Macbeth

By William Shakespeare

Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Dr Robert Mighall.

Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king to ensure his ambitions are realized. But he soon learns the meaning of terror - killing once, he must kill again and again, and the dead return to haunt him. A story of war and witchcraft, Macbeth also explores the relationship between husband and wife, and the risks they are prepared to take to achieve their desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509831623

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Book preview

Contents

INTRODUCTION

MACBETH

ACT I

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI

SCENE VII

ACT II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

ACT III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI

ACT IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

ACT V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI

SCENE VII

SCENE VIII

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Macbeth is one of the last of Shakespeare’s ‘great’ tragedies, and among his shortest plays. With no sub-plot and very little comic business, the action strides to its bleak conclusion through relatively short scenes. It is neither Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy, nor his most gruesome, but it is certainly one of his most disturbing. The insights it affords and the aura of evil that pervades it (it even has its own curse) makes ‘The Scottish Play’ stands out luridly even among Shakespeare’s blackest tragic brood.

In March 1603, James VI of Scotland was crowned James I of England, after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, died without issue. James claimed to trace his ancestry back to Banquo, an eleventh-century Scottish thane ruled by a king called Macbeth. King James was Shakespeare’s new patron, and no doubt attended its performance. A Scottish king, starting the new Stuart royal line, thus provided the occasion for Shakespeare’s tragedy of dynastic ambition and treachery. In his hands, a timely pageant becomes a timeless parable that retains its power to fascinate and repel.

Ambition is unambiguously the theme of Macbeth, signalled from the very first scenes: ‘All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!’. Fresh from the valour that will soon legitimately ennoble him, Macbeth is vaingloriously vulnerable to the witches’ beguilements. The swiftness of his plotting suggests their evil seeds fell on fertile ground. On learning he has become Thane of Cawdor, as prophesied, his mind skips straight to murder:

... why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

Against the use of nature?

Why indeed? There is no necessary connection between what the witches foretell – Macbeth’s eventual kingship – and the need to assist destiny with a little regicide. As Macbeth himself acknowledges in a rare moment of clarity before it is fogged by blind ambition: ‘If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir’. Yet stir he does. This tragic irony is the pin upon which he sprawls throughout the play, hooked almost from the start by the weird sister’s words. Their diabolical agency turns a warrior’s desire to rise into a dizzying descent into hell.

If the weird sisters hook Macbeth with their riddling, Lady Macbeth reels him in with her reasoning and ridicule. Like her husband, she interprets the prophecy of kingship as an inducement to murder Duncan, and immediately sharpens the knives. The way she completes the weird sisters’ work has encouraged her to be considered almost a fourth of their number. Hearing of Macbeth’s encounter with the witches, she utters a chilling incantation to ‘unsex’ herself:

... Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;

And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty! ... .

Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers

As the weird sisters’ masculine appearance had perplexed Banquo a few scenes before, the association between evil and sexual ambiguity invites us to make this comparison.

Shakespeare often exploits sexual ambiguity for dramatic ends. In Twelfth Night, As You Like It or The Merchant of Venice he was partly making comic virtue out of a conventional necessity. Before the Restoration, female parts were played by young boys, and so it often helped theatrical illusion to have those ‘girls’ pretend to be boys in the story. But Lady Macbeth’s unsexing goes far beyond such expedients, making her sex and sexuality powerful instruments in her campaign to be queen. When Macbeth’s resolve for murder falters, his wife’s arguments comprise some of Shakespeare’s most electrifying lines:

... I have given suck, and know

How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dash’d the brains out, had I sworn as you

Have done to this.

Yet the sexual identity that makes her stance the more shocking, also make her more human, as mother, and, at a crucial moment, daughter. Her claim that she would have murdered King Duncan herself, ‘Had he not resembled/My father as he slept’, prevents us writing her off so easily as an inhuman ‘fiend’, no better than a witch. Her humanity compels us to consider more closely what could plunge herself and her husband so deep in evil.

What’s most interesting about Shakespeare’s husband-and-wife portrait is how they converge and exchange attributes as the narrative develops. Or, to put it another way, how Lady Macbeth wanes in power and the potential for evil as her husband waxes. From the agent of destruction who scorns her husband’s fears, she swiftly descends into a hag-ridden, sleep-walking ‘victim’ of madness who eventually takes her own life. Her madness again reinforces her humanity, undoing the diabolical incarnation her early words assumed. Macbeth, on the other hand, from at least paying lip service to the accepted mores and morals of society, becomes an overachiever in evil, whose dynastic ambition swells into a homicidal monomania fuelled by supernatural delusion. Wading into a bloodbath, he soon leaves his wife far behind. What drags her back drives him forward. Her sleep-walking and madness show her fixated on what has been done and cannot be undone, compulsively returning to the scene of the crime she instigated. She is haunted by the past, he by the future, and the vision of Banquo’s lineage wearing the crown he has damned his soul to snatch. His relentless march forward to both realise and to prevent a deluded destiny shows his eyes firmly fixed on tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow ...

