Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.

4) Macbeth

Act 3 Scene 1
MACBETH
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! Macbeth reveals his true thoughts here about
Rather than so, come fate into the list. Banquo: he cannot bear the idea that one day
And champion me to the utterance! Who’s there! Banquo’s children will become kings.
Shakespeare makes it clear that Macbeth has
[Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers] already spoken to the murderer. He has
Now go to the door, and stay there till we call. already plotted Banquo’s murder.
[Exit Attendant]
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?

First Murderer
It was, so please your highness.

MACBETH
Well then, now Why is Macbeth trying to justify his actions to a
Have you consider’d of my speeches? Know murderer?
That it was he in the times past which held you Macbeth is trying to convince the murderer that
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 Is Shakespeare suggesting that it will take two

I did so, and went further, which is now meetings to convince the murderers that
Our point of second meeting. Do you find Banquo deserves to die? Is Shakespeare
Your patience so predominant in your nature doing this to show that the murderers are
That you can let this go? Are you so gospell’d hesitant about murdering Banquo, perhaps
because they might view Banquo as a good
To pray for this good man and for his issue, man who does not deserve to die?
Whose heavy hand hath bow’d you to the grave Which words does Macbeth use to stress the
And beggar’d yours for ever? crushing effect Banquo is having?

First Murderer What does the murderer’s reply suggest? We

We are men, my liege. 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 Macbeth compares them to different kinds of
dogs. They are unthinkingly obedient
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, according to Macbeth. How should a king treat
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one his subjects?
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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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

Now, if you have a station in the file, ‘If you are not oppressed and as low down the
Not i’ the worst rank of manhood, say ’t; social scale as you can get, then you need to do
And I will put that business in your bosoms, something’. What is Macbeth trying to do? He
again is linking their suffering as the dregs of
Whose execution takes your enemy off, society with Banquo. He is saying that Banquo is
Grapples you to the heart and love of us, the cause of their suffering. Killing Banquo will
Who wear our health but sickly in his life, cause that suffering to end. Macbeth seems to be
Which in his death were perfect. 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,
Both murderers state that they do not care
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world whether they live or die anyway, so taking a risk is
Have so incensed that I am reckless what not going to bother them. The second murderer
I do to spite the world. 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 Macbeth is merely putting words in their mouths.

Both of you Of course they are going to agree because he is
Know Banquo was your enemy. the King! Macbeth is a tyrant who rules by force.

Both Murderers Actually they aren’t murderers – they are

True, my lord. 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
The audience would realise Macbeth’s sheer
Against my near’st of life: and though I could hypocrisy instantly: he is just trying to justify a pre-
With barefaced power sweep him from my sight meditated and cold-blooded murder. Even worse,
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not, he is trying to justify the murder of a close friend.
For certain friends that are both his and mine, Macbeth states that he could, in public, order
Banquo’s execution but will not do so because he
Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
knows that deep down, there would be a public
Who I myself struck down; and thence it is, outcry. Why? It must be because Banquo is a
That I to your assistance do make love, popular public figure who is well-liked.
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.

Second Murderer
We shall, my lord, They will just do as they are told. They are
Perform what you command us. desperate and dare not disobey Macbeth.

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

First Murderer Macbeth interrupts the first murderer just as he is

Though our lives — 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;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ the time, I will tell you where to position yourselves. You
The moment on’t; for’t must be done to-night, must murder him well away from the Palace.
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] Macbeth is acting independently from his wife.
He is gradually learning to become a true tyrant.
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight, Also, it shows that he is becoming increasingly
If it find heaven, must find it out to-night. isolated from those he once trusted.
[Exit]

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

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 The fact that Lady Macbeth has to almost ask
Say to the king, I would attend his leisure for permission to see her own husband, is a
For a few words. 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
LADY MACBETH power. Has power brought them happiness?
Nought’s had, all’s spent, No. She believes that they (her and Macbeth)
Where our desire is got without content: would be better off dead and therefore at
peace, than living a life where they are always
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy looking over their shoulders in uncertainty and
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. paranoia. This is the private side to Lady
Macbeth: a woman gradually sinking into
[Enter MACBETH] depression and mental illness.

