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The Tragedie of Macbeth

Title page of the part in the First Folio.
Author	William Shakespeare
Language	English
Genre	Shakespearean tragedy Tragedy
Set in	Scotland and England (Act IV, Scene III)
Publisher	Edward Blount and William Jaggard
Publication date	1623
Publication place	London, England
Text	The Tragedie of Macbeth at Wikisource

The Tragedy of Macbeth, often shortened to Macbeth (/məkˈbɛθ/), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambitions to power. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Scholars believe Macbeth, of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of King James I, contains the most allusions to James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company.

In the play, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to violence by his wife, Macbeth murders the king and takes the Scottish throne for himself. Then, racked with guilt and paranoia, he commits more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, soon becoming a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath swiftly takes Macbeth and his wife towards madness and death.

Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy have been associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". The play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comics, and other media.

Characters

• Duncan – king of Scotland
• Malcolm – Duncan's elder son
• Donalbain – Duncan's younger son
• Macbeth – a general in the army of King Duncan; originally Thane of Glamis, then Thane of Cawdor, and later king of Scotland
• Lady Macbeth – Macbeth's wife, and later queen of Scotland
• Banquo – Macbeth's friend and a general in the army of King Duncan
• Fleance – Banquo's son
• Macduff – Thane of Fife
• Lady Macduff – Macduff's wife
• Macduff's son – a young boy
• Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, Caithness – Scottish thanes
• Siward – general of the English forces
• Young Siward – Siward's son
• Seyton – Macbeth's armourer and chief servant
• Hecate – queen of the witches
• Three Witches – three mysterious women who approach Macbeth and prophesy his fate
• Captain – in the Scottish army
• Murderers – employed by Macbeth
  • First and Second Murderers
  • Third Murderer – sent by Macbeth to assist the first two murderers
• Porter – gatekeeper at Macbeth's home
• Doctor – Lady Macbeth's doctor
• Doctor – at the English court
• Gentlewoman – Lady Macbeth's caretaker
• Lord – opposed to Macbeth
• First Apparition – armed head
• Second Apparition – bloody child
• Third Apparition – crowned child
• Attendants, Messengers, Servants, Soldiers

Plot

Act I

Amid thunder and lightning, three witches decide that their next meeting will be with Macbeth, the Thane (Lord) of Glamis. In the following scene, soldiers report to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals Banquo and Macbeth have just defeated a rebellion allied with forces from Norway and Ireland and led by the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. Duncan praises his kinsmen for their bravery and fighting prowess.

As Macbeth and Banquo wander on a heath, the three witches appear and hail Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis" and "Thane of Cawdor", next saying he shall "be king hereafter". When Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches respond that Banquo will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. The witches vanish, and the Thane of Ross arrives, informing Macbeth of his newly bestowed title from the king: Thane of Cawdor. The witches' first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth, previously sceptical, immediately begins to harbour nervous ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan himself soon welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, declaring that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle in Inverness; Duncan also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a letter ahead to his wife, telling her about the witches' pronouncements. Lady Macbeth is resolute that she and her husband should murder Duncan in order for Macbeth to obtain the crown. When Macbeth arrives in Inverness, she persuades him to kill the king that very night. They plan to get Duncan's two chamber attendants drunk so that they will black out; thus, the next morning they can frame the attendants for the murder.

Act II

That night, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a hallucination of a blood-smeared dagger, Macbeth goes offstage and stabs the sleeping Duncan to death. Returning, he is so shaken that Lady Macbeth finds him accidentally still holding the bloody daggers, which she scolds him for, reminding him they must be left on Duncan's sleeping servants. She takes the knives and places them back in Duncan's chamber. When the Macbeths hear knocking at the castle gate, they hurry to bed.

A drunken porter opens the gate, admitting a nobleman named Lennox and Macduff, the Thane of Fife. Macbeth then greets them and leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff is shocked to discover Duncan's body. Macbeth and Lennox rush into the chamber, where Macbeth (offstage) impulsively kills the attendants to prevent them from professing their innocence, but he soon after announces that he did so in a fit of anger as revenge for them murdering Duncan. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that they will be killed next. Their flight makes them the main suspects in the king's death, and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland offstage, being Duncan's next of kin. Banquo remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne; this makes him suspicious that Macbeth might be Duncan's true killer.