Yet despite being haunted by the prophetic future, he also fails to think ahead and reason sufficiently. In this he makes an interesting contrast with Hamlet. If in his earlier play Shakespeare made tragedy out of the consequences of over-deliberation and analysis, he now shows a man ensnared by a failure to probe deeply enough, duped by illogical riddles that young Hamlet would have happily scrutinised to the last syllable of recorded time. Acquiring a taste for slaughter, Macbeth becomes an automaton of evil, and, like his wife, sleepwalks to hell. He doesn’t pause a moment to enjoy the fruits of his crimes. Nor, paradoxically, does he concern himself materially with the lineage with which he would displace Banquo’s. In a play obsessed with lineage, Macbeth’s own progeny are a conspicuous absence. Lady Macbeth claims to have suckled a male child. If it lives still, Macbeth might show more concern with its safety as the dynastic murders mount ever higher. If not, then he might devote at least some of the time spent hacking down others’ lines with perpetuating his own. Preoccupied with acts of death, he should surely attend also to the facts of life.

Tragedy traditionally obeys certain rules. Principal among these was that it worked by evoking the emotions of pity and terror in the audience, who identified with the sufferings of the hero. This hero was basically ‘good’, but had a fatal flaw which brings about his downfall. Were he not sympathetic we would not wish to follow him; were he not flawed there would be no tragedy. Macbeth is clearly flawed, maybe even bad to the bone; a greater challenge is identifying his redeeming heroic qualities that might invite our pity or terror at his suffering. Even the witches refer to him as ‘wicked’. As this is term is usually applied to their tribe, this is quite an accolade. He is hailed as a hero early on, albeit for the bloodthirstiness he would soon turn against the king who so honoured him. And it does take the full force of Lady Macbeth’s formidable character to overcome his objections to committing the first murder. Yet, his own reasoning against murdering the king hardly carries sufficient moral conviction to plead his own case as a good man led astray.

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murder shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself ...

These sound more like breaches in etiquette or hospitality than the deep gashes in the body politic cold-blooded regicide represented, as if not murdering guests was on a par with providing comfortable beds. At this point, there’s little to choose between Macbeth’s cool reasoning against murder, and his wife’s hot arguments for it. She might believe her husband too full of the milk of human kindness; but this has gone decidedly sour by the time we encounter him. When his end comes it is swift, the wrapping up of the action perfunctory, dispatched as soon as he discovers his charmed life was a delusion, and his head is stuck on a pole: a ‘monster’ for all to marvel at. But what lesson does it teach? How has tragedy cleansed our souls, when Macbeth’s nihilistic dismissal of life as ‘a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing’ still rings in our ears?

William Blake famously claimed that in Paradise Lost John Milton ‘was of the devil’s party, without realising it’, as Satan commanded all his finest lines and our interest. Intriguingly, Milton once contemplated treating the story

Reviews for Macbeth

[obrien8341 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Obviously, Shakespeare is a poetic genius. This play is beautifully written and contains messages about morality. Although Shakespeare's writing can be sometimes hard to understand, I followed this play very well and found it very entertaining. It is interesting to notice the way that fate plays a huge role in the outcome of the play.

[jcbrunner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having just read a biography about the bard, I read or better re-read the tragedy of Macbeth. Its strength lies in the fantastic special effects. Witches, ghosts and woods grab the attention much more than the bloody body count. While Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have become stock characters, they lack the inherent ambivalence that makes Shakespeare’s villains great. Mr and Mrs Macbeth are but a greedy power couple that loses control of the events it triggered. Incidentally, the tragedy of Macbeth nearly passes the Bechdel test – if only he had given names to the witches or created a female sidekick for Lady Macbeth. The visual nature of the play really calls for the theater not a reading.