How now, my lord! why do you keep alone, Publicly, she is putting on a brave face and
Of sorriest fancies your companions making, telling her husband not to worry about things
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died that cannot be fixed. The irony is that the
With them they think on? Things without all remedy audience has just heard her expressing her
own doubts and worries about things that
Should be without regard: what’s done is done. cannot be fixed. Previously she has sounded
almost suicidal in a private moment. Now she
is urging her husband not to worry!

MACBETH
At least Macbeth is being open about how he
We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it: feels when with his wife, even though he is
She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice hiding the murder plot from her. The snake
Remains in danger of her former tooth. represents Macbeth’s own unsettled, paranoid
and tortured mind. The biblical allusion to Satan
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the
is clear here, although Macbeth ironically does
worlds suffer, not realise that he is the snake (evil) and that
Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep the only way he will find true peace, will be to
In the affliction of these terrible dreams die. More simply, the snake represents the next
threat to Macbeth’s position: Banquo and
That shake us nightly: better be with the dead, Fleance.
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, The irony Macbeth recognises in this speech is
Than on the torture of the mind to lie that Duncan is truly at peace and happy
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave; because he is sleeping (for eternity), whereas
Macbeth’s guilty conscience means that he
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; suffers nightmares every time he tries to sleep.
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Macbeth is suffering in both worlds: the day time
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, world where he is constantly paranoid about the
Can touch him further. next threat to his position and in the night time
world where he can get no rest.

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

LADY MACBETH Secretly Lady Macbeth is feeling the strain of

Come on; trying to act cheerfully. Theme: appearance
Gentle my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks; and reality. She appears to be in control of her
self in public but mentally she is under
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
enormous strain.

MACBETH
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you:
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo; The first major hint to his wife of the plot to
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue: murder Banquo. Macbeth points out the
hypocrisy of putting on a mask of happiness
Unsafe the while, that we and loyalty in public to disguise the real truth:
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams, that they are murdering, scheming tyrants.
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.

LADY MACBETH
You must leave this.

MACBETH
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife! Figurative language: Macbeth is saying that the
thought of Banquo and Fleance is poisoning his
Thou know’st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives. mind/mentally torturing.

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; Macbeth perhaps takes a little comfort from the
fact that Banquo and Fleance are mortal and
Then be thou jocund: ere the bat hath flown can be killed. Macbeth is about to tell his wife
His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons about the murder plot and then stops himself.
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums Why?
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note. The alliterative ‘d’ sounds have a sombre
stopping effect to emphasise the ominous
LADY MACBETH finality of Macbeth’s words.
What’s to be done?

MACBETH
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Macbeth does not tell his wife the truth. He is
now keen for the night to come because he
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, knows that it will bring about Banquo’s death.
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; Night is given human qualities (personification)
And with thy bloody and invisible hand and Macbeth asks for the night to give him
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond courage. He is perhaps drawing an analogy
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens; and the crow between the crows flying to the wood and the
murderers heading there to take up their
Makes wing to the rooky wood: positions for the ambush of Banquo and
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Fleance. Supernatural theme: ‘…night’s black
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. agents.’
Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still; Macbeth ends by stating that committing evil
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. will make him stronger. Notice also that he tells
his wife to go with him. The balance in their
So, prithee, go with me. relationship has shifted: he is now in charge.
[Exeunt]

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

Act 3 Scene 4

[The same. Hall in the palace.]

[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and
Attendants]
This scene is a complete contrast to the end of
MACBETH 3.2. This is the public face of Macbeth and
You know your own degrees; sit down: at first Lady Macbeth, hiding their deceit and hypocrisy
And last the hearty welcome. 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
Lords normal and approachable, rather than as a
Thanks to your majesty. cold, aloof figure of authority. Macbeth cannot
sit still because he is waiting for the murderers
MACBETH to make their secret entrance. This is why he
asks his wife to make a toast because he has
Ourself will mingle with society, just seen one of the murderers appear at the
And play the humble host. door. Macbeth is therefore using his wife as a
Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time convenient distraction.
We will require her welcome.

