Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
Act 3 Scene 1
MACBETH
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come fate into the list.
And champion me to the utterance! Who’s there!
[Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers]
Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
[Exit Attendant]
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
Macbeth reveals his true thoughts here about
Banquo: he cannot bear the idea that one day
Banquo’s children will become kings.
Shakespeare makes it clear that Macbeth has
already spoken to the murderer. He has
already plotted Banquo’s murder.
First Murderer
It was, so please your highness.
MACBETH
Well then, now
Why is Macbeth trying to justify his actions to a
murderer?
Have you consider’d of my speeches? Know
Macbeth is trying to convince the murderer that
That it was he in the times past which held you
Banquo has a history of oppressing people
So under fortune, which you thought had been
lower down the social scale.
Our innocent self: this I made good to you
In our last conference, pass’d in probation with you,
How you were borne in hand, how cross’d,
the instruments,
Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
To half a soul and to a notion crazed
Say ‘Thus did Banquo.’
First Murderer
You made it known to us.
MACBETH
I did so, and went further, which is now
Our point of second meeting. Do you find
Your patience so predominant in your nature
That you can let this go? Are you so gospell’d
To pray for this good man and for his issue,
Whose heavy hand hath bow’d you to the grave
And beggar’d yours for ever?
First Murderer
We are men, my liege.
What does the murderer’s reply suggest? We
are just following orders? We’re not interested
in reasoning? You are insulting us?
MACBETH
Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept
All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed; whereby he does receive
Particular addition. from the bill
That writes them all alike: and so of men.
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Is Shakespeare suggesting that it will take two
meetings to convince the murderers that
Banquo deserves to die? Is Shakespeare
doing this to show that the murderers are
hesitant about murdering Banquo, perhaps
because they might view Banquo as a good
man who does not deserve to die?
Which words does Macbeth use to stress the
crushing effect Banquo is having?
Macbeth compares them to different kinds of
dogs. They are unthinkingly obedient
according to Macbeth. How should a king treat
his subjects?
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
Now, if you have a station in the file,
Not i’ the worst rank of manhood, say ’t;
And I will put that business in your bosoms,
Whose execution takes your enemy off,
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
‘If you are not oppressed and as low down the
social scale as you can get, then you need to do
something’. What is Macbeth trying to do? He
again is linking their suffering as the dregs of
society with Banquo. He is saying that Banquo is
the cause of their suffering. Killing Banquo will
cause that suffering to end. Macbeth seems to be
talking more about himself here and even hints
that Banquo’s death will not only gain them favour
and reward in the eyes of the King but will also
improve the King’s mental health.
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.
Both murderers state that they do not care
whether they live or die anyway, so taking a risk is
not going to bother them. The second murderer
sounds as if he wants to get revenge on the world
because the world has made him suffer.
First Murderer
And I another
So weary with disasters, tugg’d with fortune,
That I would set my lie on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on’t.
MACBETH
Both of you
Know Banquo was your enemy.
Macbeth is merely putting words in their mouths.
Of course they are going to agree because he is
the King! Macbeth is a tyrant who rules by force.
Both Murderers
True, my lord.
Actually they aren’t murderers – they are
desperate farmers. Because they are not real
murderers they botch the murder of Fleance.
MACBETH
So is he mine; and in such bloody distance,
That every minute of his being thrusts
Against my near’st of life: and though I could
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
For certain friends that are both his and mine,
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
Who I myself struck down; and thence it is,
That I to your assistance do make love,
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.
The audience would realise Macbeth’s sheer
hypocrisy instantly: he is just trying to justify a premeditated and cold-blooded murder. Even worse,
he is trying to justify the murder of a close friend.
Macbeth states that he could, in public, order
Banquo’s execution but will not do so because he
knows that deep down, there would be a public
outcry. Why? It must be because Banquo is a
popular public figure who is well-liked.
Second Murderer
We shall, my lord,
Perform what you command us.
They will just do as they are told. They are
desperate and dare not disobey Macbeth.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
First Murderer
Though our lives —
Macbeth interrupts the first murderer just as he is
about to say that he is willing to risk his life to
commit this murder. What does this show about
Macbeth? Does he care for their lives? Is he the
kind of man who listens to others any more?
MACBETH
Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
I will tell you where to position yourselves. You
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ the time,
must murder him well away from the Palace.
The moment on’t; for’t must be done to-night,
What does this information tell you about
And something from the palace; always thought
Macbeth? His increasing feat of being found
That I require a clearness: and with him —
out? Note that Macbeth is also willing to murder
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work —
children.
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:
I’ll come to you anon.
Both Murderers
We are resolved, my lord.
MACBETH
I’ll call upon you straight: abide within.
[Exeunt Murderers]
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.
[Exit]
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
Macbeth is acting independently from his wife.
