Three "Weird Sisters" await Macbeth and Banquo as the two warriors return home, victorious from battle. The Witches greet them with strange prophecies: Macbeth will be named Thane of Cawdor and king, though it will be Banquo who fathers Scotland's future kings. The two friends soon discover that the first part of the prophecy is, indeed, true: the treasonous Cawdor is executed, and Macbeth's bravery earns him the new title from the grateful King Duncan.

Macbeth returns home, where Lady Macbeth presses him to take destiny into his own hands by murdering the sleeping king, a guest in their home that very night. In the morning, the king's body is found; his sons flee and Macbeth is crowned king. Still, Macbeth cannot stop thinking about the Weird Sisters' prophecy: it will be Banquo who will father Scotland's royal line. Macbeth hires henchmen to slaughter Banquo and his son Fleance, but the boy narrowly escapes. That evening, the ghost of Banquo appears before the guilty king.

Tortured by his fears, Macbeth seeks out the Weird Sisters, and again mistakes their cryptic prophecies as assurance of his success. Their paths covered in blood, Lady Macbeth is tormented into madness as Macbeth leads his country toward the abyss of civil war.

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