Act 1 of Macbeth takes a loyal general from a battlefield victory to a decision to murder his king in the space of a few days, and it opens and closes on the same idea: in this play, faces and words cannot be trusted.
This summary takes Act 1 scene by scene, from the witches on the heath to the moment Macbeth commits to killing Duncan. Each scene covers what happens, the key lines, and why it matters for the rest of the play. For the whole story, see our full guide to Macbeth, and for everyone who appears here, see our guide to the Macbeth characters.
At a Glance
Here is Act 1 of Macbeth in brief.
Act 1, Scene 1: The Witches
The play opens with thunder, lightning, and three witches, in a scene only a dozen lines long.
“When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” asks the first. They agree to meet when the battle now raging is over, on the heath, and there to meet Macbeth. Then they chant the line that sets the rules for the whole play: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: / Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
The scene is short, but it does two things. It tells us the witches already know Macbeth’s name before he has done anything, and it announces a world where good and evil, true and false, look like each other.
Act 1, Scene 2: News from the Battle
We hear about Macbeth before we see him, and everything we hear is praise.
At his camp, King Duncan of Scotland receives a wounded captain from the battle against the rebel Macdonwald. The captain describes “brave Macbeth” carving his way through the enemy and splitting Macdonwald open from the navel to the jaw, then fighting on with Banquo against a fresh Norwegian attack. The nobleman Ross arrives with more news: the Norwegian king was helped by the Thane of Cawdor, a Scottish lord who turned traitor, and Macbeth has defeated them both.
Duncan orders Cawdor’s execution and gives his title to Macbeth: “What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.” The line is meant as simple reward. It also transfers a traitor’s title to the man who will commit the next treason.
Act 1, Scene 3: The Prophecies
The witches gather on the heath, trading stories of the harm they do, until they hear a drum: Macbeth is coming.
His first line echoes theirs before he has even met them: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Then Macbeth and Banquo see the witches. They hail Macbeth three times: as Thane of Glamis, his current title; as Thane of Cawdor, a title he doesn’t know he has; and as the man “that shalt be king hereafter!” Banquo notices his friend’s reaction: “Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?” When Banquo asks for his own future, the witches answer in riddles. He will be “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” and he will father kings without being one: “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” Then they vanish.
Ross and Angus arrive and greet Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is stunned: “why do you dress me / In borrow’d robes?” Banquo is wary, warning that evil powers sometimes “tell us truths” to win our trust, and then “betray’s / In deepest consequence.” But Macbeth is already lost in his own thoughts. In a string of asides, he admits the prophecy has put a “horrid image” in his mind, the thought of murder, which makes his hair stand on end. For the moment he steps back: “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, / Without my stir.” Our guide to Macbeth’s soliloquies reads these asides in detail.
Act 1, Scene 4: Duncan Names His Heir
At the royal palace, Duncan learns that the old Thane of Cawdor has been executed.
His son Malcolm reports that Cawdor died well, confessing and repenting: “Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it.” Duncan reflects on how completely he was deceived: “There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face: / He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust.” At that moment Macbeth walks in, and Duncan greets him with gratitude and affection.
Then Duncan makes an announcement: his eldest son Malcolm will be his heir, with the title Prince of Cumberland. Chance will not crown Macbeth after all. In an aside he calls Malcolm a step he must either fall down on or leap over, and asks the night to hide his thoughts: “Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires.” Duncan, unaware, announces that he will visit Macbeth’s castle at Inverness, and Macbeth rides ahead to tell his wife.
Act 1, Scene 5: Lady Macbeth
At Inverness, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband about the witches, addressed to his “dearest partner of greatness.”
She is certain he will be king, but she doubts he has the ruthlessness to seize the crown: “Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.” When a messenger says Duncan is coming that very night, she calls on evil spirits to fill her with cruelty: “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.”
