118 Fun Facts About Macbeth

Macbeth is only slightly more than half the length of which other Shakespeare tragedy?

Hamlet runs almost twice as long, and Macbeth's brevity has led many critics to suspect that the version we have was cut down for performance.

Every modern edition of Shakespeare's Macbeth is based on which early printed text?

The First Folio of 1623 is the base because no quarto of Macbeth appeared before the Folio, so every later text descends from that one printing.

Whose novel borrows its title, 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', from Macbeth?

Ray Bradbury took it for his 1962 carnival novel, and the couplet's first half, 'By the pricking of my thumbs', titled a 1968 Agatha Christie mystery.

Shakespeare took the story of Macbeth mainly from which 1587 history book?

Holinshed's Chronicles made Banquo an accomplice in Duncan's murder, but Shakespeare made him innocent, since the reigning king was thought to descend from Banquo.

Astrologer Simon Forman's notes record seeing Macbeth performed at which London playhouse?

The Globe, where Forman saw it, burned down in 1613 when a stage cannon fired during a performance set its thatched roof alight.

Which monarch, patron of Shakespeare's company, wrote a treatise on witchcraft called Daemonologie?

James I believed witches had raised storms to sink his ship as he sailed home with his Danish bride, and he questioned accused witches himself at the North Berwick trials.

Macbeth's Porter welcoming an 'equivocator' is read as alluding to Jesuit Henry Garnet's trial after which event?

The Gunpowder Plot led to Garnet's trial, where he defended 'equivocation', and one of his aliases was Farmer, so the Porter's farmer who hanged himself looks topical too.

Hecate is widely thought to have been added by a later hand, possibly which fellow dramatist?

Two songs cued in the play appear in full in his own witch play The Witch, which is the main clue to the interpolation.

Which paradox do Macbeth's three witches chant?

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, they chant, and Macbeth's very first line echoes them: 'So foul and fair a day I have not seen.'

At the start of the play, Macbeth already holds the title Thane of which place?

Glamis Castle, famous from the play, dates only from the 14th century, long after the real Macbeth died, and was later the Queen Mother's childhood home.

Which title does King Duncan take from a traitor and give to Macbeth?

Thane of Cawdor is the news that arrives moments after the witches foretold it, and Macbeth muses that 'two truths are told' as prologue to the crown.

The rebellion Macbeth and Banquo crush at the play's opening is allied with invaders from which kingdom?

Norway's defeated king, Sweno, is not allowed to bury his dead until he pays Scotland ten thousand dollars at Saint Colme's Inch.

Duncan spends his fatal night as a guest at Macbeth's castle in which town?

Inverness is where Duncan dies under Macbeth's roof, and Shakespeare took that host-kills-guest plot from an older story of Donwald murdering King Duff.

Duncan names his son Malcolm heir to the throne by giving him what title?

Prince of Cumberland puts Malcolm between Macbeth and the crown, and Macbeth's aside calls it 'a step on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap'.

Whom does Macbeth kill right after Duncan's body is found, before they can protest innocence?

The king's servants were the men Lady Macbeth had smeared with blood, and Macbeth claims fury made him kill them, silencing the men he had framed.

After Duncan's murder Malcolm flees to England, but where does his brother Donalbain go?

Ireland is where Donalbain goes, but the brothers' flight 'puts upon them suspicion of the deed', and Macbeth is soon named king.

What is the name of Banquo's son, who escapes the ambush that kills his father?

Fleance escaping keeps alive the witches' promise that Banquo will father kings, so Macbeth calls him 'the worm that's fled'.

Banquo's ghost appears to Macbeth during which occasion?

A royal banquet is where the ghost takes Macbeth's own seat, and because only he can see it, his guests watch their king rave at an empty chair.

In Macbeth's show of eight kings descended from Banquo, what does the final king hold?

A mirror, showing Macbeth many more of Banquo's heirs, a bow to the reigning king, who was believed to descend from Banquo.

The third apparition tells Macbeth he is safe until which forest reaches Dunsinane Hill?

Birnam Wood does come to Dunsinane: Malcolm orders every soldier to cut a bough and carry it before him as they march on the castle.