Act III

Despite his success, Macbeth, also aware of the prophecy relating to Banquo, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet and discovers that Banquo and his young son Fleance will be riding out that night. Macbeth arranges to have Banquo and Fleance murdered, by hiring two men and later adding a third murderer to the plan. During the ambush, the murderers succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth is furious that an heir of Banquo remains alive.

At the banquet, Macbeth has invited his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment, though Macduff has refused to come. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is visible only to him. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth lies that her husband is merely afflicted with a harmless lifelong illness. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger and fear in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth demands that the visitors to leave. Elsewhere, Hecate, queen of witchcraft, scolds the three witches for helping Macbeth, especially without consulting her. Hecate instructs the witches to next give Macbeth a false sense of security and overconfidence. Through verbal irony, Lennox reveals to another lord his suspicions that Macbeth is a murdering tyrant and they discuss how Macduff, refusing to attend Macbeth's banquet, has gone to England to find allies who will help overthrow Macbeth.

Act IV

Macbeth visits the three witches and asks them to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. They summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers predictions and further prophecies to put Macbeth's fears at rest. First, they conjure an armoured head, which tells him to beware of Macduff (IV.i.72). Second, a bloody child tells him that no one born of a woman will be able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure because he knows that all men are born of women and forests cannot possibly move. However, the witches also conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings, and finally the ghost of Banquo pointing to the procession. Macbeth realises that these are all Banquo's descendants who will acquire kingships in numerous countries.

Macbeth orders the disobedient Macduff's castle seized and sends assassins who slaughter all its inhabitants, including Macduff's young son and Lady Macduff. Macduff, meanwhile, is meeting with Prince Malcolm in England to discuss Macbeth's tyrannical regime. Malcolm, who must be cautious for any traps, confesses that he would be a terrible leader if the crown were restored to him, but this is merely a lie to see how Macduff will react. Macduff shows that he is more loyal to Scotland than any particular leader, impressing Malcolm, who now reveals the lie and says Macduff has won his trust. The Thane of Ross arrives to deliver the horrible news to Macduff that his "castle is surprised, your wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd" (IV.iii.204–205). With this news of his family's murders, Macduff is stricken with grief, but he is quickly provoked to vengeance by Malcolm who explains that he, with the help of the English King Edward, has raised an army. Together, they can take back the Scottish throne.

Act V

At night, in the royal palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth's sudden frightening habit of sleepwalking. Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand, bemoaning the recent murders and trying to wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands. Her observers marvel at her guilt-ridden confessions. Meanwhile, Prince Malcolm's allied forces plan to join up at Birnam Wood, additionally supported by Macduff and defecting Scottish thanes alarmed by Macbeth's barbarities. While encamped in Birnam Wood, Malcolm orders his soldiers to cut down and carry tree boughs to camouflage their numbers.

As Macbeth readies for the attack, he receives news that his wife has suddenly died, causing him to deliver a despairing and now-famous "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy (V.v.17–28). Still, he is emboldened by the witches' seeming guarantee of his invincibility against any "man of woman born", until a servant reports that Malcolm's army is advancing on Dunsinane in the form of moving trees. As the invaders take his castle, Macbeth is confronted by Macduff, whom he taunts for not being born of a woman. Macduff reveals that he was born by Caesarean section and thus did not have a natural childbirth. In the ensuing duel with Macduff, Macbeth is killed offstage. Macduff reappears with Macbeth's severed head, and Malcolm discusses how order has been restored. He implies that Lady Macbeth's death was a suicide, declares his benevolent intentions for the country, promotes his thanes to earls, and invites all to see him crowned at Scone.

