Macbeth Key Quotes

O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman

Act 1, Scene 2 - Duncan - bloodshed is revelled in - brutality a virtue - theme of betrayal/loyalty and appearance vs reality

So foul and fair a day I have not seen

Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth - opening line - paradox similar to witches - potential for supernaturalness - theme of supernatural

You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so

Act 1, Scene 3- Macbeth - Witches = supernatural and transgressive of gender

Why do you dress me in borrow'd robes?

Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth to Ross - disbelief of prohpecy becoming true - theatrical imagery

The instruments of darkness tell us truths

Act 1, Scene 3 - Banquo - less trustworthy of witches - calm and sceptical

Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here

Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - similar to witches - supernatural relations - transgression of gender - imperatives - urgency - desperation - recurrence of 'un': cannot undo actions

Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell

Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - light/dark imagery - Hellish imagery - guilt - shroud for dead bodies - concealment - conspiracy - relates to Macbeth's 'Stars hide your fires...' - femme fatale

Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't

Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - religious imagery - Adam and Eve - sin against God - regicide - deception - conspiracy -transgressive femme fatale - reference to guy fawkes - serpent

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th'inventor

Act 1, Scene 7 - Macbeth - fears moral consequences - humility - psychological state

Vaulting ambition

Act 1, Scene 7 - Gothic ambition - fatal flaw of tragic hero - only motive to kill - realises it is untrustworthy

There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out

Act 2, Scene 1 - Banquo - Religious imagery - dark imagery

Is this a dagger which I see before me

Act 2, Scene 1 - Macbeth - visions - horror image - two interpretations: dagger of Macbeth's imagination OR conjured by the Witches to spur on Macbeth to kill Duncan, shows influence of witches - ambiguity of supernatural - disturbed mental state - sign of witchcraft

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still

Act 2, Scene 1 - Macbeth dagger soliloquy - contradictions like the Witches

Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't

Act 2, Scene 2 - Lady Macbeth - indicates she has some conscience - not purely evil

I could not say 'Amen'

Act 2, Scene 2 - Macbeth - Amen means 'so be it' in Hebrew - cannot ask for anything given his sin - guilt - supernatural

Macbeth shall sleep no more

Act 2, Scene 2 - Macbeth thinks he heard a voice cry 'sleep no more!' - accepts danger of sleep when he is to be king - insomnia - erratic and tyrannical behaviour

The devil himself could not pronounce a title more hateful to mine ear

Act 5, Scene 7 - Young Siward - religious imagery - hatred for Macbeth publicly known

This dead butcher and his fiend like queen

Act 5, Scene 8 - Malcolm - butcher: someone who kills with no remorse or regret or reason - fiend - evil and immoral, capable of enchanting victims into a false sense of security

Out damned spot: out I say

Act 5, Scene 1 - Lady Macbeth - sleepwalking scene - manifestation of Duncan's blood - guilt - madness - motif of washing

Beware Macduff

Act 4, Scene 1 - First apparition - possible threat of Macduff

Mother's womb untimely ripp'd

Act 5, Scene 8 - Macduff confirming threat

until Great Birnham wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him

Act 4, Scene 1 - Third apparition (crowned child) - branches cut down and used as camouflage used by the English led by Siward and Malcolm, Duncan's son

Something wicked this way comes

Act 4, Scene 1 - Second witch - their own creation - Macbeth now comes LOOKING FOR THEM(contrasts Act 1) - supernatural

When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Act 1, Scene 1 - First witch - Pathetic fallacy - connections to dark weather - dark imagery - supernatural - dark exposition - tragedy - conspiracy

secret, black, and midnight hags!

Act 4, Scene 1 - Macbeth - arrogant command to the Witches - contrasts Act 1, Scene 3 where he addresses them with shock and surprise

We have scotch'd the snake, not killed it

Act 3, Scene 2 - Macbeth - worried about threat (Banquo) - snake is the threat to his kinship - religious imagery - snake tempts

O, full of scorpions is my mind

Act 3, Scene 2 - Macbeth - the fact Banquo and Fleance still live is like the sting of a scorpion

Don't you shake thy gory locks at me

Act 3 Scene 4 - Macbeth - theme of guilt and disturbed mental state - Banquo's ghost

A little water cleans us of this sin

Lady Macbeth - motif of washing - can be used for contrast of her disturbed mental state scene in Act 5- theme of Gender

Scotland

- use the Natural Order/ Great Chain of beings

O Scotland, Scotland!

- theme of scotland - personification - humanises it - Act 4 Scene 3

o nation miserable

Act 4 Scene 3 - theme of scotland- divine right of king - victim of Macbeth

"Thy royal father was a most sainted king"

Act 4 Scene 3 - Duncan was a strong and respected ruler - kingship - leadership - loyalty

Is thine and my poor country's to command

Act 4 Scene 3 theme of scotland and kingship - similar to James I views on kingship

who knows nothing is once seen to smile; where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air

Act 4 Scene 3 - theme of scotland and kingship - divine right of kings

Hell is murky

Act 5, Scene 1 - Lady Macbeth - represents how she is close to her end - theme of supernatural - eternal damnation for violating the divine right of kings - theme of guilt

"Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

Act 5 Scene 1 - Lady Macbeth - motif of blood and washing - themes of disturbed mental state, guilt, Supernatural.
Supernatural - sleepwalking due to witches.

Take my milk for gall

Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5 - theme of supernatural and gender. The milk : referring to the 'milk of human kindness'. Gall is a horrible, bitter substance

This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses.

Act 1 Scene 6 , theme of appearance vs reality ( the castle looks and seems peaceful and welcoming even though the inhabitants, the Macbeths, have malicious intentions) - semantic field of safety and paradise: ironic.

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve...the heaven's breath smells wooingly here.

Act 1 Scene 6 , theme of appearance vs reality. A house martin that has been seen around churches - religious idealogy - church birds reside around here and the semantic field of holiness is juxtapostion to the Macebths.

A falcon towering...was by a mousing owl hawked at, and killed

Act 2 Scene 4 - theme of scotland and supernatural and kingship - natural order has been disrupted after Duncan's murder

"...we may again / Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,

Act 3 Scene 6 - theme of kingship and scotland - this suggest that these things are not possible under Macbeth's reign, things that everyone craves

Free from our feasts and banquets and bloody knives."

Act 3 Scene 6 -theme of kingship and scotland - this suggest under Macbeth's reign that they can't attend banquets withou the fear of violence.

"Sinful Macduff, they were all struck for thee"

Act 4 Scene 3 Shows Macduff blames himself for their deaths as he left them defenceless - theme of guilt and gender

fair is foul and foul is fair

Act 1, Scene 1 - Witches - paradox - supernatural

Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none

Act 1, Scene 3 - Third Witch - prophecy - Banquo - kingship

Speak, I charge you!

Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth - imperative - witches fail to obey - lack of control? - argues against supernatural powers

None of woman born shall harm Macbeth

Act 4, Scene 1 - Second apparition (Bloody child) - comforts Macbeth but has double meaning - Macduff born Caesarean - Macduff can kill him

'The gracious Duncan

duncan - kingship - Act 3 scence 6

and duncan's horses...turned wild in nature. Tis said they ate each other

Act 2 Scene 4 - theme of scotland and supernatural and kingship - natural order has been disrupted( cannibalism ) after Duncan's murder

Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires

Act 1, Scene 4 - Macbeth (aside) - guilt and betrayal/loyalty

Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself. It cannot be called our mother, but our grave.

Act 4 Scene 3 - theme of scotland and kingship - divine right of kings - victim of Macbeth