Study notes for BEGC-133 Block 1 Unit 3. Covers Act III: "To be thus is nothing" soliloquy, the murder of Banquo and Fleance's escape, the banquet scene with Banquo's ghost, "blood will have blood," Hecate's warning "security is mortal's chiefest enemy"; Act IV: the three witches' cauldron scene "double double toil and trouble," three apparitions with hidden meanings diagram (armed head = beware Macduff, bloody child = none of woman born, crowned child + tree = Birnam Wood), pageant of eight kings, the brutal murder of Lady Macduff and her son, Scotland sick vs England healer with King Edward; Act V: the sleepwalking scene "Out damned spot" and "perfumes of Arabia," the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy analysis, Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane, Macduff "untimely ripped" from his mother's womb, Macbeth's death, Malcolm crowned, with spiral of violence diagram and all 7 unit-end questions answered. Free PDF download
Macbeth is now king — but the crown gives him no peace. In Acts III, IV and V we watch his rule fall apart through more murders, ghostly visions, and the witches' tricky promises, until the play reaches its tragic end.
Macbeth is now king, but he is filled with fear. The witches said Banquo's children would be kings, not Macbeth's. This thought eats at him. In a key soliloquy he says:
To stop the prophecy, Macbeth hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. He cleverly turns the murderers against Banquo by blaming Banquo for their poverty and bad luck. The murderers kill Banquo — but Fleance escapes. This is a disaster for Macbeth, because it means Banquo's line can still survive, exactly as the witches predicted.
This is one of the most famous scenes in the play. Macbeth holds a royal feast. Just as he is playing the proud host, the ghost of Banquo appears and sits in Macbeth's own chair. Only Macbeth can see it. He panics and speaks wildly to the empty seat, frightening his guests.
Lady Macbeth tries to save the situation. She tells the nobles that Macbeth has had "fits" since childhood, and privately scolds him, comparing his fear to "a woman's story at winter's fire". But Macbeth cannot control himself. Finally Lady Macbeth ends the feast and tells the guests to leave at once, without following their proper order of rank — another sign that order is breaking down. Macbeth senses the doom closing in:
In Scene 5, Hecate, the queen of the witches, scolds the three witches for dealing with Macbeth without including her. She plans to draw Macbeth deeper into false confidence. Her most important line is a warning about what destroys people:
Meanwhile the nobles, like Lennox, grow suspicious. They begin to see how Duncan and Banquo both died conveniently for Macbeth, and they learn that Malcolm is gathering help in England.
The act opens with the witches around a boiling cauldron, chanting their famous spell:
Macbeth comes to demand his future. The witches show him three apparitions (ghostly visions), each giving a prophecy. The problem is that Macbeth understands them in the easy, comforting way — but each one has a hidden, opposite meaning (equivocation):
The witches also show Macbeth a pageant of eight kings, with Banquo smiling at the end — proof that Banquo's family will rule. Macbeth is horrified. Hearing that Macduff has fled to England, Macbeth makes a cruel decision — to seize Macduff's castle and kill his wife and children. From now on, he says, he will act on his cruel impulses at once, without thinking.
The scene moves to Macduff's castle. Lady Macduff is angry and hurt that her husband has run away to England, leaving them unprotected — she says even a tiny wren fights to protect its young. There is a touching, witty conversation between her and her clever little son, which makes the tragedy that follows even more painful. The murderers arrive and brutally kill the boy and his mother. This scene shows clearly how Macbeth's violence now destroys completely innocent people.
In England, Malcolm and Macduff meet. Scotland is described as a sick, bleeding country under the "tyrant" Macbeth. To test whether Macduff is truly loyal (and not a spy), Malcolm pretends he himself would be an even worse, greedier king. When Macduff cries that such a man is not fit to rule or even to live, Malcolm is satisfied that Macduff is a true patriot, and reveals he was only testing him.
This scene also praises the English king (King Edward), who is so holy that he can cure disease by his touch ("the evil"). The contrast is clear: Scotland is sick under a tyrant, while England heals. At the end, Macduff learns his family has been murdered. His grief turns into a fierce desire for revenge against Macbeth, the "fiend of Scotland".
The last act opens with Lady Macbeth, once so strong, now broken by guilt. A doctor and a gentlewoman watch her walk in her sleep, rubbing her hands as if washing them, trying to remove invisible bloodstains:
The doctor realises her illness is of the soul, not the body — "More needs she the divine than the physician." Her final words, "What's done cannot be undone," show her despair. Soon after, she dies.
Macbeth, hearing of his wife's death, gives the play's most famous speech on the emptiness of life:
Then the witches' tricks unravel. A messenger reports that Birnam Wood is moving toward Dunsinane — Malcolm's soldiers have cut branches to hide behind. Macbeth realises the prophecy was an "equivocation". Still, he clings to the promise that "none of woman born" can harm him. But when he faces Macduff, Macduff reveals he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd" — born by surgery, not normal birth. Macbeth understands the final trick. He calls the witches "juggling fiends", fights bravely, and is killed by Macduff.