Macduff holds which Scottish title?

Thane of Fife echoes the real MacDuffs, Earls of Fife, whose chiefs had the right to enthrone Scotland's kings, and a MacDuff crowned Robert the Bruce in 1306.

Why can Macduff kill Macbeth despite the 'of woman born' prophecy?

He was delivered by Caesarean section, and on hearing it Macbeth at first refuses to fight, until Macduff threatens to put him on public show as a tyrant.

What does Macduff carry on stage to Malcolm in the final scene?

Macbeth's severed head is Macduff's proof as he hails Malcolm king, and Malcolm then makes his thanes the first earls Scotland ever named.

Which three-word cry from Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene has passed into everyday English?

Out, damned spot! she cries, scrubbing at blood no one can see, the woman who once told her husband that 'a little water clears us of this deed'.

Which attendant tells Macbeth his wife is dead, prompting 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow'?

Seyton is still at Macbeth's side at the end, and when Macbeth demands his armour too early, Seyton tells him it is 'not needed yet'.

In the closing speech of Macbeth, Malcolm invites everyone to see him crowned where?

Scone was where Scottish kings were crowned, and its Stone of Scone was taken to Westminster Abbey in 1296 and returned to Scotland only in 1996.

Which Faulkner novel takes its title from Macbeth's line about 'a tale told by an idiot'?

The Sound and the Fury opens with a section narrated by Benjy, an intellectually disabled man, echoing the soliloquy's 'tale told by an idiot'.

Actors who think it unlucky to say 'Macbeth' inside a theatre call the play what instead?

The Scottish Play is said to be cursed; one legend has the boy playing Lady Macbeth dying so Shakespeare took the role, but there is no evidence for it.

What must an actor who says 'Macbeth' inside a theatre do to lift the curse?

Leave, spin three times and spit is one common version of the ritual, and the offender must then swear and knock to be let back in.

Lady Macbeth urges her husband to look like the innocent flower but be what under it?

The serpent is her advice as Duncan approaches, yet she cannot kill him herself, because asleep he resembled her father.

In Macbeth's cauldron scene, the witches add the eye of which creature?

Newt: 'eye of newt, and toe of frog' goes into the brew, and the chant later became the Hogwarts choir song 'Double Trouble' in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The real Macbeth was fatally wounded in 1057 at which battle?

Lumphanan was where he fell, three years after he survived an English invasion and a battle traditionally placed at Dunsinane.

Unlike the play's murdered guest, how did the historical King Duncan I actually die?

In battle against Macbeth's men, near Elgin in 1040, Duncan was killed, and his son Malcolm later killed Macbeth in battle and took the crown.

Where did the historical Macbeth make a pilgrimage in 1050, scattering money to the poor 'as if it were seed'?

Rome was a journey of months, yet Macbeth came home to a peaceful Scotland, a sign his throne was far safer than the play's hunted tyrant.

What was the name of the real Macbeth's wife, the historical 'Lady Macbeth'?

Gruoch was a king's granddaughter and a widow when Macbeth married her, and her son Lulach briefly became king after Macbeth died.

Which everyday phrase comes from Macbeth weighing whether to murder Duncan?

The be-all and end-all is what Macbeth wishes one murderous blow could be, an act with no consequences, which is exactly what it proves not to be.

Whose Restoration adaptation of Macbeth, with new songs for the witches, held the stage until the 1740s?

William Davenant had got round the Puritan ban on plays in 1656 by staging The Siege of Rhodes as an opera of recitative music.

Which actor-manager revived the play in 1744, advertising it 'as written by Shakespeare'?

David Garrick kept the Restoration witches' music and even wrote Macbeth a dying speech of his own.

Which actress became the legendary Lady Macbeth of the Georgian English stage?

Sarah Siddons chose Lady Macbeth for her 1812 farewell, and the audience would not let the play go on after her last scene.

The 1849 Astor Place riot was sparked by rival productions of Macbeth starring which two actors?

Edwin Forrest and William Macready's feud set an American star against an English one, and when soldiers opened fire, at least 22 people were killed.

