Summary of Macbeth

Generals Macbeth and Banquo crush a revolt against King Duncan of Scotland in an engagement in which Macbeth fights with great valour. On their way back to the king's castle, they happen upon three witches in the blackness of a heath during a thunderstorm. The witches predict Macbeth will one day become king. They also predict that Banquo will beget a line of kings, although he himself will not ascend the throne. After Macbeth presents himself before Duncan, the king heaps praises on the general for his battlefield prowess and announces he will visit Macbeth at his castle.

Later, at home, Macbeth cannot stop thinking about the witches' prediction: ME, KING! Intoxicated with the thought of wearing the crown, Macbeth decides to hasten history along: He will murder Duncan. Macbeth's wife, Lady Macbeth, applauds his plan. But she worries that he is ''too full o' the milk of human kindness'' to carry through with the murder.

After Duncan arrives at Macbeth's castle with his sons and his entourage, Macbeth has second thoughts about the murder plot during supper and leaves the table to battle his conscience. Lady Macbeth follows. ''We will proceed no further in this business,'' Macbeth tells his wife. ''He [Duncan] hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon.'' But Lady Macbeth holds him to his vow to kill Duncan, saying, ''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 so sworn as you have done to this.'' Macbeth, swayed, asks her: ''If we should fail?'' She answers, ''But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail.''

At midnight, while King Duncan sleeps, Lady Macbeth drugs the king's guards and rings a bell signalling Macbeth that all is ready. Using a dagger of one of the guards, Macbeth murders Duncan, and Lady Macbeth smears blood on the sleeping guards.

Early in the morning, a nobleman named Macduff calls at the castle to visit King Duncan. ''O horror, horror, horror!'' he exclaims upon entering Duncan's room and discovering the body. Before anyone can investigate, Macbeth kills the guards, claiming their bloodied daggers are proof that they committed the foul deed.

Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, do not for a moment believe Macbeth. However, fearing for their own lives, they flee Scotland. Their hasty departure makes them appear guilty, so the crown passes to the nearest eligible kin, Macbeth. But now that he is king, Macbeth cannot rest easy. He remembers too well the prophecy of the witches that Banquo will father a kingly line. So Macbeth sends hired assassins to murder Banquo and his son as they travel to Macbeth's castle for a great feast. Ambushing their prey, the assassins slay Banquo ''with twenty trenched gashes on his head,'' but his son, Fleance, escapes.

Just as the feast begins, one of the assassins gives Macbeth the news. When Macbeth sits down to eat, the bloodied ghost of Banquo appears to him but to no one else. Macbeth begins to act and speak strangely, and one guest, Ross, says, ''Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.'' But Lady Macbeth entreats the guests to remain in their seats, for ''my lord is often thus, and hath been from his youth. . . . The fit is momentary; upon a thought he will be well again.'' After the ghost vanishes, Macbeth regains himself and tells his guests that he has a strange infirmity ''which is nothing to those that know me.'' The ghost then reappears and Macbeth shouts, ''Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; thou hast no speculation in those eyes which thou dost glare with!'' When Ross questions Macbeth about what he has seen, Lady Macbeth says the king's fit has grown worse, and she sends the guests away.

Later, preoccupied with the fear of being discovered, Macbeth begins to suspect that Macduff - who refused to attend the feast - is onto him. When Macbeth meets with the witches again, an apparition tells him he has good reason to fear Macduff. But the witches also ease his fears when another apparition tells him that no man born of woman can harm him. He is also told that no one can conquer him until Birnham Wood comes to Dunsinane.

After the meeting, Macbeth learns that Macduff is urging Duncan's son, Malcolm, to reclaim the throne. In revenge, Macbeth has Macduff's wife and son murdered. When Macduff hears the terrible news, he organizes an army to bring down Macbeth.

Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth's conscience - long absent earlier - now begins to torture her. She talks to herself and hallucinates, imagining that her hands are covered with blood.

After Macduff's forces arrive at Birnham Wood and advance on the castle at Dunsinane, Macbeth prepares for battle just as Lady Macbeth's battle with her conscience ends in suicide. As they advance, Macduff's invaders cut branches of trees to hold in front of them for disguise. Birnham Wood is coming to Dunsinane, just as the witches predicted!

Finally, Macbeth meets Macduff in hand-to-hand combat, bragging that he will win the day because ''none born of woman'' can harm him. Macduff then reveals that he was not ''of woman born'' but was ''untimely ripp'd'' from his mother's womb. Macduff then kills Macbeth, and Malcolm becomes king.