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
Both sides are even: here I’ll sit i’ the midst: distraction to head towards the door.
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
First Murderer somebody sees you.
’Tis Banquo’s then.

MACBETH
’Tis better thee without than he within. It’s better that his blood is outside you than
Is he dispatch’d? 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 If Fleance is dead and you did it, you are a
That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it, murderer that nobody can compare with,
Thou art the nonpareil. because you are the best.

First Murderer
Most royal sir,
Fleance is ’scaped.

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

MACBETH
Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
Two similes are used by Macbeth to compare
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, his state of mind (providing that Banquo and
As broad and general as the casing air: Fleance are both dead). Macbeth now ends up
But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in feeling trapped by fear (of losing his throne)
To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo’s safe? and paranoid again.

First Murderer Banquo’s murder is reiterated to emphasise to

Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, the audience that he is truly dead: this is a
With twenty trenched gashes on his head; dramatic device to make his appearance as a
The least a death to nature. 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
The guests are waiting for Macbeth to make the
My royal lord,
toast. This is the first hint to the guests that
You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold Macbeth seems a little distracted.
That is not often vouch’d, while ’tis a-making, Lady Macbeth manages to take control of the
’Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home; situation, even though we know that mentally
From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony; she is struggling to remain in control herself.
Meeting were bare without it.

MACBETH Macbeth makes the toast, giving his guests

Sweet remembrancer! permission to begin the feast. At this point, the
Now, good digestion wait on appetite, ghost has entered and sits where Macbeth is
And health on both! 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,
It is ironic that Macbeth is criticising Banquo for
Were the graced person of our Banquo present; not being there and hints to the guests that he
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness has deliberately broken his promise.
Than pity for mischance!

ROSS
His absence, sir,
Lays blame upon his promise. Please’t your highness
To grace us with your royal company.
Ross agrees and invites Macbeth to sit.
Macbeth sees no spare seats, whereas the
MACBETH audience and the guests see an empty seat.
The table’s full.

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

LENNOX
Here is a place reserved, sir.

MACBETH
Where?

LENNOX
Here, my good lord. What is’t that moves your highness?

MACBETH The repeated questions serve to add to the

Which of you have done this? 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
ROSS lost his mind? What has he seen? Why is he
frightened?
Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.

Lady Macbeth again tries to cover for him by

LADY MACBETH saying that it is an illness that has affected him
Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus, since childhood and that it will soon pass. She
And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat; shows quick thinking here and tells the guests
The fit is momentary; upon a thought not to pay Macbeth too much attention since it
will only offend him.
He will again be well: if much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion: This used to be an effective rhetorical question
Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man? used by Lady Macbeth to accuse her husband
of cowardice. It no longer works.

MACBETH
Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that The sight of Banquo is so horrific that it would
disgust the devil. An audience is left to imagine
Which might appal the devil. how terrible Banquo looks to Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH
O proper stuff!
Lady Macbeth pours scorn on her husband,
This is the very painting of your fear: seeming to compare her husband to a woman:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, in other words saying that he is weak. She tells
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts, him that he should be ashamed of himself
Impostors to true fear, would well become because he is only looking at a stool.
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.

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

MACBETH
Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo! The ghost does not speak even though
Macbeth tries speaking to it. Like the witches,
how say you? just as Macbeth wants to find out more, the
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too. ghost vanishes. Again, it seems as if
If charnel-houses and our graves must send supernatural influences are mentally torturing
Those that we bury back, our monuments Macbeth. The other interpretation is that this
Shall be the maws of kites. ghost represents Macbeth’s guilty conscience
getting the better of him, and that is why no one
[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes] 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
MACBETH
not seem to be working now. Macbeth is brave
If I stand here, I saw him. when he is pitted against mortal men but what
about the supernatural? Again, this shows that
LADY MACBETH the hold Lady Macbeth used to have on her
Fie, for shame! husband has weakened even more.