Orson Welles's 1936 Federal Theatre Project Macbeth moved the play to a Caribbean island modelled on which country?

Haiti in the 19th century inspired the island, and voodoo replaced Scottish witchcraft, which is how the production got its nickname.

Orson Welles's 1936 Federal Theatre Project Macbeth opened at the Lafayette Theatre in which New York neighbourhood?

Harlem's Lafayette Theatre sold out for ten weeks, and the production then moved downtown before touring theatres across the country.

Orson Welles shot his 1948 film Macbeth in 23 days at which studio?

Republic Pictures recalled the film after critics called its Scottish accents incomprehensible, then re-recorded much of the dialogue and cut 21 minutes.

Kurosawa's Throne of Blood transposes Macbeth to Japan using which theatrical tradition?

Noh shaped the film: Kurosawa modelled the characters' expressions on Noh masks, and Isuzu Yamada's Lady Macbeth figure moves with Noh's stylised techniques.

Toshiro Mifune's death scene in Throne of Blood was filmed using what?

Real arrows from skilled archers were aimed at the walls just around Mifune, and he had to signal every move so that none of them would hit him.

Polanski co-wrote his 1971 screenplay with which British theatre critic?

Kenneth Tynan's film with Polanski turned the usually middle-aged Macbeths into a young couple, played by Jon Finch and Francesca Annis.

Who played Lady Macbeth opposite Michael Fassbender in Justin Kurzel's 2015 Macbeth?

Marion Cotillard's Lady Macbeth is first seen burying a child, an opening the play never shows, so grief shadows the couple's ambition.

Who played the title role in Joel Coen's 2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth?

Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand made the Macbeths an older couple than usual, so he plays the tyrant quieter and wearier, not feverish.

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth streamed on which service in January 2022?

Apple TV+ streamed a film in which Kathryn Hunter played all three witches alone, twisting her body like a contortionist.

Which composer turned Macbeth into an Italian opera in 1847?

Giuseppe Verdi objected to the celebrated Eugenia Tadolini because she sang too beautifully, wanting a Lady Macbeth with a harsh, stifled, hollow voice.

Punchdrunk's immersive New York show Sleep No More was set in a fictional 1930s establishment called what?

The McKittrick Hotel housed a show named for the voice Macbeth hears crying 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep.'

The 2001 black comedy Scotland, PA relocates the plot to what kind of business in 1975 Pennsylvania?

A fast-food restaurant called Duncan's is the prize, and its owner ends up in the deep fryer when the McBeths go after him.

Vishal Bhardwaj's 2003 Hindi film Maqbool sets the story of Macbeth against which backdrop?

The Mumbai underworld replaces Scotland, and the witches become two corrupt police inspectors, played by Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah, who predict the future through astrology.

In Rupert Goold's 2010 Macbeth film starring Patrick Stewart, the three witches appear as what?

Nurses' uniforms disguise them, and they haunt the whole production, goading Macbeth on through his murderous reign.

Who played Lady Macbeth opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1955 Stratford production?

Vivien Leigh was meant to play the role again on film, but after Alexander Korda died, Olivier never raised the money for his screen Macbeth.

Who played Lady Macbeth opposite Ian McKellen in the RSC's celebrated 1976 Macbeth at The Other Place?

Trevor Nunn's chamber staging came two years after his own lavish 1974 version was dismissed as an over-elaborate religious spectacle.

The word 'weird' in 'Weird Sisters' descends from the Old English 'wyrd', meaning what?

The 1623 text actually spells them 'weyward'; the modern spelling comes from the chronicle Shakespeare used, which called them goddesses of destiny.

Which Swiss-born painter produced the famous 1783 picture The Weird Sisters or The Three Witches?

James Gillray parodied it in 1791 with three government ministers as the hags.

As their final fight begins, what does Macbeth cry to Macduff?

Lay on, Macduff are Macbeth's last words, spoken as he throws his shield before him and fights on rather than yield.

In Macbeth, the drunken Porter pretends to keep the gate of which place?

Hell is his joke as someone hammers at the gate, and the knocker is Macduff, who moments later discovers that Duncan has been murdered.