Sources for the play

A principal source comes from the Daemonologie of King James published in 1597 which included a news pamphlet titled Newes from Scotland that detailed the famous North Berwick witch trials of 1590. The publication of Daemonologie came just a few years before the tragedy of Macbeth with the themes and setting in a direct and comparative contrast with King James' personal obsessions with witchcraft, which developed following his conclusion that the stormy weather that threatened his passage from Denmark to Scotland was a targeted attack. Not only did the subsequent trials take place in Scotland, the women accused were recorded, under torture, of having conducted rituals with the same mannerisms as the three witches. One of the evidenced passages is referenced when the women under trial confessed to attempt the use of witchcraft to raise a tempest and sabotage the boat King James and his queen were on board during their return trip from Denmark. The three witches discuss the raising of winds at sea in the opening lines of Act 1 Scene 3.

Macbeth has been compared to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. As characters, both Antony and Macbeth seek a new world, even at the cost of the old one. Both fight for a throne and have a 'nemesis' to face to achieve that throne. For Antony, the nemesis is Octavius; for Macbeth, it is Banquo. At one point Macbeth even compares himself to Antony, saying "under Banquo / My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said / Mark Antony's was by Caesar." Lastly, both plays contain powerful and manipulative female figures: Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth.

Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in Holinshed's Chronicles, a popular history of the British Isles well known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In Chronicles, a man named Donwald finds several of his family put to death by his king, Duff, for dealing with witches. After being pressured by his wife, he and four of his servants kill the king in his own house. In Chronicles, Macbeth is portrayed as struggling to support the kingdom in the face of King Duncan's ineptitude. He and Banquo meet the three witches, who make exactly the same prophecies as in Shakespeare's version. Macbeth and Banquo then together plot the murder of Duncan, at Lady Macbeth's urging. Macbeth has a long, ten-year reign before eventually being overthrown by Macduff and Malcolm. The parallels between the two versions are clear. However, some scholars think that George Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia matches Shakespeare's version more closely. Buchanan's work was available in Latin in Shakespeare's day.

No medieval account of the reign of Macbeth mentions the Weird Sisters, Banquo, or Lady Macbeth, and with the exception of the latter none actually existed. The characters of Banquo, the Weird Sisters, and Lady Macbeth were first mentioned in 1527 by a Scottish historian Hector Boece in his book Historia Gentis Scotorum (History of the Scottish People) who wanted to denigrate Macbeth in order to strengthen the claim of the House of Stewart to the Scottish throne. Boece portrayed Banquo as an ancestor of the Stewart kings of Scotland, adding in a "prophecy" that the descendants of Banquo would be the rightful kings of Scotland while the Weird Sisters served to give a picture of King Macbeth as gaining the throne via dark supernatural forces. Macbeth did have a wife, but it is not clear if she was as power-hungry and ambitious as Boece portrayed her, which served his purpose of having even Macbeth realise he lacked a proper claim to the throne, and only took it at the urging of his wife. Holinshed accepted Boece's version of Macbeth's reign at face value and included it in his Chronicles. Shakespeare saw the dramatic possibilities in the story as related by Holinshed, and used it as the basis for the play.

No other version of the story has Macbeth kill the king in Macbeth's own castle. Scholars have seen this change of Shakespeare's as adding to the darkness of Macbeth's crime as the worst violation of hospitality. Versions of the story that were common at the time had Duncan being killed in an ambush at Inverness, not in a castle. Shakespeare conflated the story of Donwald and King Duff in what was a significant change to the story.

Shakespeare made another important change. In Chronicles, Banquo is an accomplice in Macbeth's murder of King Duncan, and plays an important part in ensuring that Macbeth, not Malcolm, takes the throne in the coup that follows. In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to be an ancestor of the Stuart King James I. (In the 19th century it was established that Banquo is an unhistorical character; the Stuarts are actually descended from a Breton family which migrated to Scotland slightly later than Macbeth's time.) The Banquo portrayed in earlier sources is significantly different from the Banquo created by Shakespeare. Critics have proposed several reasons for this change. First, to portray the king's ancestor as a murderer would have been risky. Other authors of the time who wrote about Banquo, such as Jean de Schelandre in his Stuartide, also changed history by portraying Banquo as a noble man, not a murderer, probably for the same reasons. Second, Shakespeare may have altered Banquo's character simply because there was no dramatic need for another accomplice to the murder; there was, however, a need to give a dramatic contrast to Macbeth—a role which many scholars argue is filled by Banquo.

