Murder at Dunsinane

• Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare about a regicide (killing of a king and take over of his kingdom) and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1606, with 1607 being the very latest possible date.


• Shakespeare's sources for the tragedy are the accounts of Kings Macbeth, MacDuff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

• Over the centuries, the play has attracted the greatest actors in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The play has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media.

• In the play, the Three Witches represent darkness, chaos, and conflict. Their presence communicates treason and impending doom. During Shakespeare's day, witches were seen as worse than rebels, "the most notorious traitor and rebel that can be." They were not only political traitors, but spiritual traitors as well. Much of the confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to be on the borders between reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are merely its agents.

• The witches' lines in the first act: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air" are often said to set the tone for the remainder of the play by establishing a sense of confusion. Indeed, the play is filled with situations in which evil is depicted as good, while good is evil.

• While the witches do not directly advise Macbeth to kill King Duncan, they use a subtle form of temptation when they inform Macbeth that he will be king. By placing this thought in his mind, they effectively guide him on the path to his own destruction. This follows the pattern of temptation many believed the Devil uses. First, a thought is put in a man's mind, and then the person may either indulge in the thought or reject it. Macbeth indulges in it, while Banquo rejects

• The three witches remind English teachers of the three Fates of Greek mythology and the three Norns of Norse mythology. "Weird" (as in "weird sisters") used to mean "destiny" or "fate". Perhaps in an older version they were.