[0912katie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had never thought of reading “Macbeth”, but since I read, Romeo and Juliet at school and at home, I started to like how the structures of Shakespeare poems or plays were set up. What got my attention is the cover of the book because it has a king and a queen, so I thought it had to do with the rich and high-class society. After reading the beginning of the story, I thought Macbeth was a good and loyal man to King Duncan. All of the “Great men” turned out to be fake because all he wanted was to be king, but there was already a king. Three witches had told him that he was going to be king but he had to kill the king. His ambition led him to killing the king and any witness. His wife thought that killing the king was the quickest way to achieve the destiny the witches promised. Macbeth is duly proclaimed the new king of Scotland, but recalling the witches’ prophecy, he arranges the murder of his fellow soldiers Banquo and his son Fleance, both of whom represent a threat to his kingship. Fleance escapes but his dad dies. The next day, according to the witches’ prophecy Macbeth should be aware of an enemy called ‘not born of woman”. Macduff allegiances to young Malcolm and Macduff surrounds and kill Macbeth and Malcolm is crowned the King of Scotland. Not a very good ending for the protagonist but he got what he deserved because his ambition to be powerful lead him to the tomb. Finally, I think this is a great book and I recommended to anybody that likes ambition, mystery, witches, and magic. I love this book and I would like to read more Shakespeare books later on.

[hamburgerclan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My daughter has shamed me a bit in recent months. She's been on a Shakespeare kick--purchasing his works here and there from book sales and the like. Me, I've read a couple of plays and seen one or two others on television. I've never got around to reading these treasures of English literature. It was this shame, and the need to find a book that would fit in my lunch box, that led me to check out Shakespeare's Macbeth. 'Tis the tale of a Scottish thane or chieftain who, tempted by a cryptic prophecy, murders his king and tries to cover it up. There is much bloodshed and guilt, all set in iambic pentameter. The story was enjoyable enough, though I have to confess, I read through the synopsis before attempting to tackle the 17th Century English. (This, the Oxford School Shakespeare edition, is chock full of notes to help us poor students along in our studies.) Reading it spoiled the drama, but also helped me follow the story. So anyway, now my own guilt has been assuaged--for the nonce--and I can get back to reading more modern fluff. I don't think the child has procured a copy of Othello yet, anyway.--J.

[tryion · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My all time favorite.

[shamille_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anyway, Macbeth is a play about this scottish dude and some witches come up to him and they're like "hey Macbeth! You're gonna be king!" and so Macbeth thinks: Ok it's my fate... so i have to make it happen! like a dummy. So he kills the king.. and the princes flee, and Macbeth becomes king! but to keep his secret he has to kill a whole bunch of other people...But Macbeth sucks as a king, and his wife, who was all evil before, is all weak and has gone crazy.Then Macduff (yes another Mac... it's scotland) comes around with the old king's son, Malcolm. And they're like.. "no way man, Malcolm's supposed to be king! Macbeth's a tyrant!" so they pretty much overthrow him.I know i gave it away but i'm just thinking probably everyone knows this story anyway. uhhhmm.....some facts about this story:# It's really funny# When they give this play people aren't allowed to say Macbeth until it's over... it's bad luck# In Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicolson books, Georgia and her schoolmates are giving the play Macbeth. Since she can't say the name, in her diary (or whatever the hell it is) she calls it MacUseless. Which is funny, because it is.

[engpunk77 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Actually enjoyed this one, and I typically loathe reading Shakespeare. This and Hamlet are the only ones worth reading, in my opinion.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't recall reading Macbeth since high school, yet as I listened to the audio version I found myself quoting lines along with the actors. The play seems like it's full of cliches, yet it's the source for phrases like “vaulting ambition”, “a charmed life”, “be-all and end-all”, and “milk of human kindness”. Reader that I am, I also caught several book titles “borrowed” from its lines: Borrower of the Night (Elizabeth Peters), Look to the Lady (Margery Allingham), Light Thickens (Ngaio Marsh), By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Agatha Christie), Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury), The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner). I'm a long-time fan of the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, so it was a little disconcerting to hear Siegfried Farnon (i.e., Robert Hardy) in the role of Duncan. That aside, it's an exciting dramatization of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays.

[danielalgara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We have much to learn from Maestro's use of language. In Macbeth, it is surprisingly accessible and fast-paced.

I marvel at his choice at what occurs offstage, like the murder of Duncan. Yet the murder of Macduff's family, including children, happens for all to see. It is postulated that the Duncan scene was cut by someone else. But it actually does something interesting. It increases Macbeth's increasingly murderous character, intensifies his evil as a progression in his paranoia.

I have many more thoughts , of course, but I must stew. Perhaps I'll return to solidify my thoughts on this masterly work of art.

