George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German British, Baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well-known for his operas, oratorios and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle-upon-Saale and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, he was influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. Musicologist Winton Dean writes; as Alexander's Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Blind, having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man, his funeral was given full state honours, he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Messiah, Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks remaining steadfastly popular.
One of his four coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest, composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing. Another of his English oratorios, has remained popular, with the Sinfonia that opens act 3 featuring at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Handel composed more than forty operas in over thirty years, since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and informed musical performance, interest in Handel's operas has grown. Handel was born in 1685 to Georg Händel and Dorothea Taust, his father, aged sixty-three when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel, who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching, the daughter of a master coppersmith, they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession, as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War.
Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry and center of trade. The Margrave of Brandenburg became the administrator of the archiepiscopal territories of Mainz, including Magdeburg when they converted, by the early 17th century held his court in Halle, which attracted renowned musicians; the smaller churches all had "able organists and fair choirs", humanities and the letters thrived. The Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, by the 1680s it was impoverished. However, since the middle of the war the city had been under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, soon after the end of the war he would bring musicians trained in Dresden to his court in Weissenfels; the arts and music, flourished only among the higher strata, of which Handel's family was not a member. Georg Händel was born at the beginning of the war, was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14, after his father died; when he was 20, he married the widow of the official barber-surgeon of a suburb of Halle, inheriting his practice.
With this, Georg determinedly began the process of becoming self-made. Anna died in 1682. Within a year Georg married again, this time to the daughter of a Lutheran minister, Pastor Georg Taust of the Church of St. Bartholomew in Giebichtenstein, who himself came from a long line of Lutheran pastors. Handel was the second child of this marriage. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric: Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687, Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, where the headmaster, Johann Praetorius, was reputed to be an ardent musician. Whether Handel remained there or for how long is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring. Mainwaring is the source for all information of Handel's childhood, much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handel's confidant and copyist.
Whether it came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring relates misinformation. It is from Mainwaring that the portrait comes of Handel's father as implacably opposed to any musical education. Mainwaring writes that Georg Händel was "alarmed" at Handel's early propensity for music, "took every measure to oppose it", including forbidding any musical instrument in the house and preventing Handel from going to any house where they might be found; this did nothing to dampen young Handel's inclination. Mainwaring tells the story of Handel's
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France; the modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century. From the middle decades of the 17th century, through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century, it was the world's most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War; the Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the unmatched world power during the 19th and first part of the 20th centuries. Due to this historical prominence, it is common among non-Britons, to refer to it as "the Royal Navy" without qualification. Following World War I, the Royal Navy was reduced in size, although at the onset of World War II it was still the world's largest.
By the end of the war, the United States Navy had emerged as the world's largest. During the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines and active in the GIUK gap. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its focus has returned to expeditionary operations around the world and remains one of the world's foremost blue-water navies. However, 21st century reductions in naval spending have led to a personnel shortage and a reduction in the number of warships; the Royal Navy maintains a fleet of technologically sophisticated ships and submarines including two aircraft carriers, two amphibious transport docks, four ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear fleet submarines, six guided missile destroyers, 13 frigates, 13 mine-countermeasure vessels and 22 patrol vessels. As of November 2018, there are 74 commissioned ships in the Royal Navy, plus 12 ships of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary; the RFA replenishes Royal Navy warships at sea, augments the Royal Navy's amphibious warfare capabilities through its three Bay-class landing ship vessels.
It works as a force multiplier for the Royal Navy doing patrols that frigates used to do. The total displacement of the Royal Navy is 408,750 tonnes; the Royal Navy is part of Her Majesty's Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, an admiral and member of the Defence Council of the United Kingdom; the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The Royal Navy operates three bases in the United Kingdom; as the seaborne branch of HM Armed Forces, the RN has various roles. As it stands today, the RN has stated its 6 major roles as detailed below in umbrella terms. Preventing Conflict – On a global and regional level Providing Security At Sea – To ensure the stability of international trade at sea International Partnerships – To help cement the relationship with the United Kingdom's allies Maintaining a Readiness To Fight – To protect the United Kingdom's interests across the globe Protecting the Economy – To safe guard vital trade routes to guarantee the United Kingdom's and its allies' economic prosperity at sea Providing Humanitarian Aid – To deliver a fast and effective response to global catastrophes The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the kingdom's power in the 10th century.