The play ends with Macduff carrying Macbeth's head, and Malcolm crowned king at Scone. But notice the uneasy ending: Macduff now stands beside Malcolm just as Macbeth once stood beside Duncan. The crown has again been won through violence. We are left wondering whether this cycle of bloodshed will ever truly end.
| Word | Simple meaning |
|---|---|
| Barren sceptre | The idea that Macbeth will have no children to become kings after him. |
| Apparition | A ghostly vision or spirit that appears, often carrying a message. |
| Equivocation | A statement with a double meaning — true in one sense but misleading in another. |
| Parricide | The killing of a father (here, the killing of the king). |
| Juggling fiends | Macbeth's name for the witches — deceptive spirits who fooled him with double meanings. |
| Palter | To trick or deal dishonestly with someone using double talk. |
| Twofold balls, treble sceptres | Royal symbols pointing to King James I, who united the thrones of England and Scotland. |
| Boundless intemperance | Extreme over-indulgence and lack of self-control. |
| Hecate | The queen or chief of the witches in the play. |
All the questions from this unit, answered in clear and simple language for your exam.
The Banquet Scene (Act 3, Scene 4) is the turning point in Macbeth's reign. Macbeth hosts a royal feast to look like a proud, secure king. But just as he plays the gracious host, the ghost of Banquo — whom he has just had murdered — appears and sits in Macbeth's own chair. Only Macbeth can see it.
The scene works on several levels. First, it shows Macbeth's guilt and mental breakdown: the ghost is a sign of his troubled conscience, just like the floating dagger earlier. Second, it shows his fear, because the ghost reminds him both of his crime and of Fleance's surviving claim to the throne. Third, it shows the collapse of order: Lady Macbeth has to send the guests away in a rush, without their proper rank — a small but powerful sign that Macbeth's kingdom is falling apart.
We also see the roles reversing: earlier Lady Macbeth was the strong one; here she struggles to control her husband, while Macbeth slips out of control. The scene ends with Macbeth's grim line "blood will have blood", showing he now knows there is no escape from the cycle of murder.
No — and this is exactly the witches' trap. In Act 4, Scene 1, the witches show Macbeth three apparitions, each with a double meaning. Macbeth understands them only in the comforting, surface way and misses the hidden truth (the "equivocation"):
So Macbeth completely misreads the prophecies. They give him a false sense of safety (just as Hecate planned: "security is mortal's chiefest enemy"), which makes him careless and leads to his downfall. Only at the very end does he understand that the witches "palter with us in a double sense".
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene (Act 5, Scene 1) reveals the terrible guilt hidden inside her. Earlier she seemed cold and fearless — she even mocked Macbeth for his weakness. Now, in her sleep, her true inner state comes out. She keeps rubbing her hands, trying to wash off imaginary blood, crying "Out, damned spot!" and "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."
This has several important implications. It shows that Lady Macbeth was not truly heartless — the crimes have crushed her mind. It also shows a complete reversal: the woman who once said "a little water clears us of this deed" can now never feel clean again. Her broken speech moves from Duncan to Banquo to Lady Macduff, as if all the murders are crowding into her mind. The doctor's comment — "More needs she the divine than the physician" — tells us her sickness is of the soul, beyond any medicine. Her guilt finally destroys her, leading to her death.
Hecate is the queen (chief) of the witches. Her monologue forms the whole of Act 3, Scene 5. In it, she scolds the three witches for dealing with Macbeth on their own, without inviting her, the "mistress of your charms". She is annoyed that they helped a "wayward son" — Macbeth — who acts only for his own selfish ends.
Hecate then announces her plan: she will meet Macbeth and use magic to create "artificial sprites" (the apparitions) that will draw him "on to his confusion". The key idea in her speech is her warning about overconfidence: "security / Is mortal's chiefest enemy." In other words, the witches will make Macbeth feel too safe, so that he becomes careless and destroys himself.
The monologue is important because it shows that the witches are not just random fortune-tellers — they are deliberately plotting Macbeth's downfall. It also deepens the play's dark, supernatural mood and prepares us for the tricky apparitions of Act 4. (Some scholars think this scene was added later by another writer, but it still fits the play's themes well.)
Equivocation means speaking with a double meaning, so that words are true in one sense but misleading in another. It is one of the central themes of Macbeth and appears again and again:
At the end, Macbeth finally understands he was fooled, calling the witches "juggling fiends" who "palter with us in a double sense". Equivocation reflects the play's larger world — a world where old certainties are breaking down, and where truth and lies, fair and foul, can no longer be easily told apart.
The witches make predictions in two main meetings. In Act 1, they hail Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and "king hereafter", and tell Banquo his descendants will be kings. In Act 4, the three apparitions warn him to beware Macduff, tell him "none of woman born" can harm him, and say he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.
Almost all of these come true — but often in surprising, twisted ways:
So the prophecies are realised, but the witches use equivocation — true words with hidden meanings — to lead Macbeth into a false sense of safety and, finally, to his death.
One of the play's deepest ideas is that violence and the state (the government) are tied together in a troubling way. At the very start, Macbeth is praised as a hero for killing rebels and enemies — his violence is "good" because it defends King Duncan's state. The same bloody bravery that the state rewards is later turned against the state when Macbeth murders Duncan to seize the crown.
Once Macbeth is king, his rule is held up only by more violence — killing Banquo, then Macduff's innocent family. This shows how a throne won by blood must keep spilling blood to survive. His line "blood will have blood" captures this endless cycle.
The ending makes the point sharpest. Macduff kills Macbeth and Malcolm becomes king — supposedly a "good" ending. But Macduff now stands beside Malcolm exactly as Macbeth once stood beside Duncan, and the crown has again been won through violence. Shakespeare seems to ask an uncomfortable question: is the "lawful" state's violence really so different from the "tyrant's"? The play suggests that violence is woven into power itself, and the cycle may simply repeat.
End of Unit 3 · Continue with Unit 4: Macbeth — Critical Responses
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