[jeroenberndsen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic editions this is, the play on the right page, and explanations and supprt material on the left. You don't have to read it, but if you come across words you don't understand, It's pretty convenient!The story itself, well that off course has lost nothing of it's magic....

[kaelirenee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's interesting to consider the role fate has in this play. And of course, it helps to have the guides at the bottom of the page that explains some of the texts.

[sdtaylor555 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, so I won't rate any of his works very high

[xicanti_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful play with so many great things going on. One of my favourite lines comes when MacDuff learns that his family has been killed. He says, "Oh, my pretty chickens!" As those of you who've read the play will know, much of it revolves around the idea that fair is foul and foul is fair. Pretty chickens are fair fowls. I can't help but wonder if Shakespeare did that deliberately.Stuff like that kills me.

[misslizzy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this play my senior year of high school, and immediately enjoyed it more than HAMLET, especially because of the three Witches. And when my teacher pointed out that the punctuation within one of Lady Macbeth's paragraphs seems to connotate that she is reaching orgasm simply by talking about all the power she is about to obtain, I was hooked. I love several of the monologues.

[nmg1-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

studied this play during 2nd level education. Certain lines still stick with me to this day. Amazing to think of its sheer impact, centuries into the future (and still going strong!).

[judithrs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Macbeth; Complete Study Edition. William Shakespeare, edited by Sidney Lamb. As soon as I found out the Shakespeare Festival was putting on Macbeth, I knew I wanted to see it, but I held back when I found out this production was to be set in a post-apocalyptic society. I have always wanted Shakespeare the way I think “it’s ‘sposed to be.” But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I was. So when I decided to see it, I decided to re-read it, and I am glad I did. This is good edition for people like me who haven’t read Shakespeare. There are plenty of explanatory notes that explain the history surrounding the play and the unfamiliar vocabulary.

[allriledup · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can't believe I hadn't read this sooner and hope to see a production of it one of these days. I must say I have a soft spot in my heart for the three weird sisters.

[fluffyblue_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What can you say about Macbeth that's not already been said? I thought I would find it difficult to understand, having not read any Shakespeare before, but it just took a bit of slow reading and thinking about what the meaning might be. I think if you've not read Shakespeare before, this might be a good place to start.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Truly among the best of the Bard's dramas. Full of great dramatic images -- the supernatural, passion for power and scenes of great intensity. It's easier to follow than King Lear because it moves forward in a straight line with no sub-plots. The ending, with images juxtaposed through the various almost overlapping scenes adds to the dramatic tension.

[dmsteyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A profoundly affecting play, Macbeth is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy, though perhaps not as nihilistic as the pre-Christian King Lear. Not that Macbeth's Christian era has any considerable redemptive effect on the play. There is Christian imagery throughout the play, of course, but I would contend with critics like Empson and Bloom that Shakespeare was not a particularly Christian playwright. It has hard to say anything about Shakespeare from his plays - he is the least auto-biographical writer in the Western tradition, one might say. He may well have been Christian (perhaps even Roman Catholic, as some have speculated) but I do not think his plays, Macbeth least of all, espouse any overt religious message. One can tack such a message onto Macbeth, if you wish, by investing Macbeth's opponents (young Malcolm, Ross, Macduff, and the other rebellious thanes of Scotland) with the ethos of 'good Christian knights', sent to kill the emissary of evil. But I would contend that this is a misguided misreading of the play. Macbeth may be morally abhorrent, but the play is closer in structure to a Sophoclean tragedy, with the focus nearly entirely on Macbeth, not on the 'avenging Christian heroes'.Bloom contends that Macbeth is extremely horrifying not because of its disturbing imagery and actions:Titus Andronicus is much more bloody, and yet less horrifying than Macbeth, and in any case, playgoers of his time could go to Tyburn to watch bloody executions. Rather, the horror is in Macbeth's extreme interiority and his proleptic imagination, which infects the whole play, as well as those who watch or read the play. Reading Macbeth awakens anxieties in us because it makes us aware of our own propensity and capacity for evil. 'Evil' is, of course, a particularly ambiguous term nowadays, with relativism making such a strong claim to our morality. But, within the confines of world morality, few would claim that Macbeth and his wife's initial ethos of 'the ends justify the means' is not particularly terrible. Even the Macbeths realise the horror of what they have done, though it has diverging effects on the two. In any case, the though that we may be capable of atrocities is uniquely tempting in this play. Macbeth is initially a 'golden boy', though we sense the danger of his propensity for slaughter, even though it is initially in service of the monarch. I never lost my admiration for Macbeth's bravery throughout the play, though I would strongly condemn his actions. It is this dichotomy between centripetal admiration, and a concurrent centrifugal revulsion, which draws one into Macbeth's unique psychology.Lady Macbeth is the only of other strong character in the play - the thanes and Malcolm are colourless in comparison. But she falls away after the beginning of Act III, and the play then focuses on Macbeth to the near-exclusion of everything else. This is unique in a Shakespearean tragedy - even Hamlet has his mother, uncle, and Horatio. Macbeth is left centre-stage, with his famous soliloquy on death ('Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...'). Though he is killed, we remain strangely uneasy at the end of the play. I think this is because of the above-mentioned identification with Macbeth: we fear our capabilities for evil, but, in a perverse sense, also exult in them. Even more perversely, I felt a distaste for king Malcolm and his easy morality. Perhaps I am merely a misanthropic egoist, always fearing that the 'do-gooding rabble' might come after me as well. All I can say to that is:Stars, hide your fires!Let not light see my black and deep desires.More seriously (well, you judge whether I was serious previously...) is the role of the witches / weird sisters in the play. Do they control Macbeth, planting the seed of murder in his mind? Or has he always had the potential for evil in him? The text is ambiguous about this, but I suspect that Macbeth considers evil long before the witches appear. For instance, they never, ever tell Macbeth to do anything. He comes to the idea of murder all by himself, with some promptings from his wife. And, conversely, when they make predictions to Banquo, Banquo does not run off to kill the monarch. Evil (whatever you mean by that word) seems to reside in humanity itself, not in the outside universe. Which is a bit of a cop-out: the witches are, after all, in the play. Bloom says, despite his fascination with the witches, that they are nearly redundant, which I would agree with, following my interpretation of Macbeth's own culpability. But, then, why did Shakespeare feel the need to add them to the play? Was it only because James I had an inordinate interest in witches and the supernatural in general? This hardly seems like a good enough reason for such a large aspect of the play. Is it because Holinshed mentions them in his Chronicles, on which the play is based? Shakespeare often leaves out things in Holinshed which he finds extraneous. Or did Shakespeare also find witches fascinating? It could be for anyone of these reasons, but I think the last is the most intriguing.This is, obviously, a great play. It is economical, fast-paced, and cuts to the bone of what Renaissance tragedy could do. It is also frightening, and more so the more one thinks about it. I could say much more about the play - I've left out a whole discussion on the use of humour in the Porter's scene, which Coleridge hated, but which De Quincey examined at length. I also haven't said much about the role of imagery in the play, or the pathetic fallacy of nature responding to the death of the king. Time is short, the art too long.On a last note: thank God this play isn't as amenable to post-modern reimagings as, say, Othello or The Tempest! I hate polemical interpretations which pervert Shakespeare's plays beyond all recognition. Retellings are fine, but don't give me a Marxist-feminist-structuralist play in which Macbeth is a hero of the proletariat, who kills the factory boss, but then descends into a homo-erotic coupling with the cross-dressing 'Lady' Macbeth, who convinces him to re-exploit the poor factory workers.Obviously, at the end, he is overthrown because of repressed longings for Malcolm, who resembles his mother. Obviously.God, help us.

[regularguy5mb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dark and supernatural, Macbeth is one of my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies. One of the biggest questions I always ask is, "Would the weird sisters' prophecies come to pass even if Macbeth hadn't gone all murder crazy?"Macbeth is a great cautionary tale of the dangers of ambition, especially when it comes to power. Shakespeare explores what lengths men will go to for power, especially when they believe it is owed them.Adding this copy to my Little Free Library in hopes that someone in the neighborhood can learn something from it, especially as certain phrases remind me of the current political climate and I know the way my neighbors tend to vote.

[morgannakerrie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was my father's, now it is mine. Each fan of Shakespeare has read this one. It's a goodie.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

MACBETH ranks with A Midsummer Night's Dream as my favorite Shakespeare.It deals with how we all face Evil, the consequences within and without.The opening lines, here and in Roman Polanski's indelible film, often stay with readers foreveras do so many other memorable words, fears, and actions.The only reason for not ranking it a Five Star-Plus book is MacDuff.Like his wife, I still can figure out no logical reason for leaving his wife and children behindwhile he flees to England. And why did he not tell his cousin to hide or bring them when the cousin stopped to see them?Ideas welcome.

