Five-minute digest
Macbeth
Summary
Macbeth opens on a Scottish heath where three witches plan to meet Macbeth. Returning from victory over rebels and Norwegian invaders, Macbeth and his fellow general Banquo meet the witches, who hail Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and future king, and tell Banquo that his descendants will be kings. Almost at once messengers bring news that King Duncan has made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth writes to his wife, and Lady Macbeth, fearing his nature is too full of the milk of human kindness, calls on spirits to unsex her and fill her with cruelty. When Duncan stays at their castle at Inverness, she overcomes Macbeth's hesitation by taunting his manhood. Macbeth, after a vision of a dagger, murders the sleeping king; Lady Macbeth drugs the grooms, returns the daggers and smears the grooms with blood. A drunken porter imagines himself the gatekeeper of hell as Macduff knocks; the murder is discovered, Macbeth kills the grooms, and Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee. Macbeth is crowned. Haunted by the prophecy to Banquo, he hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance; Fleance escapes. At a banquet Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost in his place and raves, and Lady Macbeth dismisses the guests. Macbeth returns to the witches, who show him apparitions telling him to beware Macduff, that no man of woman born can harm him, and that he will not be vanquished until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, and a show of Banquo's royal descendants. Learning that Macduff has fled to England, Macbeth has Macduff's wife and children slaughtered. In England, Malcolm tests Macduff's loyalty, an English doctor describes King Edward's healing touch, and Macduff learns of his family's murder. In Scotland, a doctor and gentlewoman watch Lady Macbeth sleepwalk, trying to wash imagined blood from her hands. Malcolm's army, camouflaged with boughs from Birnam Wood, advances on Dunsinane. Macbeth learns of his wife's death, apparently by her own hand, and reflects that life signifies nothing. In battle Macduff reveals he was 'from his mother's womb untimely ripped', kills Macbeth and brings his head to Malcolm, who is hailed as king.
Top Lessons
Ambition unchecked by conscience
Macbeth knows the murder is wrong and does it anyway, then must keep killing to stay safe. The play traces how one crime leads to a cascade of others.
Guilt lives in the body
Sleeplessness, hallucinations and compulsive hand-washing show guilt expressing itself physically. The play anticipates the idea that the mind can make the body ill.
Equivocation
The witches' prophecies are true in ways that mislead. The play warns against trusting promises that tell us what we want to hear.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand”
“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast”
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand”
“it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”
“I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er”
Frequently cited
“Out, damned spot! out, I say”
“Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician”
“Throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it”
Frequently cited
“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”
Medical Lens
A cornerstone text for medicine and literature. Macbeth's 'mind diseased' speech (5.3) is perhaps the most quoted literary request for a psychiatric drug, and the Doctor's reply that 'the patient must minister to himself' frames an early-modern view of the limits of physic for disorders of conscience. Lady Macbeth's somnambulism and compulsive hand-washing (5.1) are a classic literary depiction of sleepwalking and guilt-driven behaviour, often discussed in relation to obsessive-compulsive phenomena and dissociation, though such readings are interpretive. Macbeth's hallucinated dagger and Banquo's ghost, his insomnia ('Macbeth does murder sleep'), and the drugged 'possets' given to Duncan's grooms add further strands. The Porter's account of drink's effects is a well-known passage on alcohol. Act 4 Scene 3 describes Edward the Confessor curing scrofula ('the king's evil') by touch, reflecting royal healing rituals of James I's reign. Lady Macbeth's death is reported as apparently self-inflicted, and Macduff's birth 'untimely ripped' from his mother refers to caesarean delivery.
- Act 2, Scene 1–2
The hallucinated dagger; the voice crying 'Sleep no more'; the drugged possets given to the grooms.
- Act 2, Scene 3
The drunken Porter on the three things drink provokes.
- Act 3, Scene 4
Banquo's ghost at the banquet, seen only by Macbeth.
- Act 4, Scene 3
An English doctor describes King Edward curing 'the evil' (scrofula) by touch.
- Act 5, Scene 1
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking and hand-washing observed by the Doctor and Gentlewoman.
- Act 5, Scene 3
Macbeth asks the Doctor to minister to a mind diseased; 'Throw physic to the dogs'.
- Act 5, Scene 5 and 5, Scene 9 (Folio 5.7)
Lady Macbeth's death, later said to be by her own hand.
- Act 5, Scene 8
Macduff reveals he was untimely ripped from his mother's womb.