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Lord Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and quickly the Thane of Cawdor, is the title character and main protagonist in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). The character is loosely based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), a compilation of British history.
As Macbeth puts it: Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (Act 2 Scene 2) There are also references to the crucifixion, staged with copious amounts of stage blood in medieval Passion Plays, in Macbeth.
Three Witches, MacBeth, by James Henry Nixon, British Museum (1831). The concept of the Three Witches themselves may have been influenced by an Old Norse skaldic poem, [5] in which twelve valkyries weave and choose who is to be slain at the Battle of Clontarf (fought outside Dublin in 1014).
Macbeth was a favourite of the seventeenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys, who saw the play on 5 November 1664 ("admirably acted"), 28 December 1666 ("most excellently acted"), ten days later on 7 January 1667 ("though I saw it lately, yet [it] appears a most excellent play in all respects"), on 19 April 1667 ("one of the best plays for a stage ...
Macbeth recruiting the first two murderers, in a 1936 Harlem production of the play. The first two murderers are recruited by Macbeth in 3.1. In 3.3, the Three Murderers meet in a park outside of the palace, and the first two do not know the Third: [1] First Murderer. But who did bid thee join with us? Third Murderer. Macbeth. Second Murderer ...
Some regard her as becoming more powerful than Macbeth when she does this, because she is able to manipulate him into doing what she wants. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes and kills herself offstage. Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts.
Fleance and his father Banquo are both fictional characters presented as historical fact by the Scottish historian Hector Boece, whose Scotorum Historiae (1526–27) was a source for Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, [1] a history of the British Isles popular in Shakespeare's time.
In Act 1.4, Duncan declares Malcolm to be his heir ("We will establish our estate upon / Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter The Prince of Cumberland" – Duncan, Act 1.4 37–39). This act frustrates Macbeth. [3] Malcolm is a guest at Macbeth's castle when Macbeth kills Malcolm's father, Duncan, in Act 2.2. [3]