At one point Aethelred II had an large fleet built by a national levy of one ship for every 310 hides of land, but it is uncertain whether this was a standard or exceptional model for raising fleets. During the period of Danish rule in the 11th century, the authorities maintained a standing fleet by taxation, this continued for a time under the restored English regime of Edward the Confessor, who commanded fleets in person. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Following the Battle of Hastings, the Norman navy that brought over William the Conqueror disappeared from records due to William receiving all of those ships from feudal obligations or because of some sort of leasing agreement which lasted only for the duration of the enterprise. More troubling, is the fact that there is no evidence that William adopted or kept the Anglo-Saxon ship mustering system, known as the scipfryd. Hardly noted after 1066, it appears that the Normans let the scipfryd languish so that by 1086, when the Doomsday Book was completed, it had ceased to exist.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 1068, Harold Godwinson's sons Godwine and Edmund conducted a ‘raiding-ship army’ which came from Ireland, raiding across the region and to the townships of Bristol and Somerset. In the following year of 1069, they returned with a bigger fleet which they sailed up the River Taw before being beaten back by a local earl near Devon. However, this made explicitly clear that the newly conquered England under Norman rule, in effect, ceded the Irish Sea to the Irish, the Vikings of Dublin, other Norwegians. Besides ceding away the Irish Sea, the Normans ceded the North Sea, a major area where Nordic peoples traveled. In 1069, this lack of naval presence in the North Sea allowed for the invasion an
Pyramus and Thisbe
Pyramus and Thisbē are a pair of ill-fated lovers whose story forms part of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The story has since been retold by many authors. In Ovid's Metamorphoses and Thisbe are two lovers in the city of Babylon who occupy connected houses/walls, forbidden by their parents to be wed, because of their parents' rivalry. Through a crack in one of the walls, they whisper their love for each other, they state their feelings for each other. Thisbe arrives first, but upon seeing a lioness with a mouth bloody from a recent kill, she flees, leaving behind her veil; when Pyramus arrives he is horrified at the sight of Thisbe's veil in which the lioness had torn and left traces of blood behind, as well as its tracks. Assuming that a wild beast has killed her, Pyramus kills himself, falling on his sword, a typical Babylonian way to commit suicide, in turn splashing blood on the white mulberry leaves. Pyramus' blood stains the white mulberry fruits. Thisbe returns, eager to tell Pyramus what had happened to her, but she finds Pyramus' dead body under the shade of the mulberry tree.
Thisbe, after a brief period of mourning, stabs herself with the same sword. In the end, the gods listen to Thisbe's lament, forever change the colour of the mulberry fruits into the stained colour to honour the forbidden love. Ovid's is the oldest surviving version of the story, published in 8 AD, but he adapted an existing etiological myth. While in Ovid's telling Pyramus and Thisbe lived in Babylon and Ctesias had placed the tomb of his imagined king Ninus near that city, the myth originated in Cilicia as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the local Ceyhan River; the metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changing into this river and Thisbe into a nearby spring. A 2nd-century mosaic unearthed near Nea Paphos on Cyprus depicts this older version of the myth; the story of Pyramus and Thisbe appears in Giovanni Boccaccio's On Famous Women as biography number twelve and in his Decameron, in the fifth story on the seventh day, where a desperate housewife falls in love with her neighbor, communicates with him through a crack in the wall, attracting his attention by dropping pieces of stone and straw through the crack.
In the 1380s, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his The Legend of Good Women, John Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, were the first to tell the story in English. Gower altered the story somewhat into a cautionary tale. John Metham's Amoryus and Cleopes is another early English adaptation; the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet sprang from Ovid's story. Here the star-crossed lovers cannot be together because Juliet has been engaged by her parents to another man and the two families hold an ancient grudge; as in Pyramus and Thisbe, the mistaken belief in one lover's death leads to consecutive suicides. The earliest version of Romeo and Juliet was published in 1476 by Masuccio Salernitano, while it obtained its present form when written down in 1524 by Luigi da Porto. Salernitano and Da Porto both are thought to have been inspired by Boccaccio's writing. Shakespeare's most famous 1590s adaptation is a dramatization of Arthur Brooke's 1562 poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, itself a translation of a French translation of Da Porto's novella.
In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, written in the 1590s, a group of "mechanicals" enact the story of "Pyramus and Thisbe". Their production is crude and, for the most part, badly done until the final monologues of Nick Bottom, as Pyramus and Francis Flute, as Thisbe; the theme of forbidden love is present in A Midsummer Night's Dream in that a girl, Hermia, is not able to marry the man she loves, because her father Egeus despises him and wishes for her to marry Demetrius, meanwhile Hermia and Lysander are confident that Helena is in love with Demetrius. Spanish poet Luis de Góngora wrote a Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe in 1618, while French poet Théophile de Viau wrote Les amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbée, a tragedy in five acts, in 1621. In 1718 Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello wrote his only opera "La Tisbe" for Württemberg court. François Francoeur and François Rebel composed Pirame et Thisbée, a lyric tragedy in 5 acts and a prologue, with libretto by Jean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre.
The story was adapted by John Frederick Lampe as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, containing a singing "Wall", described as "the most musical partition, heard." In 1768 in Vienna, Johann Adolph Hasse composed a serious opera on the tale, titled Piramo e Tisbe. Edmond Rostand adapted the tale, making the fathers of the lovers conspire to bring their children together by pretending to forbid their love, in Les Romanesques, whose musical adaptation, The Fantasticks, became the world's longest-running musical. Latin literature Pyramus and Thisbe Club, a UK organisation concerned with party wall legislation Star-crossed Ovid, Metamorphoses iv.55-166 Bulfinch, The Age of Fable.
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes; the original plan for "laying out and planting" these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, was said still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House in the 19th century, but is untraced. The grounds, which had remained private property, were acquired by London County Council in 1895, it is today managed by the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the southern boundary of that borough with the City of Westminster. Lincoln's Inn Fields takes its name from the adjacent Lincoln's Inn, of which the private gardens are separated from the Fields by a perimeter wall and a large gatehouse; the grassed area in the centre of the Fields contains a court for tennis and netball and a bandstand. It was used for corporate events, which are no longer permitted.
Cricket and other sports are thought to have been played here in the 18th century. Up to the 17th century, cattle were grazed upon the fields, which were part of the Holborn grassland named Pursefield and belonged to St Giles Hospital. In the report of excavations of 64 Lincoln's Inn Fields, it is noted that one Katherine Smyth, the owner of the White Hart Inn on Drury Lane, leased the land from 1520, it reverted to the Crown, was used as pasture and the occasional execution. The use of the pastures meant that Turnstiles were placed around the square to enable pedestrians to enter without the animals escaping. Shops and other businesses developed along these footpaths and some of these alleys still exist – the Great and Little Turnstile.. Schemes for redevelopment of the fields by Inigo Jones and Charles Cornwallis in 1613 and 1618 were unsuccessful. William Newton gained permission, however, to erect 32 houses in what became known as Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1638 for an annual fee of £5 6s 8d.
