Act 2 of Macbeth covers a single night and the morning after: Duncan is murdered, the crime is discovered, and Macbeth is on his way to be crowned, while a husband and wife who planned the killing together already react to its blood in opposite ways.
This summary takes Act 2 scene by scene, from Banquo’s sleepless walk to Macduff’s refusal to attend the coronation. 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. For what came before, see our Act 1 summary, and for everyone who appears here, see our guide to the Macbeth characters.
At a Glance
Here is Act 2 of Macbeth in brief.
Act 2, Scene 1: The Dagger
It is past midnight in Macbeth’s castle, and Banquo is walking with his son Fleance because he cannot rest.
“A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, / And yet I would not sleep,” he says, and prays to be spared the “cursed thoughts” that come to him in sleep. When Macbeth appears, Banquo passes on a diamond from Duncan, a gift for Lady Macbeth as “most kind hostess.” Then he mentions the witches: “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: / To you they have show’d some truth.” Macbeth lies: “I think not of them.” But he asks Banquo to talk about it some time, hinting that loyalty to him will bring honor. Banquo answers that he will listen, as long as he loses no honor and keeps his conscience clear.
Alone, Macbeth sees a dagger floating before him, handle toward his hand. “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” He tries to grasp it and cannot, and drops of blood appear on the blade. He decides it is the “bloody business” in his mind taking shape before his eyes. Then he catches himself talking too long, since “Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.” A bell rings, the signal he has arranged with his wife, and he goes: “Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.” Our guides to what “Is This a Dagger” means and to Macbeth’s soliloquies read the speech in detail.
Act 2, Scene 2: The Murder
The murder happens offstage. The audience sees only Lady Macbeth waiting, and her husband coming back.
“That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,” she says; she has drugged the servants’ drinks. She laid their daggers ready, and admits she might have done the killing herself: “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t.” Macbeth enters with bloody hands: “I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?”
He is badly shaken. Two men sleeping nearby woke, and when one cried “God bless us!” he could not say “Amen”: the word “Stuck in my throat.” He heard a voice cry out, “Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep.” His wife tells him not to think about it, “so, it will make us mad,” and sends him to wash “this filthy witness” from his hands. Then she sees that he has brought the daggers with him. They must go back, to be smeared with blood beside the sleeping servants. He refuses: “I am afraid to think what I have done; / Look on’t again I dare not.”
“Infirm of purpose! / Give me the daggers,” she says, and takes them back herself, to “gild the faces of the grooms” with blood. Alone, Macbeth hears knocking at the castle gate and stares at his hands: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” No, he answers; his hand would sooner turn the green sea red. His wife returns, her hands now as bloody as his: “My hands are of your colour; but I shame / To wear a heart so white.” She is practical: “A little water clears us of this deed: / How easy is it, then!” They go to wash and change. Macbeth’s last line is a wish: “Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!”
Act 2, Scene 3: The Porter and the Discovery
The knocking continues, and a drunken porter finally goes to answer it.
He takes his time, pretending to be the porter at “hell-gate” and imagining the sinners arriving: a farmer who hanged himself, an “equivocator” who swore false oaths and could not lie his way into heaven. It is a rare moment of comedy in the play, placed directly after the murder, and the joke is darker than he knows: the castle he guards has just become a kind of hell. He lets in Macduff and Lennox, who have come to wake the king.
Macbeth greets them calmly and points out Duncan’s door. While Macduff goes in, Lennox describes the “unruly” night: chimneys blown down, strange screams, the earth shaking. Macduff comes out in shock: “O horror, horror, horror!” and “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!” He raises the alarm, and the household gathers. Macbeth and Lennox go in, and come back with news: the servants appear to have done it, with bloody hands and daggers. Then Macbeth admits that in his fury he has killed them. When Macduff asks why, Macbeth answers with an elaborate speech: “Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, / Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.” At this point Lady Macbeth faints, or seems to, and is carried out.
Duncan’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, talk quietly. Neither trusts the grief around them. “To show an unfelt sorrow is an office / Which the false man does easy,” says Malcolm. Donalbain agrees: “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” They decide to flee separately, Malcolm to England and Donalbain to Ireland.
Act 2, Scene 4: Signs in Nature
Outside the castle, the nobleman Ross talks with an old man about the night’s strange events.
The old man has lived seventy years and has never seen a night like it. It is day, but dark. On Tuesday, he says, a falcon was killed by an owl, a small bird that should never overcome a great one. Ross adds that Duncan’s horses broke out of their stalls and turned wild, and the old man says, “’Tis said they eat each other.” Ross confirms it: he saw it himself. Nature seems to be reflecting the crime, turned upside down.
Macduff arrives with the official account. The servants did it, he says, and Malcolm and Donalbain are suspected of paying them, since they have fled. The crown will go to Macbeth, who “is already named, and gone to Scone / To be invested.” Ross will go to the coronation. Macduff will not: “No, cousin, I’ll to Fife.” He goes home instead, with a warning: “Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!” His absence is the first open sign of doubt about the new king.
A Closer Reading: “A Little Water”
In Scene 2, Macbeth and his wife look at the same blood and see two different things, and the rest of the play will prove each of them wrong about themselves.
Macbeth sees blood that nothing can wash away. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” Not even the sea could clean it; his hand would turn the whole ocean red. He cannot say “Amen,” cannot go back into the room, and hears a voice telling him he will never sleep again. His imagination has made the crime enormous.
Lady Macbeth sees a practical problem. The daggers are in the wrong place, so she returns them. Her hands are bloody, so she will wash them. “A little water clears us of this deed: / How easy is it, then!” She even mocks him for having “a heart so white.” For her, the blood is only on the surface.
The play reverses them. By Act 5, Macbeth has grown numb to killing and barely feels anything at all. It is Lady Macbeth who sleepwalks, rubbing hands that she cannot get clean: “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” and “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” The woman who promised that a little water would clear them ends the play unable to wash away a spot no one else can see. Her husband’s ocean turns out to be the true measure of the blood, and she is the one who drowns in it. Our guide to the themes in Macbeth follows guilt and blood through the whole play.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Act 2 of Macbeth, answered briefly.
What Happens in Act 2 of Macbeth?
Macbeth sees a vision of a dagger, then murders King Duncan in his sleep. Lady Macbeth plants the daggers on Duncan’s servants. In the morning Macduff discovers the body, Macbeth kills the servants, and Duncan’s sons flee. Macbeth goes to Scone to be crowned king.
Why Doesn’t Lady Macbeth Kill Duncan Herself?
She says Duncan looked like her father as he slept: “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t.” It is one of the first signs that she is less ruthless than she claims.
What Is the Purpose of the Porter Scene?
It gives the audience a moment of comedy after the murder, and it builds tension as the knocking goes unanswered. The Porter’s joke that he guards “hell-gate” also suggests what Macbeth’s castle has become.
Why Does Macbeth Kill the Servants?
He claims he did it in a fit of loyal rage at the sight of Duncan’s body. The real effect is that the servants can never deny the murder, so no one can question them.
Why Do Malcolm and Donalbain Flee?
They suspect that whoever killed their father will come for them next, and they don’t know whom to trust: “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Their flight makes them look guilty, which helps Macbeth take the crown.
Related Reading
Three pages that take Macbeth further.