Macbeth

Macbeth is a tragedy by Shakespeare, written around 1606 and first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The play follows a Scottish general who meets three witches on a heath, who hail him as a future king. Spurred on by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne, then kills again to protect himself, and the guilt and violence consume both of them until he is overthrown. At around 2,100 lines it is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, and it moves at great speed.¹²

Shakespeare took the story from Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), changing it to flatter the ruling house. Macbeth was written for a Scottish king, James I, who claimed descent from Banquo, a character in the play, had written a book on witchcraft, Daemonologie (1597), and had narrowly survived the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The first performance on record is a visit to the Globe in April 1611 described by the astrologer Simon Forman. The text in the Folio seems to include additions by another playwright, probably Thomas Middleton.¹

The play has attracted superstition, with actors avoiding the name inside a theater and calling it the Scottish play. Its images of blood, sleepwalking and the 'tomorrow and tomorrow' soliloquy are among the best known in English. It has been adapted by Verdi (1847), Kurosawa in Throne of Blood (1957) and many others.²