However, the building license was only given if the central area remained an outdoor space open to the public. Quarry pits were discovered in the excavations at No 64 for building materials, in particular, gravel. In the fill of one was a fragment of a'fuddling cup' a drinking vessel which made it deliberately difficult to drink from without spillage; when laid out, Lincoln's Inn Fields was part of fashionable London. The completion of the houses that surrounded it proceeded at a leisurely pace, interrupted by the English Civil War: In 1659 James Cooper, Robert Henley, Francis Finch and other owners of "certain parcels of ground in the fields called Lincoln's Inn Fields", were exempted from all forfeitures and penalties which they might incur in regard to any new buildings they might erect on three sides of the same fields to 1 October in that year, provided that they paid for the public service one year's full value for every such house within one month of its erection; the oldest building from this early period is Lindsey House, 59–60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, built in 1640 and has been attributed to Inigo Jones.
The builder may have been David Cunningham, 1st Baronet of Auchinhervie, a friend of the mason-sculptor Nicholas Stone, who supervised the rebuilding of Berkhamsted Place for Charles I. It derives its name from a period of ownership in the 18th century by the earls of Lindsey. Another seventeenth-century survival is now 66 Lincoln's Inn Fields, built for Lord Powis and known as Powis House; the charter of the Bank of England was sealed there on 27 July 1694. It was in 1705 acquired by the Duke of Newcastle, it remains in its circa 1700 form, although a remodelling in 1930 by Sir Edwin Lutyens gives it a curiously pastiche appearance. As London fashion moved west, Lincoln's Inn Fields was left to rich lawyers who were attracted by its proximity to the Inns of Court. Thus, the former Newcastle House became in 1790 the premises of the solicitors Farrer & Co who are still there: their clients include much of the landed gentry and Queen Elizabeth II; the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre was located in the Fields from 1661 to 1848.
Called the Duke's Theatre, it was created by converting Lisle's Tennis Court, to become the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in 1695. The theatre presented the first paid public performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 1700, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera in January 1728, Handel's final two operas in 1740 and 1741. Lincoln's Inn Fields was the site, in 1683, of the public beheading of Lord William Russell, son of the first Duke of Bedford, following his implication in the Rye House Plot for the attempted assassination of King Charles II; the executioner was Jack Ketch who made such a poor job of it that four axe blows were required before the head was separated from the body and, after the first stroke, Russell looked up and said to him "You dog, did I give you 10 guineas to use me so inhumanely?". Sometime after 1735 the Fields were enclosed within an iron railing, on account of the Master of the Rolls, Sir Joseph Jekyll being ridden over by a horse. An alternative version of the story claims that Jekyll was attacked for his support of an Act of Parliament raising the price of gin.
From 1750 to 19
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most shown holding a pair of torches or a key and in periods depicted in triple form. She was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, magic, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts and sorcery, she appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in Hesiod's Theogony, where she is promoted as a great goddess. The place of origin of her following is uncertain, but it is thought that she had popular followings in Thrace. Hecate was one of the main deities worshiped in Athenian households as a protective goddess and one who bestowed prosperity and daily blessings on the family. In the post-Christian writings of the Chaldean Oracles she was regarded with rulership over earth and sky, as well as a more universal role as Saviour, Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul. Regarding the nature of her cult, it has been remarked, "she is more at home on the fringes than in the center of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition."
The etymology of the name Hecate is unknown. Some suggestions derive the name from a Greek root: from ἑκών "willing", or from Ἑκατός Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as "the far reaching one" or "the far-darter", whence for the feminine form "she that operates from afar" or "she that removes or drives off". R. S. P. Beekes suggested a Pre-Greek origin. A possibility for foreign origin of the name may be Heqet, name of an Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth. In Early Modern English, the name was pronounced disyllabically and sometimes spelled Hecat, it remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables when spelled with final e, well into the 19th century. The spelling Hecat is due to Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, this spelling without the final E appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.
Hecate originated among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus, are attested, where Hecate remained a Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina. While many researchers favor the idea that she has Anatolian origins, it has been argued that "Hecate must have been a Greek goddess." The monuments to Hecate in Phrygia and Caria are numerous but of late date. William Berg observes, "Since children are not called after spooks, it is safe to assume that Carian theophoric names involving hekat- refer to a major deity free from the dark and unsavoury ties to the underworld and to witchcraft associated with the Hecate of classical Athens." In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses, based on similar attributes. If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, it is possible it presented a conflict, as her role was filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene.