Other scholars maintain that a strong argument can be made for associating the tragedy with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. As presented by Harold Bloom in 2008: "cholars cite the existence of several topical references in Macbeth to the events of that year, namely the execution of the Father Henry Garnet for his alleged complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, as referenced in the porter's scene." Those arrested for their role in the Gunpowder Plot refused to give direct answers to the questions posed to them by their interrogators, which reflected the influence of the Jesuit practice of equivocation. Shakespeare, by having Macbeth say that demons "palter...in a double sense" and "keep the promise to our ear/And break it to our hope", confirmed James's belief that equivocation was a "wicked" practice, which reflected in turn the "wickedness" of the Catholic Church. Garnet had in his possession A Treatise on Equivocation, and in the play the Weird Sisters often engage in equivocation, for instance telling Macbeth that he could never be overthrown until "Great Birnan wood to high Dunsinane hill/Shall Come". Macbeth interprets the prophecy as meaning never, but in fact, the Three Sisters refer only to branches of the trees of Great Birnam coming to Dunsinane hill. The inspiration for this prophecy may have originated with the Battle of Droizy; both that battle and Macbeth may have, in turn, inspired J. R. R. Tolkien's tree herders, the Ents in his novels The Lord of the Rings.

Date and text

Macbeth cannot be dated precisely, but it is usually taken to be contemporaneous to the other canonical tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. While some scholars have placed the original writing of the play as early as 1599, most believe that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603 as the play is widely seen to celebrate King James' ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo), suggesting that the parade of eight kings—which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV—is a compliment to King James. Many scholars think the play was written in 1606 in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, citing possible internal allusions to the 1605 plot and its ensuing trials. In fact, there are a great number of allusions and possible pieces of evidence alluding to the Plot, and, for this reason, a great many critics agree that Macbeth was written in the year 1606. Lady Macbeth's instructions to her husband, "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" (1.5.74–75), may be an allusion to a medal that was struck in 1605 to commemorate King James' escape that depicted a serpent hiding among lilies and roses.

Particularly, the Porter's speech (2.3.1–21) in which he welcomes an "equivocator", a farmer, and a tailor to hell (2.3.8–13), has been argued to be an allusion to the 28 March 1606 trial and execution on 3 May 1606 of the Jesuit Henry Garnet, who used the alias "Farmer", with "equivocator" referring to Garnet's defence of "equivocation". The porter says that the equivocator "committed treason enough for God's sake" (2.3.9–10), which specifically connects equivocation and treason and ties it to the Jesuit belief that equivocation was only lawful when used "for God's sake", strengthening the allusion to Garnet. The porter goes on to say that the equivocator "yet could not equivocate to heaven" (2.3.10–11), echoing grim jokes that were current on the eve of Garnet's execution: i.e. that Garnet would be "hanged without equivocation" and at his execution he was asked "not to equivocate with his last breath". The "English tailor" the porter admits to hell (2.3.13), has been seen as an allusion to Hugh Griffin, a tailor who was questioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 27 November and 3 December 1607 for the part he played in Garnet's "miraculous straw", an infamous head of straw that was stained with Garnet's blood that had congealed into a form resembling Garnet's portrait, which was hailed by Catholics as a miracle. The tailor Griffin became notorious and the subject of verses published with his portrait on the title page.