MACBETH
Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ the olden time, Macbeth states (he is obviously frightened at
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal; this point) that many murders have been
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d committed in the past before people invented
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been, laws to stop human cruelty. The irony is that an
audience knows that Macbeth has broken many
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
laws and is becoming increasingly cruel as a
And there an end; but now they rise again, tyrant. He is perhaps referring to the law
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, (‘human statute’) to try and make sense of this
And push us from our stools: this is more strange supernatural situation. In other words, he
Than such a murder is. 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]

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

MACBETH
Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Macbeth is now shouting, from the point of
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; view of his guests and the audience, at thin
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes air. He must appear to be completely
insane. A king has to inspire confidence by
Which thou dost glare with! appearing confident and in control. The
guests must be thinking: if he cannot control
LADY MACBETH himself, how can he control Scotland? This
Think of this, good peers, is a turning point in the play not only because
But as a thing of custom: ’tis no other; it marks a growing distance between Lady
Macbeth and Macbeth, but also a growing
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. distance between Macbeth and his subjects.

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
Macbeth uses a simile to compare an
Shall never tremble: or be alive again, opponent to a bear, a rhinoceros or a tiger.
And dare me to the desert with thy sword; He is saying that if the ghost appeared in any
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me of those forms, he would challenge and fight
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! it. He cannot fight a ghost that looks like
Banquo. He also cannot say who the ghost
Unreal mockery, hence!
is, otherwise that will put him under
[GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes] immediate suspicion.
Why, so: being gone,
I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.

LADY MACBETH
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admired disorder.
Lady Macbeth provides the stage directions:
one can imagine the guests getting up and
MACBETH making their excuses to leave as quickly as
Can such things be, possible. What is the point of being king if his
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, subjects are now beginning to distrust him?
Without our special wonder? You make me strange Macbeth uses a simile to compare the
sudden change from normality to being
Even to the disposition that I owe, haunted to a summer cloud: it appears
When now I think you can behold such sights, without warning. This is also a rhetorical
And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, question because yes, ghosts can appear
When mine is blanched with fear. suddenly, without warning, as has just been
demonstrated.
ROSS
What sights, my lord?
Lady Macbeth appears to act in a natural
LADY MACBETH way. She has been left very much alone to
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; sort out this mess whilst her husband rants
Question enrages him. At once, good night: and raves.
Stand not upon the order of your going, Lady Macbeth just tells the guests to leave in
But go at once. any order of rank they choose. Guests would
have had to ask permission and leave in rank
LENNOX order under normal circumstances.
Good night; and better health
Attend his majesty!

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

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: This harks back to the old idea that there
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; is always a price to be paid for
wrongdoing. Perhaps Macbeth is
Augurs and understood relations have beginning to realise that murder will only
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth lead to more murder. Macbeth, in his
The secret’st man of blood. What is the night? paranoia, believes that the secret of the
murder has been revealed by nature.
LADY MACBETH The natural order will reassert itself and
truth (goodness) will always find a way of
Almost at odds with morning, which is which. 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: Macbeth has already lined up Macduff as
There’s not a one of them but in his house the next person who is considered too
much of a threat to live. We learn that
I keep a servant fee’d. I will to-morrow, Macbeth has paid informers in Macduff’s
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters: house. Macbeth is also going to see the
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, witches again to find out more news.
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, Again, this shows that Macbeth no longer
All causes shall give way: I am in blood needs his wife.
Macbeth admits that he has come too far
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, to try and change for the better. He
Returning were as tedious as go o’er: seems to have accepted in a world-weary
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; way the fact that he is a murderer. There
Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d. is no turning back.

LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
The scene ends on quite a pathetic note
MACBETH when we compare them at the start of the
scene. They are reduced here to two
Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse rather pathetic figures just desperate to
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use: get a good night’s sleep.
We are yet but young in deed.
[Exeunt]

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Annotated Act 3 (3.1, 3.2 and 3.4) Macbeth

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 • EVIDENCE • EXPLAIN

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