This line of reasoning lies behind the accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity, incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony, the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage, or of her relations in the Greek pantheon: sometimes Hecate is related as a Titaness, a mighty helper and protector of humans. Shrines to Hecate were placed at doorways to both homes and cities with the belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits. Shrines to Hecate at three way crossroads were created where food offerings were left at the new moon to protect those who did so from spirits and other evils. Dogs were sacred to Hecate and associated with roads, domestic spaces and spirits of the dead. Dogs were sacrificed to the road; this can be compared to Pausanias' report that in the Ionian city of Colophon in Asia Minor a sacrifice of a black female puppy was made to Hecate as "the wayside goddess", Plutarch's observation that in Boeotia dogs were killed in purificatory rites.
Dogs, with puppies mentioned, were offered to Hecate at crossroads, which were sacred to the goddess. Hecate was a popular divinity, her cult was practiced with many local variations all over Greece and Western Anatolia. However, she did not have many known sanctuaries or temples dedicated to her aside from her most famous temple in Lagina. There was a Temple of Hecate in Argolis: "Over against the sanctuary of Eilethyia is a temple of Hekate, the image is a work of Skopas; this one is of stone, while the bronze images opposite of Hekate, were made by Polykleitos and his brother Naukydes." There were a shrine to Hecate in Aigina, where she was popular: "Of the gods, the Aiginetans worship most Hekate, in whose honour every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thrakian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple, it was Alkamenes, in my opinion, who first made three images of Hekate attached to one another."Aside from her own temples, Hecate was worshipped in the sanctuaries of other gods, where she was sometimes given her own space.
There was an area sacred to Hecate in the precincts of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, where the prie
Macbeth
Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, patron of Shakespeare's acting company, Macbeth most reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign, it was first published in the Folio of 1623 from a prompt book, is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself, he is wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler; the bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of King of Scotland.
The events of the tragedy are associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". Over the course of many centuries, the play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, it has been adapted to film, opera, novels and other media. The play opens amid thunder and lightning, the Three Witches decide that their next meeting will be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, Banquo have just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitorous Macdonwald, the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his fighting prowess. In the following scene and Banquo discuss the weather and their victory; as they wander onto a heath, the Three Witches greet them with prophecies.
Though Banquo challenges them first, they address Macbeth, hailing him as "Thane of Glamis," "Thane of Cawdor," and that he will "be King hereafter." Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence. When Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches respond paradoxically, saying that he will be less than Macbeth, yet happier, less successful, yet more, he will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the witches vanish, another thane, Ross and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor; the first prophecy is thus fulfilled, Macbeth sceptical begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle at Inverness. Macbeth sends a message ahead to Lady Macbeth, telling her about the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband's uncertainty and wishes him to murder Duncan in order to obtain kingship; when Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband's objections by challenging his manhood and persuades him to kill the king that night.
He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan's two chamberlains. They will be defenceless. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a hallucination of a bloody dagger, he is so shaken. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by placing bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. Macbeth murders the guards to prevent them from professing their innocence, but claims he did so in a fit of anger over their misdeeds. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well; the rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman of the dead king. Banquo reveals this to the audience, while sceptical of the new King Macbeth, he remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne.
Despite his success, Macbeth aware of this part of the prophecy, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet, where he discovers that Banquo and his young son, will be riding out that night. Fearing Banquo's suspicions, Macbeth arranges to have him murdered, by hiring two men to kill them sending a Third Murderer; the assassins succeed in killing Banquo. Macbeth becomes furious: he fears that his power remains insecure as long as an heir of Banquo remains alive. At a banquet, Macbeth invites Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, as the ghost is only visible to him; the others panic at the sight of Macbeth ragi
