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. 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 events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

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 bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. Ī brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. Macbeth ( / m ə k ˈ b ɛ θ/, full title The Tragedie of Macbeth) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Depicted, counter-clockwise from top-left, are: Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches just after the murder of Duncan Banquo's ghost Macbeth duels Macduff and Macbeth. 1884 American production of Macbeth, starring Thomas W.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare