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Character
Directory
DUNCAN |
King Duncan of
Scotland (c. 1001-1039) is the ruler of Scotland who Macbeth murders for
his throne. Shakespeare's Duncan is an elderly man, a respected and noble
figure; as Macbeth reflects, he 'Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath
been / So clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will plead like
angels, trumpet-tongu'd' (1.7.17-19). Duncan's generous and trusting
nature contrasts strikingly with the evil which surrounds Macbeth. Though
he appears only in Act 1, he is an important symbol of the values that are
to be defeated and restored in the course of the play. His generosity and
fatherly affection for Macbeth make his murder even more appalling. The
unconscious irony is sharp when he greets Macbeth, who is already plotting
against him, with a declaration of his own ingratitude, in 1.4.14-16.
Duncan's faith, misplaced first in the rebellious Cawdor and then in
Macbeth, provides the audience with an introduction to the atmosphere of
betrayal that exists throughout the world of the play.
The historical Duncan
was a much younger man than Shakespeare's character, only a few years
older than Macbeth. The playwright altered Duncan's age to stress the evil
of Macbeth's crime, but in fact Macbeth did not murder Duncan; he usurped
the crown through a civil war, and Duncan died in battle. The two were
first cousins, both grandsons of Duncan's predecessor on the throne of
Scotland, King Malcolm II (ruled 1005-1034). Duncan's claim to the throne
was somewhat stronger than Macbeth's as it appears that Malcolm II had
named Duncan as his heir, although the facts are obscure. However,
Macbeth's action was an ordinary political manoeuvre in 11 th-century
Scotland; King Malcolm II took the throne previously by murdering his
cousin, Kenneth III (997-1005). Shakespeare devised his version of
Duncan's death from an account of an earlier royal assassination, that of
Malcolm II's uncle. King DufF(d. 967), in his source, Raphael Holinshed’s
history. |
MALCOLM |
Malcolm (Prince
Malcolm Canmore, d. 1093) is the son of the murdered King Duncan of
Scotland. In 1.4 Malcolm is named his father's successor to the dismay of
Macbeth, who plots to take the crown himself. However, when Duncan is
murdered, Malcolm and his brother Donalbain fear for their lives and worry
that suspicion will fall on them. They flee the country in 2.3 and leave
Macbeth to occupy the throne. Malcolm seeks refuge at the court of the
English king, where we find him in 4.3. Macduff joins him there, and they
lead an army to Scotland in Act 5, and defeat and kill Macbeth. At the
play's close, Malcolm makes a stately speech that thanks his supporters
and announces his forthcoming coronation as King of Scotland.
Like Macduff, the
young prince is a figure of goodness placed in opposition to Macbeth's
evil, and as such is somewhat two-dimensional. He is clever when he
devises a form of camouflage—each soldier carries a branch of a tree as
the army marches on Dunsinane—that proves significant in Macbeth's
downfall. However, Malcolm is most distinctive when he tests Macduff’s
patriotism, in 4.3.1-139. The prospective king describes himself as an
intemperate and dishonest degenerate, certain to be bad for the country.
When Macduff despairs for Scotland, Malcolm reveals himself as a virtuous
prince and accepts Macduff as a leader of his invasion army. This episode
has two functions: most important, it stresses the atmosphere of distrust
that Macbeth's evil has loosed on Scotland. It also presents Malcolm as a
sensible, cautious young man who seems likely to be a successful ruler.
This impression, along with our recollection of the clever camouflage,
helps establish the sense of healing that comes with his triumph at the
play's close. Caithness refers to him, appropriately, as 'the medicine of
the sickly weal' (5.2.27).
The historical
Malcolm did return from exile to defeat Macbeth, but Shakespeare's
treatment of his career is otherwise almost entirely altered. Malcolm was
a young child when Macbeth seized the throne in 1039. Duncan was not
murdered, so Malcolm did not flee to avoid suspicion. He was in fact sent
to his uncle, Earl Siward, and he later lived at the court of King Edward
the Confessor of England, as in the play. Only 15 years later, once he was
a man, did Malcolm attempt an invasion of Scotland in 1054. The attack was
repulsed though some territory was taken. Three years later a second
attempt succeeded; Macbeth was defeated and killed, and Malcolm took the
throne.
Malcolm's reign began
a highly important period in Scottish history, the first European
orientation for the country. Malcolm's second wife, later known as St.
Margaret, was an English princess who had been raised at the cosmopolitan
medieval court of the kings of Hungary. Under her influence, Scotland
accepted the Roman rather than the Celtic church and the arts and culture
of Europe as opposed to those of ancient Britain. Margaret had been a
refugee from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, and Malcolm engaged
in periodic warfare against William the Conqueror. He died in battle in
1093, during his fifth invasion of England. His successor was Duncan II,
his oldest son by his first wife (the sister or daughter of Cathness).
Duncan was overthrown by his uncle, Donalbain, but eventually another of
Malcolm's sons (by Margaret) ruled Scotland as King David I (ruled
1124-1153). Through him, Malcolm was an ancestor of James I, the ruler of
England in Shakespeare's time. |
DONALBAIN |
Donalbain (c.
1033-1099) is the younger son of the murdered King Duncan of Scotland.
Donalbain plays a very minor part in the play; after he attends his father
in three scenes of Act 1, he speaks for the first time in 2.3 after
Duncan's murder. He suggests to his brother, Malcolm, that they flee, lest
suspicion fall upon them. He declares that he will go to Ireland while
Malcolm goes to England. Malcolm returns to reclaim the kingdom from
Macbeth, but Donalbain does not reappear in the play though he is
mentioned several times, lastly in 5.2.7-8, where it is observed that he
is not with Malcolm's army of invasion. However, in the play's final
speech, Malcolm says that he intends 'calling home our exii'd friends
abroad' (5.9.32), a remark that may remind us of Donalbain.
The historical
Donalbain was a child when Macbeth seized the throne from Duncan in 1039.
His name is a corruption of Donald Ban, or Donald the White, which
suggests that he was flaxen-haired. For dramatic purposes, Shakespeare
altered the story and increased the ages of the brothers, but they did in
fact leave Scotland—taken by adults, however—for separate exiles,
Donalbain going to the Hebrides Islands off Scotland's north-west coast.
He may have spent some time in Ireland, but it is from the Hebrides that
he reentered history years later. Donald became the leader of the
conservative Celtic nobility of north-western Scotland who opposed the
European orientation that Malcolm, as king, gave the country. When Malcolm
died fighting the Norman rulers of England in 1093, Donald invaded
Scotland and deposed Malcolm's heir, Duncan II, with the help of one of
Duncan's brothers. They ruled jointly for three years. However, another
brother reconquered Scotland with the assistance of England—gained by
accepting feudal subordination to the English king—and in 1099 Donald was
captured, blinded, and imprisoned for the last few months of his life. |
MACBETH |
Macbeth (c.
1005-1057) is the title character of Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman who
kills King Duncan of Scotland and rules the country until he is killed in
combat by Lord Macduff. The evil of Macbeth's deed, and its effects on him
and on Scotland, are the central elements of the play. He is conscious of
the evil his ambition gives rise to, but he cannot overcome temptation.
This is combined with his ambition, the urging of the equally ambitious
Lady Macbeth, and the encouragement given him by the Witches, whose
supernatural powers seem certain to help him though in fact they bring him
to his doom. As a man who abandons his own potential for good, Macbeth
may be seen as an illustration of the fall of man, the prime
Judeo-Christian example of sinful humanity's loss of God's grace.
Eventually, Macbeth is destroyed by two virtuous men—Macduff and Duncan's
son Malcolm—who are his opposites in the play's balance of good and evil.
One of the play's
manifestations of the power of evilis the collapse of Macbeth's
personality. Macbeth commits or causes to be committed, more than four
murders: first, that of the king, which he performs himself in 2 2 and
then those of Banquo, in 3.3, and of Lady Macduff and her children, in
4.2. His behavior during and after each of these events is different, and
in this progression is the heart of the drama.
We hear of Macbeth
before we see him. In 1.1 the Witches reveal that he is their target, and
in 1.2 the king hears of his prowess on the battlefield. He appears to be
a brave and loyal follower of the king, but when the Witches suggest, in
1.3, that Macbeth is to become king himself, we see that he has already
entertained the possibility of usurping Duncan's crown. However, in 1.7,
as he contemplates the prospect of killing King Duncan, he wavers. He
still remembers his society's crude discipline, the 'even-handed Justice'
(1 7.10) that dictates that if he kills the king, someone else may kill
him. He further acknowledges that in simple decency he should not kill the
man who is his kinsman and his guest, and who has, moreover, been notably
kind to him. On another ethical level, he recognizes that it is evil to
deprive society of a virtuous man and a fine ruler.
Macbeth still retains
the moral sensibility to declare, 'I dare do all that may become a man. /
Who dares do more is none' (1.7.46-47), but Lady Macbeth encourages him to
overcome his scruples, and in 2.2 he kills the king. He is immediately
plagued by his conscience; he tells of how he 'could not say Amen'
(2.2.28) and of the voices that foretold sleeplessness. His absorption
with his bloody hands foreshadows his wife's descent into madness in 5.1.
Nevertheless, he carries his plot through and is crowned between 2.4 and
3.1.
Though the influence
of the Witches and of Lady Macbeth is very prominent and reflects
different aspects of the ways we can fall into evil, Macbeth is basically
not controlled by them. His story is one of a moral choice, and the
consequences of that choice. It is clear that Lady Macbeth's influence
helps him on his way, but once he has killed Duncan he withdraws from her,
and she has no role in his subsequent plots; he plainly can get along
without her. At the same time, his response to the supernatural is
carefully contrasted with Banquo's suspicion of the Witches. Macbeth has
every opportunity to avoid his fate: he could have ignored Lady Macbeth,
or followed the lead of Banquo. However, he made a different choice, for
he is a driven, self-destructive man.
Once installed as
king, he considers murdering Banquo. He hopes to dispose of the Witches'
prediction that Banquo's descendants will rule. He is troubled and cannot
rest; he sees life as a 'fitful fever' (3.2.23), and he cries out, 'O!
full of scorpions is my mind' (3.2.36). But he hires murderers to dispose
of Banquo and his son Fleance. Again, he is tormented by his conscience,
especially by the sight of Banquo's Ghost. He returns to the Witches a
second time and is warned by the Apparitions against Macduff. He
determines to eliminate this threat also, with the result that the
murderers kill Macduff’s wife and children, although Macduff has already
escaped to England.
By now, however,
Macbeth's qualms have disappeared, replaced by a more fundamental
disorder. We next see him in 5.3 as he prepares to defend himself against
the army of Malcolm and Macduff, and he has become a different person. He
veers wildly between rage and despair and has lost any emotional
connection to his fellow humans. He declares that he is 'sick at heart'
and has 'lived long enough' (5.3.19, 22), and he realises that all that he
might once have expected in his old age, 'honour, love, obedience, troops
of friends' (5.3.25), is irrevocably lost. Informed of Lady Macbeth's
death, he can only reflect on the meaninglessness of life. He has lost his
ordinary human repertoire of responses to life and death.
Even his courage, the
only virtue he has retained, has an inhuman quality: 'bear-like, I must
fight the course' (5.7.2), he growls. Only when he finally understands the
deceptive prophecies of the Apparitions does he succumb once again, too
late, to a genuine human emotion^. He feels sheer terror—'it hath cow'd my
better part of man', he cries (5.8.18) when he realises that Macduff is
not 'of woman born' (5.8.13). He recovers courage enough to die, and thus
in death he is not wholly lost.
His basic strength is
also demonstrated in his capacity to face and withstand the ugly truth
about himself. He sees the evil to which he has subjected himself and his
world. He recognises his own immorality, and he is not satisfied with the
position he attains, but he nevertheless defends this position with
continued murder. He is aware of this irrational phenomenon; one of his
most fascinating features is that he is conscious of the goodness he
abandons. When he first contemplates the murder of Duncan, he says its
'horrid image doth unfix my hair' (1.3.135). He recognizes the 'deep
damnation' to be expected and his hallucination of the dagger confirms the
force of this knowledge. After he commits the murder his immediate concern
is not with being discovered, but with his conscience. 'To know my deed, 'twere
best not know myself (2.2.72), he says. And at the end of the play he is
tormented by the awareness that his life could have been altogether
different. It is the contrast with what might have been that makes Macbeth
a tragic figure. Though Malcolm understandably refers to 'this dead
butcher, and his fiend-like Queen' (5.9.35), the real point of the play
resides in the extent to which Macbeth is not simply a monster. He cannot
accept his evil callously; he suffers for it.
The historical
Macbeth did indeed seize the throne from his cousin Duncan, but
Shakespeare's depiction of the man and his reign is otherwise entirely
fictional. Shakespeare took some of his errors from his source,
Holinshed’s Chronicles, which itself depended upon the unreliable,
quasi-legendary history of Hector Boece. However, much of the playwright's
version varies from Holinshed, anyway, for he was interested in drama, not
history. Though in the play the stigma against Macbeth's action is
immense, his usurpation was fairly ordinary in 1 Ith-century Scotland.
Duncan's predecessor, King Malcolm II, had taken the throne when he
murdered his cousin, Kenneth III. By the standards of the day, Macbeth's
claim to the throne was fairly legitimate, as Holinshed makes clear.
Macbeth, like Duncan, was a grandson of Malcolm II, and thus a plausible
heir. He might also have asserted a claim as the husband of Gruoch (the
real Lady Macbeth), who was a granddaughter of Kenneth III. However, there
is no evidence that he received—or needed—any prodding from his wife to
usurp power. Tradition dictated that any male member of the royal family
who could establish that he had regal qualities—usually interpreted as
control of an armed force—was qualified to succeed to the crown. In
principle, an election within the family settled conflicting claims,
though a resort to force was ordinary.
Macbeth, however,
did not murder Duncan; he launched a civil war, and Duncan died in battle.
Shakespeare took from Holinshed an account of an earlier royal
assassination and ascribed it to his protagonist. Further, the play shows
Scotland convulsed by the usurper's crime and tormented by his tyranny,
but in fact Macbeth was a benign and successful king who ruled in peace
for 15 years. Holinshed reported Macbeth's virtues as a king, but
Shakespeare ignored them in the interests of drama. As in the play,
Macbeth's reign ended when the exiled Prince Malcolm invaded the country
with English forces. Malcolm's first attempt at conquest was only
partially successful. Siward won a victory at Dunsinane Castle in 1054,
but it was not until 1057 that Macbeth was finally defeated in a battle
nowhere near Dunsinane. |
BANQUO |
Banquo is friend and
later victim of Macbeth. In 1.3 Banquo and Macbeth encounter the Witches,
who predict that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland.
They add that Banquo, whom they describe as 'Lesser than Macbeth, and
greater' (1.3.65), shall father a line of rulers, though he shall not be
one himself. Macbeth, inspired by this encounter to fulfill his ambition,
kills King Duncan and seizes the throne. He then worries about the
possibility that his kingdom will fall to Banquo's heirs, and he orders
Banquo and his son Fleance murdered. In 3.3 the First Murderer and his
companions kill Banquo, though Fleance escapes. Banquo's Ghost later
appears to Macbeth, aggravating his bad conscience. In 4.1 the Ghost
confirms the Witches' prediction that his descendants will be Kings. King
James I, England's ruler in Shakespeare's day, was believed to be
descended from an historical Lord Banquo.
Banquo is a decent
and honorable nobleman who senses that the Witches are evil and thus not
to be relied on. He warns Macbeth that 'oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
/ The instruments of Darkness tell us truths' (1.3.123-124), and his
concern contrasts strikingly with Macbeth's susceptibility to the
Witches. Banquo's resistance points up Macbeth's failure to resist and
stresses his tendency towards evil, the flaw that makes the tragedy
possible. When he decides to murder Banquo, Macbeth acknowledges his
'royalty of nature' (3.1.49). He fears that Banquo's righteousness may
turn him into an enemy. Thus, we see that Banquo's fate is dictated by his
virtue, just as Macbeth's is determined by his villainy.
In Shakespeare's
source for Macbeth, Holinshed’s Chronicles, Banquo collaborates with
Macbeth in the murder of Duncan and is killed because he knows too much.
The playwright may have altered Banquo simply to avoid depicting the
king's ancestor as a murderer, though Banquo could merely have been
omitted to achieve this end. However, Shakespeare probably realized that
the play is stronger with only a single villain, and Banquo's supposed
ancestry to the king made him an apt choice to stand in opposition to that
villain as a pointedly virtuous comrade. That this was Banquo's more
important function for Shakespeare is suggested by the playwright's
disregard for Fleance's fate or for the question of Banquo's descendants,
once Fleance's survival ensures that he could have had some.
Though Holinshed,
Shakespeare, and King James himself had no reason to doubt the belief that
Banquo was a predecessor of the Stuart dynasty, modern scholarship has
established that this was not true. Banquo may reflect some ancient
chieftain of Scotland, but outside Holinshed's source, the semi-legendary
history of Hector Boece, he has no historical standing. |
MACDUFF |
Macduff, Thane of
Fife (active c. 1054?) is the rival and vanquisher of Macbeth. After
Macbeth murders King Duncan of Scotland and succeeds him on the throne,
Macduff joins Duncan's son Malcolm in exile in England. There he learns
that Macbeth has massacred his family, and when he and Malcolm lead an
army against Macbeth, Macduff seeks out the usurper at Dunsinane to exact
personal vengeance. Macbeth relies on the supernatural assurance that no
man 'of woman born' (4.1.80, 5.8.13) can harm him, but it turns out that
Macduff was 'from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd' (5.8.14-15)—that
is, delivered by Caesarean section and thus not 'born' in the ordinary
construction of the word. In the subsequent fight, Macduff kills Macbeth;
he presents the usurper's severed head to Malcolm, in 5.9.
Shakespeare
painstakingly builds Macduff up as the play's agent of retribution. We
first notice Macduff in 2.4, when he returns to Fife rather than attend
Macbeth's coronation. In 3.4 Macbeth suspects Macduff is hostile, and in
3.6 we hear that he has fled to join Malcolm. Thus, even before he takes a
prominent role, Macduff distinguishes himself because he refuses to accept
Macbeth's succession to the crown. In 4.1 Macbeth is told by the
Apparitions to 'Beware Macduff (4.1.71), and it is evident that the Thane
of Fife will be the usurper's rival though Macbeth is calmed by the
Apparitions' other predictions. In 4.3 Macduff proves that he is a
disinterested patriot. Malcolm fears that Macduff may be Macbeth's agent
and tests him. The prince pretends to be a degenerate who would make a
terrible king. Macduff despairs for Scotland, and Malcolm accordingly
accepts him. Thus, the playwright places Macduff’s virtue in clear
opposition to the villainy of Macbeth. As a symbol of triumphant good,
Macduff is a somewhat stylized character. He rejects Macbeth, he proves
himself dedicated to Scotland, he is able to overcome the magic that
Macbeth relies on, and in the end he kills the villain. A multifaceted
persona is not required for such a character, and generally we do not see
one. However, he has one majestic moment that powerfully evokes our
sympathy for him as a man. In one of Shakespeare's most moving episodes,
Macduff grieves for the death of his wife, Lady Macduff, and their family,
at the hands of Macbeth's hired killers. At first, he can hardly believe
it: 'All my pretty ones? / Did you say all?—0 Hell-kite!—All?'
(4.3.216-217), he cries. When Malcolm encourages him to revenge and
says,'Dispute it like a man' (4.3.220), Macduff replies with great
dignity, 'I shall do so; / But I must also feel it as a man: / I cannot
but remember such things were / THat were most precious to me'
(4.3.220-223). We are deeply moved, aware that the grieving thane is
profoundly engaged with his love and sorrow. The source of Macduff s
virtue is exposed: he is a complete human being who cannot sever the bonds
of kinship and love. We see that Macduff’s strong acceptance of his grief
is the opposite of the cold inhumanity of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
It is uncertain
whether Macduff existed in history. Shakespeare found him in Holinshed’s
Chronicles, which was based on the quasi-legendary history of
Hector Boece, but he cannot be certainly identified with anyone recorded
in 11th-century documents. Nevertheless, the name probably represents a
historical ruler of Fife who was an ally of Malcolm against Macbeth. His
birth by Caesarean section is even more speculative. The procedure, though
known to have existed since ancient times, was certainly extremely rare in
medieval Scotland, if practiced at all. In premodern societies the
strangeness of this mode of birth led to its being associated with the
extraordinary figures of history and legend—such as Julius Caesar, for
whom it is named—and this doubtless accounts for the belief that Macbeth's
killer entered the world in this fashion. |
LENNOX |
Thane of Lenox
(Lennox) is a Scottish nobleman. Lenox functions as an attendant for most
of the play. He is a silent companion of King Duncan in Act 1, and he
speaks only a little when he arrives to join the king in 2.3, at the time
of Duncan's murder. After Macbeth is crowned, Lenox transfers his services
to the new king and attends him silently in 3 1, and with a few words in
3.4 and 4.1. Only in 3.6—a misplaced scene (in the First Folio text) that
should follow 4.1—does Lenox assume any importance. In this scene he
speaks against Macbeth and makes clear the extent to which his evil is
loathed in Scotland Like his fellow thanes Rosse and Angus, Lenox' chief
significance lies in his rebellion, which demonstrates the extremity of
the nation's disorder once evil has been permitted to flourish. In Act 5
Lenox serves the cause of Prince Malcolm. Shakespeare's use of the name
Lenox may have been intended as a compliment to the new English king,
James I, who was descended from an Earl of Lenox. |
ROSS |
Thane of Rosse (Ross)
is a Scottish nobleman. Rosse is a pawn of the plot; he often is the
bearer of news. In 1.2 Rosse tells King Duncan of Macbeth’s success in
battle, and in 1.3 he conveys to Macbeth the king's thanks. In 2.4 he
discusses evil omens with the Old Man and speaks with Macduff of Macbeth's
coronation. In 4.2 he attempts to encourage the bereft Lady Macduff. In
this scene he delivers a speech that stresses the play's motif of fear and
mistrust. 'Cruel are the times, when we are traitors, /And do not know
ourselves' (4.2.18-19), he says. In 4.3 he reports her murder to her
husband and joins him in revolt against Macbeth. In 5.9 he tells Siward of
the death of his son, Young Siward. Rosse's greatest significance is seen
in his gradual revolt against; Macbeth. He represents Scotland as a whole,
which suffers from Macbeth's evil and then rejects him.