What blood-smeared object does Macbeth hallucinate before going to kill Duncan?

A dagger leads him on, and after the murder he comes back still holding the real daggers, so Lady Macbeth has to carry them back herself.

Which thane brings Macbeth word of his newly bestowed title in Act I?

Ross delivers the honour, and later he is also the one who tells Macduff that his wife and children have been slaughtered.

In Macbeth, which English king, said to cure scrofula by touch, lends Malcolm soldiers?

Edward the Confessor reportedly sent Earl Siward into Scotland in 1054, and Siward put Macbeth to flight.

How did Charles Kean stage Macbeth at London's Princess's Theatre in the 1850s?

In historically accurate 11th-century Scotland: Kean even printed a lengthy essay in the playbill explaining the historical research behind the production.

What cry disrupted Covent Garden's rebuilt theatre for over two months after it reopened with Macbeth in 1809?

'Old prices!' won: after more than two months, the management restored the old pit prices, reduced the private boxes and apologised from the stage.

Which everyday phrase comes from Macduff's cry on learning his wife and children have been killed?

One fell swoop is Macduff's image for the slaughter, and when Malcolm urges him to let grief convert to anger, he vows to face Macbeth within his sword's length.

Which actor cut Banquo's ghost from the stage entirely in 1794, showing only Macbeth's reaction?

John Philip Kemble made the audience share the view of Lady Macbeth and the court, who see Macbeth horrified by a ghost they cannot see.

Who played Macbeth opposite Harriet Walter in Gregory Doran's RSC production at Stratford?

Antony Sher starred, and Doran's staging was later filmed for Channel 4 in 2001.

Which line do Macbeth's three witches chant together as a refrain around their boiling cauldron?

Double, double toil and trouble is chanted three times by all the witches together, each time answered with 'Fire burn, and cauldron bubble'.

Lady Macbeth says she would have killed the sleeping King Duncan herself had he not resembled whom?

Her father is the one thing that stops her: 'Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't,' she admits while she waits for Macbeth to come back.

Which word can Macbeth not bring himself to say moments after murdering King Duncan?

Amen 'stuck in my throat', he tells his wife, after he overheard two sleepers say 'God bless us' and found he could not answer them.

Which coins does King Sweno pay, ten thousand in all, after his defeat in Macbeth?

Dollars are handed over at Saint Colme's Inch, and the money goes 'to our general use', as King Duncan hears just before he condemns a traitor to death.

In Macbeth, what feature makes Banquo unsure that the three witches he meets are women?

Their beards 'forbid me to interpret that you are so', Banquo tells them, after noting their chapped fingers and skinny lips.

The sleepwalking Lady Macbeth says all the perfumes of which land will not sweeten her little hand?

All the perfumes of Arabia cannot mask 'the smell of the blood' she still imagines, and an onlooker who hears her sigh says 'the heart is sorely charged'.

Which everyday phrase does Lady Macbeth use to stop her husband brooding after King Duncan's murder?

What's done is done, she tells him briskly, but by her sleepwalking scene the phrase has turned into 'What's done cannot be undone'.

Which phrase, now used of lucky people, does Macbeth boast of in his final duel with Macduff?

A charmed life is what Macbeth trusts in, one 'which must not yield to one of woman born', seconds before Macduff shatters the boast.

How do Malcolm's soldiers hide their numbers as they march on Macbeth's castle at Dunsinane?

Carrying cut branches is Malcolm's order to every man, and it makes a watching messenger swear he has seen 'a moving grove'.

In Macbeth, what unnatural thing are King Duncan's horses said to do on the night he is murdered?

Eat each other is what an old man has heard, and a thane swears he saw it himself, after the horses broke their stalls as if to 'make war with mankind'.

What is Lady Macbeth doing when she first appears on stage in Shakespeare's Macbeth?

Reading a letter from her husband, who calls her 'my dearest partner of greatness', is how she learns what the witches have promised him.

Lady Macbeth tells her wavering husband to screw what 'to the sticking-place' so they cannot fail?

