Macbeth — who's who

The protagonist. A celebrated general at the start; a butcher by Act 4. Hears the witches in Scene 3, writes home in Scene 5, kills Duncan in Scene 9, has Banquo killed in Scene 14, has Macduff's family slaughtered in Scene 19, and dies in single combat with Macduff in Scene 28. His soliloquies are the play's interior — the dagger speech, the "if it were done" speech, the "tomorrow" speech — and they track, with terrible precision, a man hardening into someone who can no longer feel anything.

The play's other engine. Reads her husband's letter in Scene 5, calls on spirits to "unsex" her, plans the murder, and steadies Macbeth's nerve when he wavers. Takes the bloody daggers back to Duncan's chamber when he cannot. Welcomes the king as a "honour'd hostess" in Scene 6. By Act 5 the resolve has collapsed; she sleepwalks in Scene 21 rubbing at a clean hand — "out, damned spot" — and dies offstage between scenes, probably by suicide. Macbeth's response to the news is the "tomorrow" speech.

The legitimate king of Scotland. Gracious, trusting, generous to a fault. Praises Macbeth's bravery in Scene 2, names his son Malcolm as heir in Scene 4, arrives at Inverness as Macbeth's guest in Scene 6 — "this castle hath a pleasant seat" — and is murdered in his sleep that night. He has perhaps a hundred lines in the play and his absence dominates everything that follows. Macbeth himself, in soliloquy before the killing, catalogs his virtues in precise theological terms — "his virtues will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of his taking-off." The horses eat each other on the night he dies.

The lawful heir. Named Prince of Cumberland by his father in Scene 4, which moves him onto the line between Macbeth and the throne. Flees to England in Scene 10, after his father's body is found, fearing for his life. Tests Macduff's virtue in Scene 20 by pretending to be unfit to rule — a long, strange scene that establishes him as the figure of restored kingship — and returns at the head of the English army. Hailed as King of Scotland in the final lines of the play.

Duncan's younger son and Malcolm's brother. Has very little to say across the play. Present in the camp scenes of Act 1 and at the discovery of the murder in Scene 10. After the body is found he and Malcolm work out their position quickly — they have lost their father, they have no allies, the killer is still in the castle — and decide to flee separately. He goes to Ireland with the famous line "there's daggers in men's smiles. The near in blood, the nearer bloody." Does not return to Scotland during the play.

Macbeth's closest friend at the start; present on the heath in Scene 3 when the witches prophesy. Told his descendants will be kings though he himself will not be. Where Macbeth instantly plans, Banquo questions and hesitates. Macbeth has him murdered in Scene 14 — Fleance, his son, escapes — and his ghost returns at the banquet in Scene 15, sitting silently in the king's chair. Visible only to Macbeth, but the visit is the play's most direct moral verdict.

Banquo's young son. Walks with his father in the courtyard at Inverness in Scene 8, carrying a torch. Escapes when the murderers ambush them on the road in Scene 14 — Banquo's last command, as the torch is dashed out, is "fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge." He vanishes into the dark and never appears again. His escape means the witches' prophecy about Banquo's line will eventually come true, and is Shakespeare's gesture toward the Stuart dynasty descended (Shakespeare and his audience believed) from Banquo himself.

The man the play has been preparing as the answer to Macbeth. Discovers Duncan's body in Scene 10. Refuses to attend Macbeth's coronation. Flees to England in Scene 20 to raise an army; learns there that Macbeth has had his wife and children slaughtered — "all my pretty ones? did you say all?" Returns at the head of the English army, kills Macbeth in single combat in Scene 28, and presents his head to Malcolm. He was, the play reveals at the last possible moment, "from his mother's womb untimely ripped."

Macduff's wife. Appears once, in Scene 19, after her husband has fled to England. Angrily questions why he has left them undefended. Has a tender, almost playful exchange with her young son about whether his father is a traitor. A messenger warns her to flee; before she can, Macbeth's assassins arrive and kill her son in front of her, and then her. The murder is staged onstage — one of the few in the play — and it is the moment when the audience sees what Macbeth has become.

A messenger, witness, and reluctant truth-teller. Brings Duncan the report of victory in Scene 2 and Macbeth the news of his Cawdor title in Scene 3. Discusses the unnatural events surrounding Duncan's death with the Old Man in Scene 11. Visits Lady Macduff in Scene 19 to try to console her about her husband's flight and leaves, unknowingly, just before the murderers arrive. Travels to England in Scene 20 with the news that Macduff's family has been slaughtered, and breaks the news to him in one of the most painful exchanges in the play.

A courtier whose loyalties shift visibly across the play. Arrives at Inverness with Duncan in Scene 6. Present at the discovery of the murder in Scene 10. Speaks with carefully banked sarcasm about Macbeth's tyranny in Scene 17, by which point he is openly hoping for Macduff's mission to England to bring relief. Reports to Macbeth at the cavern in Scene 18 that Macduff has fled — and the news triggers the order to kill Macduff's wife and children. By Act 5 he is marching with the rebel Scottish lords against Dunsinane.

Three figures who appear in thunder and vanish into the air. Meet on a heath in Scene 1 to plan their encounter with Macbeth, give him the prophecy in Scene 3, and brew the cauldron in Scene 18 with finger of strangled babe and tooth of wolf. Their three apparitions in Act 4 — the armed head, the bloody child, the crowned child with a tree — are designed to make Macbeth overconfident and lead him to his death. The play does not settle whether they are witches, fates, devils, or hallucinations.

The classical goddess of witchcraft, queen of the three Weird Sisters. Appears in Scene 16 (and briefly in Scene 18) to scold the witches for dealing with Macbeth without consulting her, and to instruct them to prepare more potent illusions designed to lull Macbeth into overconfidence and lead him to his destruction. Her scenes are widely thought to be later additions, possibly by Thomas Middleton — the verse is markedly different from Shakespeare's witches elsewhere — but they have stayed in the standard text since the First Folio.

The play's only sustained comic figure. Answers the knocking at the gate in Scene 10 hung over and dragging himself across the courtyard, pretending to be the porter of hell — admitting, in his head, a farmer who hanged himself on the expectation of a good harvest, an equivocator who could swear in both scales, and an English tailor who stole cloth out of a French hose. He jokes with Macduff about how drink provokes lechery. His scene is followed within a hundred lines by the discovery of Duncan's body — Shakespeare's sharpest tonal cut in any of the tragedies.

A figure of seventy years deep in his own memory who speaks to Ross outside the castle in Scene 11. He cannot remember a night like the one just past. The sun has not risen; a mousing owl killed a falcon at the top of her flight; Duncan's horses, "the minions of their race," broke their stalls and ate each other. His short scene is the play registering, at the level of nature itself, that the murder of a legitimate king by his host in his sleep has ruptured the natural order. He blesses Ross and Macduff and is gone.

Siward, Earl of Northumberland, is the English general who leads the ten thousand troops Edward the Confessor has lent to Malcolm against Macbeth. He marshals the battle order in front of Dunsinane and takes command of the first attack himself, with his son. Young Siward, the son, encounters Macbeth in Scene 27 and is killed in single combat — "thou wast born of woman," Macbeth notes, and runs him through. Old Siward, told of his son's death in the final scene, asks only whether the wounds were on the front or on the back, and is satisfied to be told they were on the front.