He is gradually learning to become a true tyrant.
Also, it shows that he is becoming increasingly
isolated from those he once trusted.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
Act 3 Scene 2
[The palace.]
[Enter LADY MACBETH and a Servant]
LADY MACBETH
Is Banquo gone from court?
Servant
Ay, madam, but returns again to-night.
LADY MACBETH
Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
The fact that Lady Macbeth has to almost ask
for permission to see her own husband, is a
good indicator of the growing split in their
relationship.
Servant
Madam, I will.
[Exit]
In this brief soliloquy, Lady Macbeth perhaps
realises the futility of their new position of
power. Has power brought them happiness?
No. She believes that they (her and Macbeth)
would be better off dead and therefore at
peace, than living a life where they are always
looking over their shoulders in uncertainty and
paranoia. This is the private side to Lady
Macbeth: a woman gradually sinking into
depression and mental illness.
LADY MACBETH
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
[Enter MACBETH]
How now, my lord! why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.
MACBETH
We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it:
She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the
worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
Publicly, she is putting on a brave face and
telling her husband not to worry about things
that cannot be fixed. The irony is that the
audience has just heard her expressing her
own doubts and worries about things that
cannot be fixed. Previously she has sounded
almost suicidal in a private moment. Now she
is urging her husband not to worry!
At least Macbeth is being open about how he
feels when with his wife, even though he is
hiding the murder plot from her. The snake
represents Macbeth’s own unsettled, paranoid
and tortured mind. The biblical allusion to Satan
is clear here, although Macbeth ironically does
not realise that he is the snake (evil) and that
the only way he will find true peace, will be to
die. More simply, the snake represents the next
threat to Macbeth’s position: Banquo and
Fleance.
The irony Macbeth recognises in this speech is
that Duncan is truly at peace and happy
because he is sleeping (for eternity), whereas
Macbeth’s guilty conscience means that he
suffers nightmares every time he tries to sleep.
Macbeth is suffering in both worlds: the day time
world where he is constantly paranoid about the
next threat to his position and in the night time
world where he can get no rest.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
LADY MACBETH
Come on;
Gentle my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
Secretly Lady Macbeth is feeling the strain of
trying to act cheerfully. Theme: appearance
and reality. She appears to be in control of her
self in public but mentally she is under
enormous strain.
MACBETH
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
Unsafe the while, that we
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
The first major hint to his wife of the plot to
murder Banquo. Macbeth points out the
hypocrisy of putting on a mask of happiness
and loyalty in public to disguise the real truth:
that they are murdering, scheming tyrants.
LADY MACBETH
You must leave this.
MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives.
LADY MACBETH
But in them nature’s copy’s not eterne.
This means that they will not live forever.
MACBETH
There’s comfort yet; they are assailable;
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown
His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
LADY MACBETH
What’s to be done?
MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
So, prithee, go with me.
[Exeunt]
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Figurative language: Macbeth is saying that the
thought of Banquo and Fleance is poisoning his
mind/mentally torturing.
Macbeth perhaps takes a little comfort from the
fact that Banquo and Fleance are mortal and
can be killed. Macbeth is about to tell his wife
about the murder plot and then stops himself.
Why?
The alliterative ‘d’ sounds have a sombre
stopping effect to emphasise the ominous
finality of Macbeth’s words.
Macbeth does not tell his wife the truth. He is
now keen for the night to come because he
knows that it will bring about Banquo’s death.
Night is given human qualities (personification)
and Macbeth asks for the night to give him
courage. He is perhaps drawing an analogy
between the crows flying to the wood and the
murderers heading there to take up their
positions for the ambush of Banquo and
Fleance. Supernatural theme: ‘…night’s black
agents.’
Macbeth ends by stating that committing evil
will make him stronger. Notice also that he tells
his wife to go with him. The balance in their
relationship has shifted: he is now in charge.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
Act 3 Scene 4
[The same. Hall in the palace.]
[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and
Attendants]
MACBETH
You know your own degrees; sit down: at first
And last the hearty welcome.
Lords
Thanks to your majesty.
MACBETH
Ourself will mingle with society,
And play the humble host.
Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
We will require her welcome.
This scene is a complete contrast to the end of
3.2. This is the public face of Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth, hiding their deceit and hypocrisy
with a public show of dignity, loyalty and friendly
rule. Macbeth is keen to show that he is willing
to ‘mingle’ and be ‘humble’, to prove he is
normal and approachable, rather than as a
cold, aloof figure of authority. Macbeth cannot
sit still because he is waiting for the murderers
to make their secret entrance. This is why he
asks his wife to make a toast because he has
just seen one of the murderers appear at the
door. Macbeth is therefore using his wife as a
convenient distraction.
LADY MACBETH
Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;
For my heart speaks they are welcome.
