The Tragedy of Macbeth
Because women were forbidden to perform in
professional playhouses, 3 men played the witches.
 The three were told to not shave.
 Archaeologists discovered that Blackfriar’s Theatre
had trapdoors in its stage floor.
 This was effective for the witches’ entrances & exits.
 James I nearly halted the premiere performance
because he found the witches to be so authentic.
 Like many people, the king believed witchcraft was real.
 Blackfriar’s was an indoor theatre, so the numerous
night scenes could be staged realistically.

Act Two
2.1: Court of Macbeth's castle.
2.2: The same.
2.3: The same.
2.4: Outside Macbeth's castle.
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
After midnight, just before Duncan’s murder.
There’s husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep.
(2.1.4-7)
This introduces the insomnia motif, which will plague
Macbeth throughout the rest of the play.
It sounds like “Stars, hide your fires” actually worked….
 Macbeth told the stars to hide, & now they do.
This continues the cosmic disorder theme….
 Macbeth’s evil intentions cause clouds to conceal starlight
& moonlight.
What kind of power is that?
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Banquo has taken a nap after dinner….
& he’s ready for his graveyard shift on guard duty.
He tells Fleance, “Give me my sword” (2.1.9)…
& then says into the darkness, “Who's there?” (2.1.10)…
to which Macbeth lies, “A friend.” (2.1.11)
Banquo tells his best friend that he has dreamt of the three
weird sisters,
to which Macbeth lies, “I think not of them.” (2.1.21)
 a colossal lie, since Macbeth has obsessed over them.
Do you think Banquo believes his friend?
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Weird Sisters  wyrd (Anglo-Saxon, fate)
The sisters of fate
measure infancy, adulthood, & old age
determine birth, life, & death
represent past, present, & future
The Greek Fates
– Were 3 women working with thread
– They obeyed Apollo, the sun god
– The sun represented Truth in Greek mythos,
so the sisters never spun lies.
Are these Macbeth’s witches?
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Ancient Greeks used thread as a metaphor for life.
Clotho spins thread (birth)
Lachesis measures thread (life)
Atropos cuts thread (death)
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Macbeth’s 2nd soliloquy
Macbeth tries to grasp an invisible dagger, but cannot:
“I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.” (2.1.35)
The underlined words receive stresses and
communicate his confusion.
Macbeth calls the vision “fatal” (36)
 Is this word connected to Fate?
 If so, does this mean he’s having a weird vision?
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Macbeth suspects the hallucination emerges from his
conscience:
… or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? (2.1.37-9)
Why does Macbeth ask 3 questions in the first 7 lines?
Maybe he’s still conflicted about this murder.
Although it appears tangible (2.1.40-1) & blood-drenched
(2.1.45-6), Macbeth reasons that the dagger is connected to
“the bloody business” (2.1.48) that he has yet to execute.
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
Macbeth figures it out, however 
“There's no such thing” (2.1.47), he says, and so
he accepts that the dagger isn’t real.
(Maybe now he’ll stop talking to it! )
Macbeth mentions:
• Hecate (Greek goddess of night and witchcraft)
• withered Murder (personified, withered like the witches)
• a wolf (murder’s sentinel)
• Tarquin (famous son of a tyrannical king who stalked to
Lucretia’s bedroom one night & raped her)
Why does Macbeth mention this macabre lineup?
Act Two, scene one (2.1)
In the end, a bell rings, and Macbeth is ready:
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell. (2.1.62-4)
This is his way of expressing Occam’s Razor :
“All things being equal, the simplest solution
tends to be the best one.”
I do this terrible thing and become king (“I go”),
and then the worst is behind me (“and it is done”).
What did Macbeth see before he went to Duncan’s room?
Act Two
2.1: Court of Macbeth's castle.
2.2: The same.
2.3: The same.
2.4: Outside Macbeth's castle.
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Macbeth has killed Duncan, & now the Macbeths
begin the clean-up:
… I have drugged their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.
(2.2.6-8)
Why doesn’t Lady Macbeth help her husband?
Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.
(2.2.12-3)
Even though she has prayed to be “unsexed,” she
exhibits feminine pity and compassion.
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Notice Lady Macbeth’s advice:
These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
(2.2.32-3)
What does she mean by that?
Macbeth has murdered more than a king:
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep….
(2.2.34-5)
What does he mean by that?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Macbeth has a sudden fit of hemophobia.
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on’t again I dare not.
(2.2.50-1)
Compare Macbeth the Warrior
to Macbeth the Murderer.
Why does he fear the sight of Duncan’s corpse?
(He had unseam’d someone earlier that day!)
What does he say about consequences in 1.7?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Macbeth has contemplated universal judgment.