Historically, the
Thane of Ross (the correct spelling, which has been adopted by many
editors instead of the First Folio’s Rosse') was Macbeth himself, who had
received the title years before the time of the play. Shakespeare took his
error from his source, Holinshed’s history, where the name appears in a
list of Scottish noblemen who revolted against Macbeth. |
MENTEITH |
Walter Dalyell, Thane
of Menteth (Menteith), (active 1056) In 5.2 Menteth, with Caithness,
Angus, and Lenox, joins the army led by Malcolm and Macduff against
Macbeth. They are presumably among the 'many worthy fellows' (4.3. 183)
reported earlier to have risen in arms against Macbeth's tyranny. In 5.4
they prepare to march on Dunsinane. Though his character is not developed,
Menteth's presence helps strengthen the political aspect of the play. The
rebellion of the nobles indicates the extent of political and social
disruption in Scotland due to Macbeth's evil. The historical Walter
Dalyell ruled Menteith, a territory in central Scotland. Little more is
known of him; Shakespeare took his name from a list of Malcolm's allies in
his source, Holinshed’s history. |
ANGUS |
Gilchrist, Thane of
Angus (active 1056) Historical figure and minor character in Macbeth, a
Scottish nobleman. A minor follower of King Duncan in Act 1, with Rosse he
brings Macbeth the news that he has been named Thane of Cawdor, in
1.3.89-116. Angus reappears in 5.2 and 5.4 as one of the Scottish rebels
against Macbeth who join the army of Prince Malcolm. Angus speaks very
little, though he does deliver a telling description of the depraved
Macbeth, who feels ' his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
/ Upon a dwarfish thief (5.2.20-22). His mere presence in Malcolm's army
is significant, for the rebellion of the nobles demonstrates the extreme
disorder in Scotland caused by Macbeth's evil. The historical Thane of
Angus, whose surname was Gilchrist, ruled a small territory in eastern
Scotland. In 1056, as a reward for his services to Malcolm, he as named
Earl of Angus as is anticipated in 5.9.28-30, but little more is known of
him; Shakespeare took his name from a list of Malcolm's allies in his
source, Holinshed’s history. |
CAITHNESS |
Thorfin Sigurdsson,
Earl of Cathness (Caithness), (active 1014-1065) Historical figure and
minor character in Macbeth, a Scottish nobleman. In 5.2 Cathness, with
Menteth, Angus, and Lenox, marches to join the army led by Malcolm and
Macduff against Macbeth. In 5.4 they prepare to march on Dunsinane, though
Cathness does not speak. This Scottish soldier helps to suggest the play's
national scope, for the rebellion of which he is a part results in the
restoration of good government and social stability in Scotland. The
historical Earl of Caithness was in fact a Viking lord, the powerful
independent ruler of the Orkney and Hebrides Islands and parts of mainland
Scotland, including Caithness on the northernmost coast. Known as Thorfin
the Mighty, he is also a minor figure in King Harold's Saga, a classic of
medieval Norse literature. His daughter (or possibly his sister) later
married Malcolm. |
FLEANCE |
Fleance is the son of
Banquo and the intended murder victim of Macbeth. The Witches-predict to
Macbeth that he will be king but that Banquo's descendants will rule,
rather than his own, so once Macbeth has seized the throne of Scotland, he
decides that he must kill Banquo and Fleance to prevent the prediction
coming true. Fleance appears briefly in 2.1, simply to establish his
existence, and when Banquo is killed in 3.3 Fleance escapes after an even
briefer appearance. Thus, the possibility is preserved that Banquo's line
will eventually replace Macbeth's, and this is Fleance's sole function in
Macbeth. Once his survival is noted, he is not mentioned in the remainder
of the play.
Banquo and Fleance
are named as forefathers of the Stuart dynasty in Shakespeare's source for
the play, Holished’s Chronicles. A Stuart ruled England at the time
Macbeth was written in the person of King James I, and the playwright
dutifully included the information (the connection to the Stuarts is made
by Banquo's Ghost). However, this was simply a legend recorded as fact in
Holinshed's source, the semi legendary history by Hector Boece. Fleance in
fact never existed, although the name may well have beenused
by some ancient Scottish lord. |
SIWARD |
Siward (Sigurd the
Dane), Earl of Northumberland (d. 1055) is an English ally of Malcolm and
Macduff against Macbeth. Siward, a famous soldier who commands an army of
10,000 men, is provided by England's king to the exiled Prince Malcolm of
Scotland. As a noble and knightly figure, Siward stands for the virtues
lost to the world of the play through Macbeth's evil, and as a foreigner
who must be brought in to restore the country's health, he points up the
extremity of Scotland's need. He appears briefly several times in Act 5
and is a direct and simple soldier. His most notable moment comes when he
is informed that his son, Young Siward, has died in com- bat. With noble
fortitude he observes, 'Why then, God's soldier be he! / Had I as many
sons as I have hairs, / I would not wish them to a fairer death.' (5 9
13-15).
The historical
Siward, or Sigurd, was of Danish royal descent. His family had seized
Northumberland during the Danish conquest of England a few generations
earlier; in Northumberland it was traditionally said that his grandfather
was a bear. Siward was a famous warrior who had fought for the English
kings Hardicanute (ruled 1040-1042) and Edward the Confessor (1042-1066),
and he was thus a fitting choice to command Malcolm's army of invasion,
quite aside from his kinship to the prince. He was either Malcolm's
brother-in-law or uncle—11th-century references differ. Shakespeare's
source, Holinshed’s history, mistakenly called him Malcolm's grandfather,
for he was considerably older than Malcolm's father. King Duncan. The
playwright made him Malcolm's uncle—perhaps thereby unknowingly correcting
an error—to place him in the same generation as Duncan. Much more than the
legendary Banquo, Siward deserved to be called 'the root and father / Of
many kings' (3.1.5-6). His oldest son, Osberne, died fighting against
Macbeth, as in the play. His younger son, Waltheof (d. 1075), led the last
British resistance to William the Conqueror and was later canonized for it
as Saint Waldeve. He had a daughter, Matilda, who married Malcolm's son,
later King David I of Scotland (ruled 1124-1153). Two of their sons were
kings of the Dunkeld dynasty, as were a grandson and great-grandson. A
third son of Matilda and David was an ancestor of King Robert II
(1371-1390) who was the founder of the Stewart (later Stuart) dynasty.
Thus Siward is an ancestor of Shakespeare's sovereign, King James I, whose
supposed descent from Banquo is celebrated in the play. All this was
certainly unknown to Shakespeare, who simply followed Holinshed, and
presumably to King James as well, for he seems to have enjoyed his
supposed connection to Banquo. |
YOUNG SIWARD |
Young Siward (Osberne
of Northumberland, d. 1054) is an English soldier killed by Macbeth. Son
of Siward, the English ally of Malcolm and Macduff, Young Siward appears
with the leaders in 5.4 but does not speak. In the ensuing battle he
bravely challenges Macbeth to personal combat in 5.7, and dies in the
encounter. The youth has no personality and serves only as a foil to
Macbeth, whose evil is emphasized by the contrast with Young Siward's
noble bravery, and whose malign nature is demonstrated in the otherwise
unnecessary death of so fine a young man. The actual son of Siward was
named Osberne. He did indeed die in combat at an early age during
Malcolm's invasion of Scotland, but nothing more is known of him. |
SEYTON |
Seyton is an
attendant to Macbeth. Seyton appears briefly in 5.3, where he endures
Macbeth's impatient abuse, and even more briefly in 5.5, where he informs
Macbeth of the death of Lady Macbeth. This triggers Macbeth's famous
soliloquy on 'to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow' (5.5.19). He is a
patient servant who functions as a sounding board for Macbeth's increasing
dementia. The men of a Scottish family named Seyton (Seton, Seaton) were
hereditary armorers to the kings of Scotland, and Shakespeare may have
intended Seyton as one of them. However, the Seytons' position did not
exist until the rule of King Edgar (ruled 1097-1107), who was a son of
Macbeth's foe and successor Malcolm. Some scholars think Shakespeare may
also have intended the name to be a pun on 'Satan', a reference to
Macbeth's last loyal servant that stresses the king's depravity as he
approaches his end. |
McDuff's Son |
Son is the child of
the Macduffs who is killed by Macbeth’s hired Murderers, in 4.2. The Son
sees that his mother is distressed by Macduff’s departure to England to
join the rebellion against Macbeth, and he attempts to understand the
situation with pertly humorous questions and remarks. His wit and
intelligence make his slaughter all the more vicious and contribute
greatly to the power of the episode, which stresses the depths of evil to
which Macbeth has descended. The boy's courage in death—he calls one of
the Murderers a 'shag-hair'd villain' (4.2.82), and with his last breath
he futilely attempts to warn his mother—contrasts tellingly with the
villainy of his kill. |
An English Doctor |
The English Doctor is
serving King Edward the Confessor of England (ruled 1042-1066). In 4.3 the
Doctor tells Malcolm and Macduff of King Edward's power to miraculously
cure disease by merely touching the victims. This is a reference to a
well-known superstition that
any English sovereign could cure scrofula, a tuberculosis of the lymph
nodes that could leave its victims 'All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the
eye' (4.3.151), as Malcolm puts it. The positive magic of the saintly king
is contrasted with the evil machinations of the Witches who support
Macbeth. The episode may also have been intended as a compliment to the
new King of England, James I; it suggests the sacred status of his office.
Some scholars believe that the entire passage, 4.3.139-159—probably
written by Shakespeare—may have been interpolated into the original text
of the play on the occasion of a performance before the king. |
A Scotch Doctor |
Scottish Doctor is the
witnesses of Lady Macbeth's hallucinations in the sleep-walking scene
(5.1) and understands the allusions to the murders she has on her
conscience. He observes, 'Unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural troubles .
. . More needs she the divine than the physician' (5.1.68-71). This
emphasizes the play's connection of evil with psychological disorders.
Further, the Doctor points up the atmosphere of fear and distrust that
surrounds the rule of Macbeth when he departs, saying, 'I think, but dare
not speak' (5.1.76). In 5.3 at besieged Dunsinane, the Doctor reports to
Macbeth that Lady Macbeth continued to suffer from mental disturbances; he
confesses that he cannot cure them and incurs the king's disdain. Again,
he has a pertinent exit line: 'Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, /
Profit again should hardly draw me here' (5.3.61-62), a salty reminder of
Macbeth's evil influence as it was felt by ordinary citizens of Scotland. |
A Porter |
Porter is a doorkeeper at the castle of
Macbeth. In 2.3, immediately following Macbeth's murder of King Duncan,
the Porter appears in response to a knocking at the gate. His humorous
drunkenness contrasts strikingly with the grim murder scene, and thus he
reinforces the suspenseful horror that we have just been exposed to. Also,
in his drunkenness the Porter pretends to be the gatekeeper of hell, and
this motif emphasizes the fact that Macbeth has just lost his soul.
Shakespeare's original audiences will have
recognized immediately that the Porter was imitating a familiar figure of
the medieval Morality Play; the gatekeeper of hell who admits Christ to
Limbo in the ancient legend of the 'Harrowing of Hell'. This gatekeeper
guarded the literal mouth of hell—a familiar image from the painted
backdrops of a gigantic, flaming lion's mouth (derived from Rev. xiii:2)
used in the morality plays. The Porter makes it clear that we are to see
Macbeth's castle as hell, and leaves no doubt whatever that the enormity
of Macbeth's evil is of the greatest importance in the play. When the
Porter finally opens the door and admits Macduff, a subtle analogy between
Macduff and Christ is suggested. This foreshadows Macduff’s role as the
final conqueror of the evil Macbeth.
The Porter also provides comic relief.
His humor is both topical, with references to a contemporary treason trial
—a resonant theme in a play of regicide—and simply vulgar, as in his
remarks on the effects of drink, in 2.3.27-35. This vulgarity inspired
high-minded commentators such as Alexander Pope and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge to declare the Porter a non-Shakespearean addition, on the
grounds that a genius of literature would not stoop to such low comedy.
However, modern critics recognize that the Porter is a typically humorous
Shakespearean representation of unsophisticated humanity. With his comedy
and his simple mind that nevertheless offers important commentary on the
situation, the porter is the nearest thing to a Fool. Also like the old
man of 2.4, he serves the function of a chorus and offers a point of view
entirely outside that of all the other characters. |
An Old Man |
The Old Man converses with Rosse in 2.4
and comments on the evil omens that have accompanied the murder of King
Duncan. This conversation, like a Greek Chorus, offers a commentary on the
action so far. The description of the omens—especially that of Duncan's
horses eating each other—stresses an important theme of the play: Duncan's
murder and its perpetrator are horribly unnatural. The Old Man states the
theme explicitly when he describes the eerie darkness of the day. ' 'Tis
unnatural, / Even like the deed that's done' (2.4.10-11), he says.
The Old Man presents himself as venerable
but unsophisticated—'Threescore and ten I can remember well' (2.4.1), he
says when he introduces himself. This, along with his distinctively rustic
image of the 'mousing owl' (2.4.13) that killed the falcon, helps
establish that the play's catastrophe is universal. Scotland’s collapse
due to Macbeth’s evil is a major motif of the play, and the country as a
whole is represented by this ageing peasant.
The episode is a good instance of a
technique that Shakespeare was fond of: the plot is interrupted by the
introduction of an anonymous figure who comments on it and then disappears
from the play. In Macbeth the Porter serves a similar function in a
more elaborate manner; the Gravedigger of Hamlet is another
particularly well-known example. |
LADY MACBETH |
Lady Macbeth (c. 1005-c. 1054) is the wife
of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth shares her husband's lust for power, and her
fierce goading in Act 1 leads him to murder King Duncan in 2.2 and seize
the throne of Scotland. He is reluctant and fears detection. He recognizes
that the deed is evil, but Lady Macbeth's ferocious will inspires him with
the perverse intensity necessary to overcome his scruples. However, the
evils unleashed by the murder prove too much for the new queen, and she
goes insane. Reduced to sleep-walking and hallucinations in 5.1, she
eventually dies, as is reported in 5.5. Her death is declared a suicide in
5.9. Lady Macbeth's principal importance lies in her ability to influence
her husband early in the play when she urges him to murder the king. When
she learns of Duncan's approach to Inverness—which offers the opportunity
for murder—she fervently prays, 'Come, you Spirits . . . unsex me here, /
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full / Of direst cruelty!'