[First Murderer appears at the door]
MACBETH
See, they encounter thee with their hearts’ thanks. The toast is made. Macbeth uses this as a
distraction to head towards the door.
Both sides are even: here I’ll sit i’ the midst:
Be large in mirth; anon we’ll drink a measure
The table round.
[Approaching the door]
There’s blood on thy face.
The tone becomes more urgent: you’ve got
blood on your face. Wipe it off before
somebody sees you.
First Murderer
’Tis Banquo’s then.
MACBETH
’Tis better thee without than he within.
Is he dispatch’d?
It’s better that his blood is outside you than
inside him.
First Murderer
My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
MACBETH
Thou art the best o’ the cut-throats: yet he’s good
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,
Thou art the nonpareil.
If Fleance is dead and you did it, you are a
murderer that nobody can compare with,
because you are the best.
First Murderer
Most royal sir,
Fleance is ’scaped.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
MACBETH
Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air:
But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo’s safe?
First Murderer
Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,
With twenty trenched gashes on his head;
The least a death to nature.
Two similes are used by Macbeth to compare
his state of mind (providing that Banquo and
Fleance are both dead). Macbeth now ends up
feeling trapped by fear (of losing his throne)
and paranoid again.
Banquo’s murder is reiterated to emphasise to
the audience that he is truly dead: this is a
dramatic device to make his appearance as a
ghost later in the scene more shocking to the
audience. The word ‘safe’ is used ironically.
MACBETH
Thanks for that:
There the grown serpent lies; the worm that’s fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow
We’ll hear, ourselves, again.
[Exit Murderer]
LADY MACBETH
My royal lord,
You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold
That is not often vouch’d, while ’tis a-making,
’Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;
From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.
The guests are waiting for Macbeth to make the
toast. This is the first hint to the guests that
Macbeth seems a little distracted.
Lady Macbeth manages to take control of the
situation, even though we know that mentally
she is struggling to remain in control herself.
MACBETH
Sweet remembrancer!
Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
Macbeth makes the toast, giving his guests
permission to begin the feast. At this point, the
ghost has entered and sits where Macbeth is
about to sit.
LENNOX
May’t please your highness sit.
[The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH’s place]
MACBETH
Here had we now our country’s honour roof’d,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance!
ROSS
His absence, sir,
Lays blame upon his promise. Please’t your highness
To grace us with your royal company.
MACBETH
The table’s full.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
It is ironic that Macbeth is criticising Banquo for
not being there and hints to the guests that he
has deliberately broken his promise.
Ross agrees and invites Macbeth to sit.
Macbeth sees no spare seats, whereas the
audience and the guests see an empty seat.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
LENNOX
Here is a place reserved, sir.
MACBETH
Where?
LENNOX
Here, my good lord. What is’t that moves your highness?
MACBETH
Which of you have done this?
The repeated questions serve to add to the
tension. The dramatic tension is enhanced by
the fact that the guests cannot see the ghost,
whereas Macbeth can.
Lords
What, my good lord?
MACBETH
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
The guests are beginning to stand up. What
are they thinking about Macbeth? Has Macbeth
lost his mind? What has he seen? Why is he
frightened?
ROSS
Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.
LADY MACBETH
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well: if much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion:
Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?
MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
Which might appal the devil.
This used to be an effective rhetorical question
used by Lady Macbeth to accuse her husband
of cowardice. It no longer works.
The sight of Banquo is so horrific that it would
disgust the devil. An audience is left to imagine
how terrible Banquo looks to Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH
O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,
You look but on a stool.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
Lady Macbeth again tries to cover for him by
saying that it is an illness that has affected him
since childhood and that it will soon pass. She
shows quick thinking here and tells the guests
not to pay Macbeth too much attention since it
will only offend him.
Lady Macbeth pours scorn on her husband,
seeming to compare her husband to a woman:
in other words saying that he is weak. She tells
him that he should be ashamed of himself
because he is only looking at a stool.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
MACBETH
Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo!
how say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.
[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes]
The ghost does not speak even though
Macbeth tries speaking to it. Like the witches,
just as Macbeth wants to find out more, the
ghost vanishes. Again, it seems as if
supernatural influences are mentally torturing
Macbeth. The other interpretation is that this
ghost represents Macbeth’s guilty conscience
getting the better of him, and that is why no one
else can see it.
LADY MACBETH
What, quite unmann’d in folly?
Lady Macbeth tried the tactic of calling her
husband a coward in Act 1 Scene 7 but it does
not seem to be working now. Macbeth is brave
when he is pitted against mortal men but what
about the supernatural? Again, this shows that
the hold Lady Macbeth used to have on her
husband has weakened even more.
MACBETH
If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY MACBETH
Fie, for shame!
MACBETH
Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: this is more strange
Than such a murder is.
