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This is the only time the play mentions Macbeth’s father by name. Shakespeare Online glosses:

1. Macbeth inherited the title of Thane of Glamis after the death of his father.
2. Shakespeare took the name of Macbeth’s father from his primary source, Holinshed’s Chronicles, but Holinshed was not historically accurate. The real Macbeth, born in 1005, had a father named Findlaech, who was the ruler of Moray (in northern Scotland).

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Cousins in Shakespeare’s day could mean close acquaintances–much as we still sometimes say “brothers” or “sisters” to mean friends.

Banquo is taking Ross and Angus aside for a private word, affording Macbeth the chance to reflect privately.

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“Thanks” in this context could imply payment, but Angus specifies that he is sent only to bring Macbeth to the King, not pay him on the King’s behalf.

However, Macbeth is being awarded a gift: a new and powerful title.

See Duncan’s praise in 1.5:

…Would thou hadst less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

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In an elaborately formal metaphor, Macbeth assures the gentlemen that he takes note of their “pains” (troubles or efforts on his behalf) every day, as if reading them in a book where he’s recorded them.

Log of royal expenditures, 1607, featuring the names of Shakespeare acquaintances Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe. Via Remembering Shakespeare

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rapt: i.e., lost in thought, but with a suggestion of being “spellbound” by the Witches. (Banquo also described Macbeth as “rapt” at the Witches' prophecy above.)

This line demonstrates the convention that Shakespearean soliloquies reflect an interior monologue. Banquo and company see Macbeth musing to himself, but not necessarily talking to himself.

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When Duncan is asleep–and his day’s journey will invite him to sleep rather soundly…


The sound sleep during which Duncan will be murdered contrasts with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s sleeplessness after the murder. The rightful king sleeps well; the unlawful king tosses and turns.

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Let us toward: Let us go to.

Macbeth turns from addressing the group to addressing Banquo, then back to the group again.

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Macbeth turns from addressing the group to addressing Banquo privately. He suggests that they think about what they’ve seen and, once they’ve weighed it, discuss it freely with each other. Banquo gladly agrees: he undoubtedly wants to know more about Macbeth’s thinking and motives. Macbeth concludes with the ominous: “Till then, enough.”

Macbeth never will speak with “free heart” to Banquo about the Witches. He will speak freely with his wife, who will help him hatch his plans and chase his ambitions.

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Macbeth is overfed with horror; he’s committed so much slaughter that he’s now incapable of being startled by bloody or dire events.

Ross’s description of Macbeth’s combat heroics in 1.3 foreshadows this psychological state:

Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death.

Macbeth’s claim comes directly before he learns that his wife is dead. His “Out, out” soliloquy can thus be played as emotionally numb, deeply distressed, or somewhere in between–in other words, as a confirmation or ironic contradiction of the idea that he’s beyond feeling horror.

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Another ominous description of Macbeth’s ruthlessness. Macbeth is unafraid of the devastation he rains down on the Norwegian troops. Later, when he begins to contemplate and commit the murders that drive the plot of the play, he is deeply afraid; but by play’s end, even cold-blooded killing has become routine for him, and he is numb to horror:

I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

Throughout the play, Macbeth will “make strange images of death” not only by committing unnatural murders, but by envisioning supernatural images such as the dagger in 2.1 and Banquo’s ghost in 3.4.

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