(1.5.40-43), and she asks that the milk of her breasts be changed to gall.
This speech introduces an important motif: the distortion of sexuality,
which is a symbol of moral disorder. She goes on to summon 'the dunnest
smoke of Hell' (1.5.51) to obscure her deeds from Heaven's sight. This
invocation of supernatural horrors is chilling, and reminds us of the
Witches, already established as a source of evil.
With hypocritical charm. Lady Macbeth
welcomes King Duncan to Inverness in 1.6, after which she must deal with
her husband's qualms. She insinuates that he is not an adequate man if he
gives in to his fears. 'When you durst do it, then you were a man'
(1.7.49), she taunts. This tactic is another instance of dysfunctional
sexuality as a manifestation of evil. She goes on to exploit her own
sexuality when she describes the experience of nursing a loving infant.
She insists that she would have ruthlessly 'plucked my nipple from his
boneless gums, / And dash'd the brains out' (1.7.57-58), if it had been
necessary to achieve their goal. Shamed by her vigour, Macbeth agrees to
proceed, but in 2.2 it is left to her to break the horror-struck trance
into which he falls after he murders Duncan and to bring their plan to
completion. Her ruthless intensity has brought the throne within reach,
and Macbeth is crowned soon thereafter.
Lady Macbeth's viciousness has
horrified generations of readers and audiences. However, her grim fervor
not only makes her fascinating—the role has consistently attracted major
actresses of all periods—but it also illuminates the most important
element of the play: Macbeth's relationship to evil. He clearly would not
have carried out the regicide, although he had already considered it,
without the impetus from her. She, on the other hand, willingly commits
herself to evil. The contrast makes clear the potential goodness in
Macbeth that he abandons when he kills his king. Lady Macbeth thus
functions as a symbol of evil until she falls victim to it herself.
However, Shakespeare's major characters
are never one-dimensional, and Lady Macbeth is not a simple cartoon of
villainy. She, too, is repelled by the evil inherent in murder, though
only subconsciously. She can only refer to the regicide
euphemistically—Duncan must be 'provided for' (1.5.66); the killing is
'this enterprise' (1.7.48) or merely 'it' (5.1.34), and she is unable to
bring herself to do the deed because Duncan too closely resembles her
father. When Macbeth speaks of evil just after he has killed Duncan, she
prophetically declares, 'These deeds must not be thought / After these
ways: so, it will make us mad' (2.2.32-33). Finally, her anguish in the
sleep-walking scene demonstrates convincingly that she simply cannot
tolerate her too-hastily accepted immersion in evil. Lady Macbeth's
madness, along with her husband's profound emotional malaise, is essential
to one of the play's strongest effects. Because we see their dreadful
breakdown so vividly, we must acknowledge that they are victims of evil as
well as its instruments. Indeed, Lady Macbeth finally commits suicide, as
reported in 5.9.36-37.
There may also be another cause for her
madness. She and Macbeth are obviously fond of each other, as we see when
they first meet in 1.5. Macbeth's letter to her—read in her first
speech—makes clear that they have long confided in each other, and that
their ambitions are closely shared. Yet when they accomplish their
long-sought goal it has an unforeseen consequence for her. Once Duncan has
been killed, Lady Macbeth becomes increasingly unimportant to her husband
as he begins to undergo the emotional collapse that is the play's
principal development. She does not become Macbeth's 'dearest partner of
greatness' (1.5.11), as both had anticipated, but is instead excluded from
his confidence. He does not inform her of his plan to kill Banquo, and
after her ineffectual attempts to control him when he sees Banquo's ghost,
in 3.4, she disappears from the plot. The evil she was so willing to
accept betrays her—as it betrays Macbeth—and produces only anguish in
place of the rewards she had envisioned. Not only does she lose her
husband to his increasingly dead emotional life, she also loses the access
to power that had motivated her in the first place. Nothing remains to her
and she goes insane. When she stimulates action, in Act 1, Lady Macbeth
overflows with vitality; in 5.1 she is reduced to fear of the dark. Though
she seemed much stronger than her husband, in the end she lacks the animal
strength he uses to bear the aftermath of their deed to its fatal
conclusion.
The intimacy between Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth combined with the use of perverse sexuality as a symbol of moral
disorder has led to a theatrical tradition (dating to the interpretation
of Sarah Berhardt, in the late 19th century) that presents their
relationship as highly charged sexually, and she as a bold flaunter of her
sexual charms. However, the play could also suggest sublimated passions
whose energies have been displaced onto political ambition. In any case,
it is clear that their relationship—however construed—withers in the
atmosphere of mistrust and emotional disturbance that is unleashed with
Duncan's murder.
The historical Lady Macbeth, whose
first name was Gruoch, was the grand-daughter of a Scottish king who was
murdered in 1003 A.D., 36 years before the time the play begins. Macbeth
was Gruoch's second husband. By her first, a nobleman from northern
Scotland, she bore a son, Lulach, whom Shakespeare presumably had in mind
when Lady Macbeth remembers nursing a child, in 1.7.54-58. When Macbeth
seized the throne, his wife's royal descent doubtless supported his
pretensions, though it was not necessary to his claim. There is no
evidence at all that she attempted to persuade her husband to make such a
claim, nor that she needed to. In fact, Gruoch is very little in evidence
at any point in the history of Macbeth's reign, though after his fall her
influence may be supposed. Lulach ruled briefly after Macbeth's defeat and
death in 1057 before being killed by the triumphant Malcolm. Since Lulach
was known as 'the Simple', some historians think that his mother
engineered his assumption of power. Perhaps her spirit passed down to
Lulach's grandson Angus, Lady Macbeth's last known descendant, who
attempted unsuccessfully to seize the throne in 1120. |
LADY MACDUFF |
Lady Macduff is the wife of Lord Macduff
and a victim of Macbeth’s hired Murderers. In 4.2 Lady Macduff is afraid
that her husband's departure for England to join the rebellion against
Macbeth has placed her and her children in danger. Rosse attempts to
reassure her, but he can only say 'I dare not speak much further: /
Butcruel are the times . . .' (4.2.17-18). This exchange makes plain the
extent to which evil has triumphed in Macbeth's Scotland. Rosse leaves,
and the Lady, in her distress, blurts out to her son that Macduff is dead.
He is an intelligent lad who realises that stress has made her say it, and
her loving appreciation of his childish wit shines through her distracted
grief. This touching moment is interrupted by the Messenger who warns them
to flee, and the immediate appearance of the Murderers, who kill the Son
and chase Lady Macduff out of the room and off the stage. Her death is
reported in 4.3. Though a minor
figure, this pathetic character—created only to be unjustly killed—is a
striking example of the well-crafted small role of which Shakespeare was a
master. In her brief appearance she is vivid enough to contrast powerfully
with Lady Macbeth. As a loving mother, domestic life is more important to
her than politics, and she is everything in a woman that Lady Macbeth is
not. As she is the only other female character (except the Witches), the
contrast is firmly impressed on us. She also affects us in another way,
for her helpless bewilderment is another of the many instances of the
nation's disorder. The terror she experiences in her last moments alive
constitutes the depths of the play's horror. Her death is an important
turning point, for it motivates Macduff, in 4.3, to undertake the fight
against Macbeth with a stronger will than politics alone could prompt. |
Gentlewoman |
Gentlewoman is an attendant to Lady
Macbeth. The Gentlewoman confers with the Doctor on her mistress'
sleepwalking, and together they witness Lady Macbeth's hallucinatory
manifestations of guilt in the famous sleep-walking scene (5.1). Before
Lady Macbeth appears, the Gentlewoman refuses to tell the Doctor ; what
she has heard—her mistress' obsession with ' Macbeth’s murders—without a
witness to back her up. This demonstrates the distrust that permeates the
play's world, one of Macbeth's important themes. |
HECATE |
Hecate (Hecat, Heccat) is a supernatural
being allied with the Witches. In 3.5 Hecate appears to the Witches and
chides them because they did not include her in their entrapment of
Macbeth. She goes on to plan for another encounter with him and promises
to devise extremely powerful spells for the occasion. Then ghostly music
begins, and Hecate is called away by invisible singers. In 4.1 she appears
briefly to the Witches as they prepare for their second meeting with
Macbeth. She praises their witchcraft and leaves to the accompaniment of
another spectral song. Hecate's
appearance in Macbeth was obviously added to the play after it was
originally written (c.1606) but before it was published (1623). This can
be determined because the songs were written by Thomas Middleton for a
play, The Witch, probably written sometime between 1610 and 1620, and
because 3.6 has been moved from its proper chronological position (it
should follow 4.1), in order to separate the two Witch scenes, 3.5 and
4|.l, which would otherwise be in direct sequence. Because Middleton was
associated with the King’s Men, the theatrical company that performed
Macbeth in the early 17th century, and because the Hecate episodes are
clearly designed to introduce Middleton's songs, it has been traditionally
presumed that he wrote them. However, the Hecate passages of Macbeth are
quite different in style from Middleton's work, and most modern scholars
believe that someone else wrote these lines, possibly—though it is a
minority opinion—Shakespeare himself.
Hecate was a familiar figure in
classical literature and was frequently invoked, for instance, in Seneca,
whose plays were well known to Shakespeare. She was a fearsome goddess of
the underworld, associated with witchcraft and other ghostly and uncanny
things. The ancients commonly worshipped three-faced statues of her at
lonely country crossroads, where she glared down a side lane and both
directions of the main trail. She remained well known throughout the
Middle Ages, especially in connection with black magic, and Shakespeare
was clearly familiar with her. Whether or not he employed her as a
character in Macbeth, he had his protagonist mention her twice, in 2.1.52
and 3.2.41 (in passages that were definitely written by Shakespeare).
Further, she is also invoked in Hamlet (3.2.252), A Midsummer
Night's Dream (5.1. 370), and King Lear (1.1.109). Her name is
a synonym for witch in 1 Henry VI (3.2.64), though here the name
has three syllables—pronounced heckity rather than heckit—and, partly for
this reason, some scholars think this passage may have been written by
someone else. |
Three Witches |
Witches are a group
of characters in Macbeth, supernatural beings who encourage Macbeth
in his evil inclinations. In 1.1 three Witches appear in the thunder and
lightning of a storm; they say that they will meet again to encounter
Macbeth. In 1.3 they boast of their evil deeds before they accost Macbeth
and Banquo. They greet the former with titles he does not possess: Thane
of Cawdor and 'King hereafter' (1.3.50)-—though we already know that
Macbeth has been named Thane of Cawdor—and they assure Banquo that he
shall not be a king but that his descendants shall. After they make these
puzzling remarks, they disappear. When Macbeth and Lady Macbeth learn that
he is in fact Thane of Cawdor and the Witches' prophecy is corroborated,
their ambition is sparked to murder King Duncan so that Macbeth can rule
Scotland. Then, once he is king, Macbeth worries over the Witches'
pronouncement that Banquo's heirs would replace his own, and he murders
him, as well. Thus, the Witches inspire the central action of the play.
In 3.5 we see the three Witches with a more powerful spirit, Hecate, who
is accompanied by several more witches. (However, most scholars believe
that this scene was not written by Shakespeare, and that Macbeth's Witches
were originally only three in number.) In 4.1 the Witches concoct a
magical brew in a cauldron. They are preparing for another visit from
Macbeth, who wishes to learn what he must do to assure his safety now that
he is king. They summon the Apparitions, whose predictions seem to promise
safety but actually foretell his destruction. Finally, in a passage that
may be a non-Shakespearean interpolation, the Witches perform a ritual
dance, after which they vanish.
Though their
appearances are brief, the Witches have an important function in Macbeth.
The play opens with their grim and stormy meeting, and this contributes
greatly to its pervasive tone of mysterious evil. Moreover, they offer
another important theme of the play, the psychology of evil. The Witches
are an enactment of the irrational. The supernatural world is terrifying
because it is beyond human control, and in the play it is therefore
symbolic of the unpredictable force of human motivation. At their first
appearance, the Witches state an ambiguity that rules the play until its
close: 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair:' (1.1.11). Their deceptive
pictures of the future—both in their initial predictions of Macbeth's
rise, and in the prophecies of the Apparitions—encourage in Macbeth and
Lady Macbeth a false sense of what is desirable or even possible. The
magic of the Witches is thus an image of human moral disruption. Through
their own uncertain nature, they demonstrate—and promote—the disruption in
the world of the play. When Macbeth meets them a second time, he describes
their capacity for disorder: they 'untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the Churches . . . palaces and pyramids, do slope / Their heads to
their foundations . . . Even till destruction sicken' (4.1.52-60). They
declare that their activity comprises 'A deed without a name' (4.1.49).
Their world is without definition; similarly, Macbeth's disordered sense
of the world comes to encompass the assumption that 'Life's ... a tale /
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing-
(5.5.24-28).
Many people in
Shakespeare's day believed in thereality of the supernatural world, but at
the same time, a recognition that many folk beliefs were merely
superstitions had arisen as well. Shakespeare's opinion on the subject
cannot be determined, for his handling of the Witches is ambiguous. Banquo
asks them, 'Are ye fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly ye show?'
(1.3.53-54). After they leave, he wonders if he and Macbeth have 'eaten on
the insane root' (1.3.84) and have simply imagined them. Their nature is
never clearly stated. Moreover, the extent to which they have powers other
than those of persuasion is also uncertain, which perhaps reflects—or
exploits—the generally uncertain sense of such things in the playwright's
original audiences. Shakespeare may have shared his audiences' ambivalence
as to the supernatural, or he may simply have played on it to devise a
dramatic grouping of characters. Despite a modern disbelief in the
supernatural, we can respond to its dramatic use in Macbeth, and find in
it a symbol of obscure regions of the human psyche. In this light, the
Witches can be thought of as manifestations of Macbeth's ambition and
guilt. That Banquo also sees them and Lady Macbeth accepts their reality
does not argue against such an interpretation of Shakespeare's intentions;
it merely points up the ambivalence of 17th-century attitudes towards the
supernatural.