Macbeth states (he is obviously frightened at
this point) that many murders have been
committed in the past before people invented
laws to stop human cruelty. The irony is that an
audience knows that Macbeth has broken many
laws and is becoming increasingly cruel as a
tyrant. He is perhaps referring to the law
(‘human statute’) to try and make sense of this
supernatural situation. In other words, he
cannot understand how a murdered man could
rise from the dead.
LADY MACBETH
My worthy lord,
Your noble friends do lack you.
MACBETH
I do forget.
Macbeth tries to make an excuse, saying that
Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,
he is ill but then makes a toast to Banquo.
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
Then I’ll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full.
I drink to the general joy o’ the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,
And all to all.
Lords
Our duties, and the pledge.
[Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO]
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
MACBETH
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
LADY MACBETH
Think of this, good peers,
But as a thing of custom: ’tis no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
MACBETH
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm’d rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble: or be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes]
Why, so: being gone,
I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.
Macbeth is now shouting, from the point of
view of his guests and the audience, at thin
air. He must appear to be completely
insane. A king has to inspire confidence by
appearing confident and in control. The
guests must be thinking: if he cannot control
himself, how can he control Scotland? This
is a turning point in the play not only because
it marks a growing distance between Lady
Macbeth and Macbeth, but also a growing
distance between Macbeth and his subjects.
Macbeth uses a simile to compare an
opponent to a bear, a rhinoceros or a tiger.
He is saying that if the ghost appeared in any
of those forms, he would challenge and fight
it. He cannot fight a ghost that looks like
Banquo. He also cannot say who the ghost
is, otherwise that will put him under
immediate suspicion.
LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admired disorder.
MACBETH
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder? You make me strange
Even to the disposition that I owe,
When now I think you can behold such sights,
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine is blanched with fear.
Lady Macbeth provides the stage directions:
one can imagine the guests getting up and
making their excuses to leave as quickly as
possible. What is the point of being king if his
subjects are now beginning to distrust him?
Macbeth uses a simile to compare the
sudden change from normality to being
haunted to a summer cloud: it appears
without warning. This is also a rhetorical
question because yes, ghosts can appear
suddenly, without warning, as has just been
demonstrated.
ROSS
What sights, my lord?
LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
Question enrages him. At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
LENNOX
Good night; and better health
Attend his majesty!
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
Lady Macbeth appears to act in a natural
way. She has been left very much alone to
sort out this mess whilst her husband rants
and raves.
Lady Macbeth just tells the guests to leave in
any order of rank they choose. Guests would
have had to ask permission and leave in rank
order under normal circumstances.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
LADY MACBETH
A kind good night to all!
[Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH]
MACBETH
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?
LADY MACBETH
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
This harks back to the old idea that there
is always a price to be paid for
wrongdoing. Perhaps Macbeth is
beginning to realise that murder will only
lead to more murder. Macbeth, in his
paranoia, believes that the secret of the
murder has been revealed by nature.
The natural order will reassert itself and
truth (goodness) will always find a way of
revealing itself.
MACBETH
How say’st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?
LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?
MACBETH
I hear it by the way; but I will send:
There’s not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee’d. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.
Macbeth has already lined up Macduff as
the next person who is considered too
much of a threat to live. We learn that
Macbeth has paid informers in Macduff’s
house. Macbeth is also going to see the
witches again to find out more news.
Again, this shows that Macbeth no longer
needs his wife.
Macbeth admits that he has come too far
to try and change for the better. He
seems to have accepted in a world-weary
way the fact that he is a murderer. There
is no turning back.
LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
MACBETH
Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.
[Exeunt]
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
The scene ends on quite a pathetic note
when we compare them at the start of the
scene. They are reduced here to two
rather pathetic figures just desperate to
get a good night’s sleep.
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Macbeth
Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4)
The play was probably first performed in 1603 to James I who had a deep interest in
anything supernatural. The fact that the ghost of Banquo appears at all is a clear signal
to the audience that the natural order of society has been disrupted and disturbed by
evil. An audience in 1603 might have believed that Banquo’s appearance is a sign that
society has become infected by evil influences and that ghosts are doomed to wander
in limbo until justice has been done. This can be compared to the ghost of Hamlet’s
father in ‘hamlet’. Murdered souls did not have immediate access to Heaven, because
often, the person murdered did not have time to make confession before dying. Why?
Because they were murdered suddenly and violently, without warning.
Possible questions:
Comparing and contrasting the scenes, discuss how the relationship between Lady
Macbeth and Macbeth changes.
1. Analyse how the character of Macbeth changes during these scenes.
2. How would you stage these scenes as a director to show the different sides to
Macbeth’s character?
Do not forget to use:
•
POINT
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk
•
EVIDENCE
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•
EXPLAIN
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