Macbeth arrives. Duncan comes tonight, he says, and leaves tomorrow. “O, never / Shall sun that morrow see!” she answers. His face is too easy to read, she warns him, and tells him to hide his intentions: “look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t.” She will take charge of the plan. Macbeth says only, “We will speak further.”
Act 1, Scene 6: Duncan Arrives
The shortest scene in the act is also one of its most ironic.
Duncan arrives at the castle and admires it: “This castle hath a pleasant seat.” Banquo agrees, pointing to the martlets, birds that nest on the walls, as a sign that the air is sweet and healthy. Lady Macbeth comes out to greet them with elaborate courtesy, and Duncan takes her hand as she leads him inside. The audience, having just heard her pray for cruelty, knows exactly what kind of welcome he is walking into.
Act 1, Scene 7: The Decision
During the feast for Duncan, Macbeth leaves the table and argues with himself.
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly,” he begins. But crimes return on those who commit them, and Duncan is his king, his kinsman, and his guest. He has ruled so gently that his virtues will “plead like angels” against his murderer. Macbeth has no reason to kill him except “Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on the other.”
When his wife comes to find him, he tells her plainly: “We will proceed no further in this business.” The king has honored him, and people think well of him. She attacks. Was his hope drunk when he first spoke of this? Is he afraid to be in action what he is in desire? He answers, “I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none.” She replies with the play’s most shocking image. She has nursed a baby, she says, and would have “dash’d the brains out” of it if she had sworn to, as he has sworn to this.
“If we should fail?” he asks. “We fail! / But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail.” She lays out the plan: she will get Duncan’s two servants drunk, and they will stab the sleeping king with the servants’ own daggers and smear them with blood. Macbeth is won over. The act ends with his commitment and a rule for what follows: “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
A Closer Reading: From “Fair Is Foul” to “False Face”
Act 1 begins with the witches’ rule, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” and ends with Macbeth adopting it as his own.
The first sign comes before he has even met them. Macbeth’s very first line, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen,” repeats their words, as though he already shares their way of seeing. When the witches speak, they never mention murder. They say only that he will be king. The “horrid image” of killing Duncan is his own, and Banquo sees it arrive in his face: “why do you start; and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?”
The rest of the act shows a world that cannot read faces. Duncan says there is “no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face” just as Macbeth enters, and then gives Macbeth the title of the traitor he misjudged. Lady Macbeth tells her husband his face is “a book where men / May read strange matters,” and teaches him to look like a flower while being the serpent. Duncan admires the “pleasant seat” of the castle where he will die.
By the last line, the lesson is learned. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know” is “Fair is foul” turned into a working method. The witches’ riddle has become Macbeth’s plan, and the rest of the play will show what it costs a man to live by it. Our guide to the themes in Macbeth follows appearance and reality through the whole play.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Act 1 of Macbeth, answered briefly.
What Happens in Act 1 of Macbeth?
After Macbeth wins a battle for King Duncan, three witches prophesy that he will be Thane of Cawdor and then king. The first prophecy comes true at once. When Duncan names his son as heir and comes to stay at Macbeth’s castle, Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to murder him that night.
What Are the Witches’ Prophecies in Act 1?
They hail Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and future king. They tell Banquo he will be “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” and that his descendants will be kings, though he will not.
What Does “Fair Is Foul, and Foul Is Fair” Mean?
That things are the opposite of how they appear: what looks good may be evil, and what looks evil may be good. The witches’ line sets up the play’s central theme of deceptive appearances.
Why Does Macbeth Decide Not to Kill Duncan?
In Scene 7 he reasons that the murder would come back to punish him, and that Duncan is his king, his kinsman, his guest, and a good ruler. He also enjoys the honors Duncan has just given him. Lady Macbeth changes his mind by questioning his courage and manhood.
What Is Lady Macbeth’s Plan?
She will make Duncan’s two servants drunk. While they sleep, Macbeth will kill Duncan with their daggers and smear them with blood, so that the servants are blamed.
Related Reading
Three pages that take Macbeth further.