Editing Macbeth, King of Scotland (section)

=== William Shakespeare's depiction and its influence ===
[[File:Fuseli - Macbeth and the Witches.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|''Macbeth and the witches'', painting by [[Henry Fuseli]]]]
In [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s [[Macbeth|play]], which is based mainly upon [[Raphael Holinshed]]'s account and probably first performed in 1606, [[Macbeth (character)|Macbeth]] is initially a valiant and loyal general to the elderly King Duncan. After being manipulated by [[Three Witches]] and his wife, [[Lady Macbeth]], Macbeth murders Duncan and usurps the throne. Ultimately, the prophecies of the witches prove misleading, and Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant. Duncan's son Malcolm stages a revolt against Macbeth, during which a guilt-ridden Lady Macbeth commits suicide. During battle, Macbeth encounters [[Macduff (Macbeth)|Macduff]], a refugee nobleman whose wife and children had earlier been murdered on Macbeth's orders. Upon realising that he will die if he duels with Macduff, Macbeth at first refuses to do so. But when Macduff explains that if Macbeth surrenders he will be subjected to ridicule by his former subjects, Macbeth vows, "I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, to be baited by a rabble's curse." He chooses instead to fight Macduff to the death. Macduff kills and beheads Macbeth, and the play ends with Prince Malcolm becoming king.

The likely reason<ref>{{cite web|title=The History of Scotland by John Leslie, 1578|url=http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-history-of-scotland-by-john-leslie-1578|website=British Library|access-date=8 August 2016|archive-date=10 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170510135424/http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-history-of-scotland-by-john-leslie-1578|url-status=dead}}</ref> for Shakespeare's unflattering depiction of Macbeth is that [[King James VI and I]] was descended from Malcolm III via the [[Clan Bruce|House of Bruce]] and his own [[House of Stewart]], whereas Macbeth's line died out with the death of Lulach six months after his step-father. King James was also thought to be a descendant of [[Banquo]] through [[Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland]]. Historian [[Peter Berresford Ellis]] suggested that Shakespeare's inaccurate portrayal of MacBeth was unintentional, as he only had access to sources written from the point of view of the English and 'Anglicized Scotsmen', detached culturally and linguistically from 11th-century Scotland. Ellis thus proposed that "the degeneration of MacBeth of Scotland into a murdering usurper" preceded Shakespeare by "some 350 years after [MacBeth's] death at Lumphanan".{{sfn|Ellis|1990|p=115}}

[[File:Do you see that white sail far out to sea Yonder is Macduff.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Macbeth at the fort of Macduff, by [[J. R. Skelton]]]]
In a 1959 essay, [[Boris Pasternak]] compared Shakespeare's characterisation of Macbeth to [[Raskolnikov]], the [[protagonist]] of ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' by [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]]. Pasternak explained that neither character begins as a murderer, but becomes one by a set of faulty rationalisations and a belief that he is above the law.<ref>{{cite book |title=I Remember: Sketch for an Autobiography |url=https://archive.org/details/iremembersketchf00past |url-access=registration |last=Pasternak |first=Boris |author-link=Boris Pasternak |translator1-last=Magarshack |translator1-first=David |translator2-last=Harari |translator2-first=Manya |publisher=[[Pantheon Books]] |location=New York |year=1959 |pages=150–152 |ol=6271434M}}</ref>

Lady Macbeth has also become famous in her own right. In his 1865 novel ''[[Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (novel)|Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District]]'', [[Nikolai Leskov]] updated ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'' so that it takes place among the [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]]n [[merchant class]]. In a twist on the source, however, Leskov reverses the gender roles: the woman is the murderer and the man is the instigator. Leskov's novel was the basis for [[Dmitri Shostakovich]]'s 1936 [[Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (opera)|opera of the same name]].