His courage is all the plan lacks, she insists: 'screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail' is her answer to his 'If we should fail?'

Which unusual word does Macbeth use for his bloody hand reddening 'the multitudinous seas'?

Incarnadine is his verb for reddening the sea: far from washing clean, he says, his hand would stain every ocean, 'making the green one red'.

According to Malcolm's closing speech in Macbeth, how is Lady Macbeth thought to have died?

By her own hand is only the rumour Malcolm repeats, 'as 'tis thought'; the play itself shows no more than a cry of women offstage.

In his 'Tomorrow' speech, Macbeth calls life a 'walking' what, a poor player on the stage?

Shadow and actor are his two images of life: 'a poor player that struts and frets his hour' and 'then is heard no more'.

Cornered at Dunsinane, Macbeth says he is tied to a stake and must fight like which animal?

A bear is his image: 'They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course', he says, moments before killing his first challenger.

In the final speech of Macbeth, the new king brands the dead tyrant with the name of which trade?

Butcher is Malcolm's verdict on the man King Duncan once hailed as 'valiant cousin' and 'worthy gentleman'.

With which question does the First Witch begin the very first scene of Macbeth?

'When shall we three meet again?' is answered at once with a riddle: 'When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won.'

Awaiting King Duncan's arrival, Lady Macbeth calls on spirits to do what to her?

Unsex her is the plea: 'unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty', so that no remorse can shake her purpose.

What does the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth insist on keeping beside her at all times?

A lit candle, a 'taper' in the stage direction, stays by her 'continually' at her own command, a sharp turn for the woman who once begged 'thick night' to hide her deeds.

Lady Macbeth calls her husband too full of what to seize the crown by the quickest route?

The milk of human kindness is her diagnosis: he would like to be great, she says, but 'wouldst not play false' to get there, so she resolves to 'pour my spirits in thine ear'.

In his soliloquy before King Duncan's murder, Macbeth says the only spur to his intent is what?

Vaulting ambition, he admits, 'o'erleaps itself and falls on the other'; having found no better reason, he tells his wife 'We will proceed no further in this business'.

After King Duncan's murder, Lady Macbeth says a little of what 'clears us of this deed'?

Water is all she thinks it takes, yet the same hands come back in her sleepwalking, when she rubs them and cries 'will these hands ne'er be clean?'

When the ghost of Banquo first enters in Shakespeare's Macbeth, where does it sit down?

In the king's own chair is where it settles, so Macbeth protests that every place is taken while his lords point him to an empty seat.

In Macbeth, what form does the apparition take that says none of woman born shall harm Macbeth?

A bloody child delivers the promise, the second of three apparitions, urging him to 'be bloody, bold, and resolute' and to 'laugh to scorn the power of man'.

Which two characters secretly watch Lady Macbeth walk and talk in her sleep at Dunsinane?

A doctor and a gentlewoman keep watch because she will not repeat the queen's words without a witness, so he writes them down as he hears them.

Weighing King Duncan's murder, Macbeth notes that he is the king's kinsman, subject and what else?

His host is the third bond, and Macbeth reasons that a host 'should against his murderer shut the door', not carry the knife himself.

Which sound, arranged with Lady Macbeth, tells Macbeth it is time to go and kill King Duncan?

A bell ringing is the cue: he has a servant tell his wife to strike it 'when my drink is ready', then leaves with the words 'I go, and it is done; the bell invites me'.

How does Lady Macbeth ensure that King Duncan's two chamberlains sleep through his murder?

She drugs their drinks so heavily that 'death and nature do contend about them', and says the wine that knocked them out 'hath made me bold'.

Macbeth tells his wife that his mind is full of which creatures while Banquo still lives?

Scorpions fill his mind, he says, because Banquo and his son are alive; minutes later he hints at 'a deed of dreadful note' but keeps the plan from her.

Which English general's son does Macbeth kill in single combat shortly before he meets Macduff?

Young Siward dies sword in hand, and his father asks only whether the wounds were on the front before declaring 'God's soldier be he!'

In the closing speech of Macbeth, the new king gives his thanes which title, the first in Scotland?