… if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here….
(1.7.2-8)
What guarantee exists between human beings
and the universe?
In this universe, what happens to those who
commit murder?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
… that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.
(1.7.8-12)
Macbeth is convinced that those who commit murder
shall be punished…
because he believes he exists in a righteous universe
that punishes the wicked and rewards the virtuous.
Do you agree with this idea?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
The motif of blood is obvious! It covers
• Macbeth’s hands
• Duncan’s guards
• Duncan’s body
Who’s afraid of a bloody king?
The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.
(2.2.52-4)
What is Lady Macbeth’s theory about fear?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Macbeth seems paranoid now….
Whence is that knocking?
How is’t with me, when every noise appalls me? (2.2.56-7)
The motif of blood continues….
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.
(2.2.59-62)
What does Macbeth think would happen if he
were to wash his hands in the ocean?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
Lady Macbeth suggests washing up:
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then!
(2.2.66-7)
Remember for later: Lady Macbeth washes her
hands of the deed.
What famous historical figure figuratively
washed innocent blood from his hands?
Act Two, scene two (2.2)
After the deed is done, Macbeth takes a moment
to assess his actions:
To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.
(2.2.72)
This is an odd statement,
unless it connects to the theme of
deceptive appearances….
Could you ever stop knowing who you are?
Why would you want to not know yourself?
Why does this quote connect to the deceptive
appearances theme?
Act Two
2.1: Court of Macbeth's castle.
2.2: The same.
2.3: The same.
2.4: Outside Macbeth's castle.
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
A cloudy day is dawning….
Duncan’s body will be discovered
and his sons will run away
but not before a porter cracks a few dirty jokes.
Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.
(2.3.8-12)
Who is the equivocator to whom WS refers?
Why is Guy Fawkes mentioned in the play?
Guy Fawkes (1570-1606)
Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated November 5th, commemorates the
discovery of Fawkes’s plot to overthrow the British government.
Members of the Gunpowder Plot planned to detonate casks of
gunpowder situated in subterranean chambers beneath
Parliament sometime in late 1605, to effectively “blow the
Scotsmen present back into Scotland” (Herber).
http://www.britannia.com/history/g-fawkes.html
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
More of the porter’s dirty booze jokes:
Marry, sir,
sir, nose-painting,
nose-painting, sleep,
sleep, and
and
urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it takes
away the performance: therefore, much drink
may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
An Elevator Moment: Since Lennox has nothing to
discuss with Macbeth, he discusses the weather.
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.
(2.3.55-62)
Notice that Macbeth doesn’t always lie:
’Twas a rough night.
(2.3.63)
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
(2.3.63-4)
Why say it 3 times, Macduff?
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building!
(2.3.66-9)
What masterpiece? What temple?
What has overpowered the building?
What has been stolen?
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
Macbeth’s reaction to the murder:
… from this instant,
There 's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
(2.3.93-7)
What is Macbeth’s opinion of life?
Why is “toys” an effective metaphor?
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
There’s humor in this scene….
[Enter LADY MACBETH.]
LADY MACBETH
What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
(2.3.83-5)
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
Notice Macduff’s nothing-to-see-here
attitude….
MACDUFF
O gentle lady,
'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
Would murder as it fell.
(2.3.86-9)
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
But when Banquo enters seconds later….
[Enter BANQUO.]
MACDUFF
O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master 's murder'd!
(2.3.90-1)
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
(2.3.92-3)
Why does Lady Macbeth faint later?
(2.3.130-1)
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
Explain the irony in Macbeth’s line:
Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i' the hall together.
(2.3.133-4)
Why is this ironic, humorous, or both?
Didn’t Lady Macbeth accuse him of
acting like a woman in the previous
scene?
Act Two, scene three (2.3)
Donalbain suggests the safest action for
Scotland’s future king:
… our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in
blood,
The nearer bloody.
(2.3.139-42)
Is this a truthful statement?
If this is true, then where can Malcolm
find safety?
Act Two
2.1: Court of Macbeth's castle.
2.2: The same.
2.3: The same.
2.4: Outside Macbeth's castle.
Act Two, scene four (2.4)
Macduff doubts Macbeth’s innocence.
Ah, good father
Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with
man's act
Threaten his bloody stage.
(2.4.4-6)
When can ambition be dangerous?
’Gainst nature still!
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life's means!
(2.4.27-9)
Act Two, scene four (2.4)
Following Duncan’s death,
Where does Malcolm go?
Where does Donalbain go?
After seeing this much of the play, what do
we know about the political relations
between England, Ireland, & Scotland?
How will Scotland’s political relations
change, now that Macbeth is her king?
Is Macbeth safe?
To be continued….