WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES Macbeth was first performed in 1606, three years after James I succeeded Elizabeth I on the English throne. By that time, William Shakespeare was the most popular playwright in England, and his company, which had been called the Chamberlain's Men under Queen Elizabeth, was renamed the King's Men. You can see from the subject and content of Macbeth that Shakespeare was writing to please the new king. At the …
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showed last 75 words of 11101 total
…just done. Let's take a moment to examine one of the imaginary sinners the Porter says he lets in: "here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven" (lines 8-11). Equivocation means lying, and we will soon see Macbeth and his wife doing a lot of that. But remember the Porter's speech: the liar cannot "equivocate to heav