When James became king of England, a feeling of uncertainty settled over the nation. James was a Scottish king and the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a staunch Catholic and English traitor. In the words of critic Robert Crawford, "Macbeth was a play for a post-Elizabethan England facing up to what it might mean to have a Scottish king. England seems comparatively benign, while its northern neighbour is mired in a bloody, monarch-killing past. ... Macbeth may have been set in medieval Scotland, but it was filled with material of interest to England and England's ruler." Critics argue that the content of the play is clearly a message to James, the new Scottish King of England. Likewise, the critic Andrew Hadfield noted the contrast the play draws between the saintly King Edward the Confessor of England who has the power of the royal touch to cure scrofula and whose realm is portrayed as peaceful and prosperous versus the bloody chaos of Scotland. James in his 1598 book The Trew Law of Free Monarchies had asserted that kings are always right, if not just, and his subjects owe him total loyalty at all times, writing that even if a king is a tyrant, his subjects must never rebel and just endure his tyranny for their own good. James had argued that the tyranny was preferable to the problems caused by rebellion which were even worse; Shakespeare by contrast in Macbeth argued for the right of the subjects to overthrow a tyrant king, in what appeared to be an implied criticism of James's theories if applied to England. Hadfield also noted a curious aspect of the play in that it implies that primogeniture is the norm in Scotland, but Duncan has to nominate his son Malcolm to be his successor while Macbeth is accepted without protest by the Scottish lords (thanes) as their king despite being an usurper. Hadfield argued this aspect of the play with the thanes apparently choosing their king was a reference to the Stuart claim to the English throne, and the attempts of the English Parliament to block the succession of James's Catholic mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, from succeeding to the English throne. Hadfield argued that Shakespeare implied that James was indeed the rightful king of England, but owed his throne not to divine favour as James would have it, but rather due to the willingness of the English Parliament to accept the Protestant son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, as their king.

Garry Wills provides further evidence that Macbeth is a Gunpowder Play (a type of play that emerged immediately following the events of the Gunpowder Plot). He points out that every Gunpowder Play contains "a necromancy scene, regicide attempted or completed, references to equivocation, scenes that test loyalty by use of deceptive language, and a character who sees through plots—along with a vocabulary similar to the Plot in its immediate aftermath (words like train, blow, vault) and an ironic recoil of the Plot upon the Plotters (who fall into the pit they dug)."

The play utilizes a few key words that the audience at the time would recognize as allusions to the Plot. In one sermon in 1605, Lancelot Andrewes stated, regarding the failure of the Plotters on God's day, "Be they fair or foul, glad or sad (as the poet calleth Him) the great Diespiter, 'the Father of days' hath made them both." Shakespeare begins the play by using the words "fair" and "foul" in the first speeches of the witches and Macbeth. In the words of Jonathan Gil Harris, the play expresses the "horror unleashed by a supposedly loyal subject who seeks to kill a king and the treasonous role of equivocation. The play even echoes certain keywords from the scandal—the 'vault' beneath the House of Parliament in which Guy Fawkes stored thirty kegs of gunpowder and the 'blow' about which one of the conspirators had secretly warned a relative who planned to attend the House of Parliament on 5 November...Even though the Plot is never alluded to directly, its presence is everywhere in the play, like a pervasive odor."

Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at Oxford in the summer of 1605 that featured three "sibyls" like the weird sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the weird sisters. However, A. R. Braunmuller in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605–06 arguments inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603.

One suggested allusion supporting a date in late 1606 is the first witch's dialogue about a sailor's wife: "'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries./Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger" (1.3.6–7). This has been thought to allude to the Tiger, a ship that returned to England 27 June 1606 after a disastrous voyage in which many of the crew were killed by pirates. A few lines later the witch speaks of the sailor, "He shall live a man forbid:/Weary se'nnights nine times nine" (1.3.21–22). The real ship was at sea 567 days, the product of 7x9x9, which has been taken as a confirmation of the allusion, which if correct, confirms that the witch scenes were either written or amended later than July 1606.

The play is not considered to have been written any later than 1607, since, as Kermode notes, there are "fairly clear allusions to the play in 1607". One notable reference is in Francis Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle, first performed in 1607. The following lines (Act V, Scene 1, 24–30) are, according to scholars, a clear allusion to the scene in which Banquo's ghost haunts Macbeth at the dinner table:

When thou art at thy table with thy friends,
Merry in heart, and filled with swelling wine,
I'll come in midst of all thy pride and mirth,
Invisible to all men but thyself,
And whisper such a sad tale in thine ear
Shall make thee let the cup fall from thy hand,
And stand as mute and pale as death itself.

Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio of 1623 and the Folio is the only source for the text. Some scholars contend that the Folio text was abridged and rearranged from an earlier manuscript or prompt book. Often cited as interpolation are stage cues for two songs, whose lyrics are not included in the Folio but are included in Thomas Middleton's play The Witch, which was written between the accepted date for Macbeth (1606) and the printing of the Folio. Many scholars believe these songs were editorially inserted into the Folio, though whether they were Middleton's songs or preexisting songs is not certain. It is also widely believed that the character of Hecate, as well as some lines of the First Witch (4.1 124–131), were not part of Shakespeare's original play but were added by the Folio editors and possibly written by Middleton, though "there is no completely objective proof" of such interpolation.

Themes and motifs

"Macbeth
The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."

Macbeth is an anomaly among Shakespeare's tragedies in certain critical ways. It is short: more than a thousand lines shorter than Othello and King Lear, and only slightly more than half as long as Hamlet. This brevity has suggested to many critics that the received version is based on a heavily cut source, perhaps a prompt-book for a particular performance. This would reflect other Shakespeare plays existing in both Quarto and the Folio, where the Quarto versions are usually longer than the Folio versions. Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio, but has no Quarto version – if there were a Quarto, it would probably be longer than the Folio version. That brevity has also been connected to other unusual features: the fast pace of the first act, which has seemed to be "stripped for action"; and the comparative flatness of the characters other than Macbeth. A. C. Bradley, in considering this question, concluded the play "always was an extremely short one", noting the witch scenes and battle scenes would have taken up some time in performance, remarking, "I do not think that, in reading, we feel Macbeth to be short: certainly we are astonished when we hear it is about half as long as Hamlet. Perhaps in the Shakespearean theatre too it seemed to occupy a longer time than the clock recorded."

As a tragedy of character

At least since the days of Samuel Johnson, analysis of the play has centred on the question of Macbeth's ambition, commonly seen as so dominant a trait that it defines the character. Johnson asserted that Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled.

This opinion recurs in critical literature, and, according to Caroline Spurgeon, is supported by Shakespeare himself, who apparently intended to degrade his hero by vesting him with clothes unsuited to him and to make Macbeth look ridiculous by several exaggerations he applies: his garments seem either too big or too small for him – as his ambition is too big and his character too small for his new and unrightful role as king. After Macbeth is unexpectedly greeted with his new title as Thane of Cawdor as prophesied by the witches, Banquo comments:

New honours come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould,
But with the aid of use

— I, 3, ll. 145–146

And, at the end, when the tyrant is at bay at Dunsinane, Caithness sees him as a man trying in vain to fasten a large garment on him with too small a belt:

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule

— V, 2, ll. 14–15

while Angus sums up what everybody thinks ever since Macbeth's accession to power:

now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
upon a dwarfish thief

— V, 2, ll. 18–20).

Like Richard III, but without that character's perversely appealing exuberance, Macbeth wades through blood until his inevitable fall. As Kenneth Muir writes, "Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder; he has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown." Some critics, such as E. E. Stoll, explain this characterisation as a holdover from Senecan or medieval tradition. Shakespeare's audience, in this view, expected villains to be wholly bad, and Senecan style, far from prohibiting a villainous protagonist, all but demanded it.

Yet for other critics, it has not been so easy to resolve the question of Macbeth's motivation. Robert Bridges, for instance, perceived a paradox: a character able to express such convincing horror before Duncan's murder would likely be incapable of committing the crime. For many critics, Macbeth's motivations in the first act appear vague and insufficient. John Dover Wilson hypothesised that Shakespeare's original text had an extra scene or scenes where husband and wife discussed their plans. This interpretation is not fully provable; however, the motivating role of ambition for Macbeth is universally recognised. The evil actions motivated by his ambition seem to trap him in a cycle of increasing evil, as Macbeth himself recognises:

I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

— III, 4, ll. 165–167

While working on Russian translations of Shakespeare's works, Boris Pasternak compared Macbeth to Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Pasternak argues that "neither Macbeth or Raskolnikov is a born criminal or a villain by nature. They are turned into criminals by faulty rationalizations, by deductions from false premises." He goes on to argue that Lady Macbeth is "feminine ... one of those active, insistent wives" who becomes her husband's "executive, more resolute and consistent than he is himself". According to Pasternak, she is only helping Macbeth carry out his own wishes, to her own detriment.