The Royal Banquet Begins
Macbeth hosts a grand state banquet to celebrate his new reign, inviting the Scottish thanes and lords to feast in the palace hall. He plays the gracious host, urging his guests to sit according to rank while Lady Macbeth keeps her place at the head table. The scene opens with the appearance of order and prosperity—the new king presiding over a unified Scotland.
News from the Murderers
The celebration is immediately undercut when one of Banquo’s murderers appears at the banquet door. Macbeth slips away from his guests to receive the report: Banquo is dead, his throat cut, with “twenty trenched gashes on his head.” However, the critical news is that Fleance has escaped. This throws Macbeth into private anguish. He had hoped to feel “whole as the marble, founded as the rock,” but Fleance’s survival means the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s descendants will inherit the throne remains alive. He calls Fleance “the worm that’s fled”—harmless for now, but destined to breed venom.
The Ghost of Banquo
When Macbeth returns to the table and toasts his guests, the Ghost of Banquo silently enters and sits in Macbeth’s own chair. Macbeth alone can see the apparition. When Lennox invites him to sit, Macbeth sees the blood-covered specter and recoils in horror, crying “Thou canst not say I did it; never shake / Thy gory locks at me.” The lords are bewildered. Ross urges everyone to rise, sensing the king is unwell.
Lady Macbeth’s Damage Control
Lady Macbeth intervenes swiftly, assuring the guests that her husband has suffered from such fits since youth and that paying attention will only worsen the episode. Privately, she challenges Macbeth’s manhood, comparing this vision to the “air-drawn dagger” he saw before Duncan’s murder and calling his terror “the very painting of your fear.” The ghost temporarily vanishes and Macbeth recovers enough to raise a toast—ironically to the absent Banquo himself.
The Ghost Returns and the Banquet Collapses
The ghost reappears a second time, and Macbeth’s outburst is even more violent: “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!” He dares the specter to take any form—a bear, a rhinoceros, a tiger—anything but the shape of murdered Banquo. Lady Macbeth, unable to contain the situation, dismisses the guests abruptly: “Stand not upon the order of your going, / But go at once.” The orderly banquet dissolves into chaos, mirroring the disorder Macbeth has brought to Scotland.
Macbeth’s Darkening Resolve
Left alone with his wife, Macbeth utters one of the play’s most famous lines: “It will have blood; they say blood will have blood.” He notes that Macduff refused to attend the banquet and reveals he keeps paid informants in every thane’s household. Most significantly, he resolves to visit the Weird Sisters again, declaring “I am in blood / Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” This chilling metaphor marks the point of no return—Macbeth has committed fully to a path of tyranny and violence. Lady Macbeth, now marginalized from his plans, can only tell him he needs sleep.