[barb_h_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook. It was done like a play and very enjoyable =)

[sedelia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Macbeth is one of the greatest plays ever written, and it is my personal favorite of Shakespeare's works. This rendition is different in that it's the story of a man in a psychiatric unit who channels the story of Macbeth. This play is uniquely suited to this type of portrayal due to Macbeth's transformation and corruption. He only gets worse, which can be mirrored by a mentally insane person having an episode.Alan Cumming does a brilliant job in narrating. While I don't think it comes close to what this portrayal must have been like on stage, he is still a great narrator. Unfortunately, there is nothing that suggests the context of a man in an insane asylum channeling Shakespeare's characters; either the listener has to imagine it for herself or simply take it as a reading of the play. Cumming does a good job in giving each character individuality, and the parts with the witches gave me the chills -- the editing is perfectly done so that his voice echoes three times to match the characters.I do think that only those familiar with Macbeth can get much out of this. Any work of Shakespeare is hard to understand as an audiobook, especially with only one person narrating. Those unfamiliar with the story of Macbeth are likely to get confused. Likewise, any people out there who can't understand a Scottish accent may have trouble following along. But for those who are familiar with Macbeth and don't have a problem with understanding accents, you will love this.

[liammurrray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading this play write even after the 1st time reading it a few years earlier. Although much of the language is hard to understand as it is written by Shakespeare in a complete different time period, it expresses an awesome story about the corruption of power. Initially, Macbeth is a character of the most heroic attributes, and his first acts present him as a very noble man. It is sad to see him be brought to his downfall after his wife brings the dark side out of him and herself as well. The corruption of having a great deal of power is presented by this play, and Macbeth is brought to his death because of this pursuit of power. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Shakespeareian plays or the history of the Middle Ages.

[composingcomposer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Before reading the play my instinct was to say that the three witches symbolize the three fates. The number is the same and the three witches finish each other's sentences in the way that the fates are usually portrayed as doing. The fact that what the witches predict comes true, and comes true only because Macbeth acted on their prophecy (rather like how Trelawney's prophecy in Harry Potter came true only because Voldemort acted on it).

The biggest difference between the witches and the fates is that (in spite of how popular culture portrays them) in their original mythology the fates do not try to cause harm. They simply do their job creating people's destiny, and occasionally recite a prophecy, without any malicious intent. The witches on the other hand are deliberately trying to lead Macbeth to corrupt his soul. The way that they hint to him that he has good things coming, just enough to make him act to gain those things, even at the expense of others. Even at the expense of his own soul. Because of this I think that the Weird Sisters represent demons, and Hecate, who reprimands them not for the harm that they have done, but for not letting her in on their fun; 'How did you dare/To trade and traffic with Macbeth/In riddles and affairs of death;/And I, the mistress of your charms,/The close contriver of all harms,/Was never call'd to bear my part,/ Or show the glory of our art?'

It appears to me that the Weird Sisters may represent demons, with Hecate representing Satan. Another possibility could be that the witches represent the potential for evil in Macbeth, easily egged on by Lady Macbeth because it is already within his capacity to commit.

The witches apply to the themes of violence and fate. In violence as they spur Macbeth onto violence in his second meeting with them, summoning visions of bleeding heads and murdered babies. And fate as they cause Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo to question whether the things they predicted would come to pass naturally, or if they will have to act to gain the prophecies.

Without the Weird Sisters the play would not have happened, unless something else took their place. They are responsible for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth resorting to violence, and all the chaos that ensues. They could have been replaced by Macbeth making a conscious decision to kill King Duncan to gain power, but that wouldn't have been as compelling.

Lady Macbeth pushed Macbeth to kill the king trusting on the words the witches enough to believe that Macbeth would become king, but not trusting enough to wait and see if he would become king without them taking action. Ultimately neither husband nor wife could live with the guilt.

(This review was originally a discussion post I wrote for an online Shakespeare class.)

[mbmackay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Re-read this classic in the Signature Shakespeare edition - beautiful presentation, and useful notes and explanations. Interesting to contrast the awful reputation of the Shakespearian Macbeth with the vastly different person that historians now document. I read a book on the real Macbeth a few years ago which claimed that he was the most unfairly maligned figure in history. But you read the play for Shakespeare, not historic accuracy, and this play is a ripper. Read March 2015

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Haven't read this since school. Thundering great stuff, and the witches are magnificent. 5/5

[aethercowboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Scottish play is well known for those who know a thing or two about Shakespeare. This play tells the tale betrayal, guilt, hubris, and witchcraft, threading together plots and wordplay only as Shakespeare could do.Recommended for any fan of Shakespeare, or by any fan of British fantasy.