Earls is the new rank, 'the first that ever Scotland in such an honour named', and Malcolm hands it out as his first act to repay the kinsmen who fought for him.

Who first tells King Duncan how bravely Macbeth fought the rebels, early in Shakespeare's Macbeth?

A wounded sergeant gives the report, still bleeding from the fight, until he grows faint and King Duncan sends him off to the surgeons.

How does Malcolm test Macduff's loyalty when the two meet in England in Macbeth?

He claims foul vices, lust and greed worse than Macbeth's, and trusts Macduff only when the thane despairs that such a man is not fit to live, let alone rule.

Macbeth curses the pale servant who brings news of the English army as a 'cream-faced' what?

Loon is only the first insult: Macbeth goes on to call the terrified boy 'lily-liver'd' and 'whey-face' and asks where he got 'that goose look'.

Awaiting attack at Dunsinane, Macbeth snaps that which thing should be thrown 'to the dogs'?

Medicine, 'physic' in his words, is useless to him once he hears that a patient with a diseased mind 'must minister to himself'.

In Macbeth, on what kind of ground do Macbeth and Banquo first come upon the witches?

A blasted heath near Forres is where the witches stop the two generals on their way from the battlefield, then vanish 'into the air' when Macbeth demands more.

Which stage effect opens every scene in which the witches enter in Shakespeare's Macbeth?

Thunder sounds before each of the witches' four entrances, and again as each apparition rises from their cauldron.

Seeing Banquo's ghost, Macbeth cries 'never shake' which feature of the ghost at him?

Its gory locks are the proof he cannot face: 'Thou canst not say I did it', he protests, since hired men and not Macbeth himself cut Banquo's throat.

Told that none of woman born can harm him, Macbeth still plans murder to 'make assurance' what?

Double sure is his aim: though the prophecy seems to make Macduff harmless, Macbeth decides 'thou shalt not live' so that he can 'tell pale-hearted fear it lies'.

Which gift does King Duncan send to Lady Macbeth on the night he is murdered in her castle?

A diamond is handed to Macbeth by Banquo, who reports that the king has gone to bed 'in measureless content' after sending generous gifts to the castle household.

In Macbeth, the First Witch curses a sailor because his wife refused to share which food?

Chestnuts, munched without sharing, earn the sailor a tempest-tossed voyage: the witch vows to sail after him in a sieve and 'drain him dry as hay'.

In the battle report early in Macbeth, which rebel does Macbeth cut open from navel to jaw?

Macdonwald, 'the merciless', is 'unseam'd from the nave to the chaps' and his head fixed on the battlements, the first picture the audience gets of Macbeth.

With which animal's blood do the witches in Macbeth cool their finished cauldron charm?

A baboon's blood goes in last, after a recipe that runs from a dragon's scale to a wolf's tooth, and 'then the charm is firm and good'.

Brooding on Banquo's heirs, Macbeth says the witches set what kind of crown upon his head?

Fruitless is his word, paired with 'a barren sceptre': he has no son to inherit, so he fears he has murdered King Duncan only to make Banquo's line royal.

Besides a farmer and an equivocator, which tradesman does the Porter in Macbeth imagine admitting?

A tailor, an English one accused of skimping on cloth, is his third arrival, before the cold persuades the Porter to drop the game and open the gate.

In Macbeth, which bird reportedly killed a falcon amid the omens around King Duncan's murder?

An owl, a mere mouse-hunter, 'hawk'd at and kill'd' the falcon 'towering in her pride of place', a small killer bringing down a great one as Macbeth has.

To shame her husband, Lady Macbeth says she would have killed whom rather than break such a vow?

Her nursing baby, she says, she would have plucked from her breast and killed 'had I so sworn as you have done to this', and the taunt works.

After smearing King Duncan's grooms with blood, Lady Macbeth scorns a heart of which colour?

White is the colour of a coward's heart to her: 'My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white', she says, showing him her own red hands.

Envying the murdered King Duncan, Macbeth says the dead king sleeps well after 'life's fitful' what?

Fever is his word for life itself: in the grave, he says, 'nor steel, nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further'.