It is interesting to
note that Shakespeare altered the nature of the Witches considerably when
he took them from his source, Holinshed’s Chronicles. There, the
beings who appear to Macbeth are described as 'nymphs or fairies' who
could read the future through magic. A number of references connect them
with the three Fates, ancient goddesses who are figures of dignity and
grandeur, quite unlike the hags of British folklore. Nymphs and female
fairies were traditionally beautiful, but the Witches of Macbeth are 'So
wither'd and so wild in their attire, / That [they] look not like
th'inhabitants o'th'earth' (1.3.40-41). Scholars have surmised that
Shakespeare replaced Holinshed's classical spirits with his own, earthier
creatures in light of King James I' well-known interest in contemporary
witchcraft. However, the traditionally horrifying creatures of folklore
are entirely appropriate to the association in Macbeth of these beings
with the potential evil
in humankind. |
Apparitions |
Apparitions are supernatural phenomena
shown to Macbeth by the Witches, in 4 1 These specters are designated as
the First, Second and Third Apparition; each has a distinctive appearance
and message. The First Apparition is described in the stage direction at
4.1.69 as •an armed head', and it warns Macbeth to beware of Macduff. The
Second, 'a bloody child' (4.1.76), declares that '. . . none of woman born
/ Shall harm Macbeth' (4.1. 80-81). The Third Apparition is 'a child
crowned, with a tree in his hand' (4.1.86), and it adds that 'Macbeth
shall never vanquish'd be, until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane
hill / Shall come against him' (4.1.92-94). Macbeth naturally receives
these prophecies as 'Sweet bodements!' (4.1.96) and assurances that he
will not be killed by his enemies. The tensions of the play tighten with
this episode, the first intimation of its climax. Macduff is brought into
sharp focus for the first time, yet Macbeth's defeat is made to seem all
but impossible. These portents come from the same supernatural agency
whose prediction of Macbeth's rise—in the Witches' prophecy of 1.3—was
gravely accurate. In Act 5 the
prophecies of the Apparitions are borne out, though not as Macbeth
anticipates. With hindsight we can see that the Apparitions bear clues as
to Macbeth's true fate, for their appearances are symbolically significant
The armored head that is the First Apparition forecasts the severing of
Macbeth's own head after 5.8. The Second Apparition, a bloody child,
suggests Macduff from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd' (5.8.15-16).
The Third Apparition, the child crowned, foretells the reign of the young
Prince Malcolm with which the play closes, and the tree it bears refers to
his decision to have his soldiers bear boughs cut from Birnam wood as they
march on Dunsinane. |
Sergeant |
He is a wounded soldier who describes the
brave Macbeth’s achievements in battle against the rebels who oppose King
Duncan. In 1.2 the Captain offers an image of Macbeth as an hero, and the
shock of Macbeth's later treason is the greater because this initial image
is shattered. The effect is furthered by the Captain's considerable
dignity; he speaks in measured rhetorical cadences and his own suffering
is bravely suppressed until he closes touchingly with, 'But I am faint, my
gashes cry for help' (1.2.43). He is not seen further, however, being
important only as a commentator on the opening situation. Some modern
editors note that the Captain is referred to by Malcolm as 'the Sergeant'
in 1.2.3 and designate him with that rank in the stage directions. |
Murderers |
Murderers are
assassins recruited by Macbeth. In 3.1 the First Murderer and his
accomplice, the Second Murderer, accept Macbeth's assignment to kill
Banquo and Fleance. They are virtually indistinguishable from each other.
Neither speaks much, although each makes a brief complaint (3.1.107-113)
about the desperation of his unfortunate life and his determination to
perform any deed that may improve his lot. In 3.3 the Murderers, assisted
by the Third Murderer, undertake their commission. They cooly assault
their targets and kill Banquo, though Fleance escapes. In 3.4 the First
Murderer reports the deed succinctly to Macbeth. He takes pride in their
fierceness and describes Banquo's wounds as 'twenty trenched gashes on his
head; / The least a death . . .' (3.4.26-27). In 4.2 an unspecified number
of Murderers, probably the First and Second, kill the son of Lady Macduff
and chase her offstage where they kill her, as we learn in 4.3. Their
cold-bloodedness is here particularly horrifying as one of them notes his
victim's youth, calling the Son an 'egg' (4.2.82) as he kills him. The
Murderers are not distinct from each other as individuals. The First
Murderer offers a pleasing description of a sunset in 3.3.5-7, but we do
not imagine that he is a man of esthetic sensibility. He is merely a
vessel for Shakespeare's poetic lyricism, which here helps to establish
the eerie atmosphere of dusk for a scene that, in the playwright's
theatre, was performed without modern stage lighting to set the mood.
Third is one of the
assassins hired by Macbeth to kill Banquo and Fleance. The Third Murderer
joins his colleagues as they approach their targets. He was not with them
when they were recruited in 3.1, and they initially distrust him, but his
exact instructions convince them that he has been sent by Macbeth. His
presence suggests that with the distrust typical of despots, Macbeth has
felt the need to plant an agent among his hired assassins. The Third
Murderer is indistinguishable from his fellows and speaks only a few brief
lines. |
Messenger |
Messenger is a
servant of Macbeth. In 1.5 the Messenger brings Lady Macbeth the news that
King Duncan, whose murder she has just been contemplating, approaches. Her
startled response to this sudden opportunity for the crime serves to
escalate the plot's tension. In 4.2 the Messenger (or, possibly, another
one) betrays his master when he warns Lady Macduff that Macbeth's hired
killers approach. He is bravely willing to stand up against Macbeth's
villainy and his action provides a moment of relief from the growing evil
of the plot. In 5.5 the Messenger, still employed by Macbeth (unless,
again, he is a different person), brings his master word that the forest
appears to be moving. This message signals Macbeth's downfall, and his
wrathful response emphasizes his desperate position. Though they seem
unimportant, all three of the Messenger's appearances mark a change in the
play's emotional tone, a striking Shakespearean technique. |
Lord |
Lords are members of
Macbeth’s royal court. In 3.4 several Lords are present at a banquet and
witness Macbeth's distress at the appearance of the Ghost of Banquo. They
accept Lady Macbeth’s explanation—that the king is suffering the effects
of an old illness—and depart. In 3.6 a single, unidentified Lord meets
with Lenox, and they observe that Prince Malcolm has arrived in England,
and that Macbeth has defected to his cause. In both scenes, the anonymous
noblemen bear witness to the unraveling of Macbeth's power. Some scholars
agree with the suggestion of Samuel Johnson that the First Folio stage
direction calling for 'Lenox and another lord' at the opening of 3.6 was
an error that resulted from the misinterpretation of a manuscript
abbreviation—'An'.—for ANGUS, who was actually intended as Lenox'
companion. This idea cannot be proven, and in any case, as Angus is a
minor character like the Lords, the effect would be identical. |
Banquo's Ghost |
Ghost is the spirit
of the murdered Banquo. The Ghost appears at the banquet hosted by Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth in 3.4. It can only be seen by Macbeth, who had ordered
Banquo's murder and is the only one present who knows he is dead. It
appears again in 4.1 in the company of the ghostly procession of future
Kings shown to Macbeth by the Witches. In both cases the Ghost is silent.
In 4.1 Macbeth observes that it 'points at them [the Kings] for his'
(4.1.124); this confirms the Witches' power. |
Servant |
Servants are workers in Macbeth’s
household. In 3.1 a Servant is sent to bring the Murderers to Macbeth; in
3.2 Lady Macbeth sends a Servant (possibly the same one) to summon her
husband; and in 5.3, a Servant (again, perhaps the same one) reports to
Macbeth that the woods appear to be advancing on Dunsinane. In all three
instances, the Servant's function is to effect a transition or provide
information, though in the final scene, Macbeth's fury at the innocent
Servant demonstrates his desperate and baleful state of mind. |
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