greg *Hicks (RSC, 2004), Patrick *Stewart (Chichester, 2007), Jonathan *Slinger (RSC, 2011), and James McAvoy (Trafalgar Studios, 2013).
Michael Dobson, rev. Will Sharpe
On the screen: The earliest recorded film of Macbeth is a one-minute scene shot in America (1905). The cinema adaptations of the play have had a more enduring impact than any television version. Still vigorously discussed are Orson Welles’s Macbeth (1948), *Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957), and Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971). The places, the atmospheric dimensions, and the spatial detail referred to in the dialogue afford the cinematographer more elaborate opportunities than can effectively be accommodated on the television screen. Welles, Kurosawa, and Polanski each adopt different priorities in visualizing the drama; Welles dramatizes an amorphous universe, Kurosawa incorporates both Noh theatricalization and samurai realism, and Polanski counterpoises scenic realism with powerful acting and strong projection of dialogue. The play also provided the basis for an American gangster film, Men of Respect (1991), and an amusing adaptation set in a hamburger restaurant, Scotland, PA (2001), but its most interesting film version probably remains the one that got away, the film of Macbeth which Olivier planned after his stage performance in 1955 but was unable to finance.
George Schaefer’s American TV adaptation (1954, remade 1960) featuring Maurice *Evans and Judith Anderson drew scant praise from the critics, though Michael *Hordern’s Banquo shone memorably in the later version. The television film (1979) of Trevor Nunn’s famous RSC in-the-round production is historically interesting but suffers from the inevitable distancing which the camera brings to such a production, though it remains more effective than the foggy BBC TV production (1982) with Nicol *Williamson and Jane Lapotaire. Gregory *Doran produced an effective television adaptation of his RSC production of 2000, with Antony *Sher and Harriet *Walter: Rupert *Goold followed suit after directing the play at Chichester in 2007, with Patrick *Stewart and Kate Fleetwood. James McAvoy played Joe Macbeth, a chef in a Glaswegian restaurant who resorts to murder to take over the business in Peter Moffat’s canny adaptation for the Shakespeare Retold series (BBC, 2005). The most recent big-screen adaptation was Justin Kurzel’s essentially medieval rendering (2015), forgoing more inventive interpretive strategies in favour of rich cinematography and two leads of acknowledged enigmatic power in Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.
Anthony Davies, rev. Will Sharpe