Macbeth quotes online

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

~ witches

- foreshadowing, setting the mood of the supernatural

"Let not light see my black and deep desires."

~ Macbeth

- After Duncan announces that he will name his son Malcolm the next king, Macbeth hopes his disappointment doesn't show. He must find a way to prevent Malcolm from becoming king.

"Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness."

~ Lady Macbeth (referring to Macbeth)

- She fears that Macbeth is too kind to go through with killing Duncan.

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

~ Lady Macbeth (speaking to Macbeth)

- This is just before King Duncan's arrival at their castle. Macbeth's wife wants him to act nice to Duncan's face, and hide his evil intentions.

"Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty!"

~ Lady Macbeth

- calling on the spirits to take away her feminine, weakness and fill her with evil because she wants Duncan dead.

"But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we'll not fail."

~ Lady Macbeth

- before they kill Duncan, she is reassuring Macbeth that everything will work out if he fixes his courage firmly in place.

"False face must hide what false heart doth know."

~ Macbeth

- He has decided he will go along with Lady Macbeth's plan to kill Duncan. Telling himself that he must put on a false pleasant face to hide his false, evil heart.

"Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done't." (referring to Duncan)

~ Lady Macbeth

- She would've killed Duncan herself but as he was sleeping he looked like her father.

"What hands are here? Ha: they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?"

~ Macbeth

- looking at his hands after he has just killed Duncan. He wonders if all of the water in the ocean could wash the blood off his hands.

"Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand?"

~ Macbeth

- Hallucinating that he sees a dagger before he kills Duncan.

"Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

As the weird women promised, and I fear

Thou play'dst most foully for't."

~ Banquo (referring to Macbeth)

- meaning: well now you have everything that you were promised by the witches. I just fear that you did something bad to get it.

"He's here in double trust. First, as I am his kinsman and his subject... then, as his host."

~ Macbeth (referring to King Duncan)

- Listing reasons why he shouldn't kill Duncan. Duncan trusts Macbeth for two reasons: he is his kinsman/subject, and his host.

"A little water clears us of this deed."

~ Lady Macbeth

- After killing Duncan, she tells Macbeth that all they have to do is wash their hands and they will be cleared of their sin.

fair is foul and foul is fair

Act 1, Scene 1 - Witches - paradox - supernatural

O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman

Act 1, Scene 2 - Duncan - bloodshed is revelled in - brutality a virtue

So foul and fair a day I have not seen

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

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

Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none

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

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

Speak, I charge you!

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

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

Act 1, Scene 4 - Macbeth (aside) -

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

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 - ambiguity of supernatural

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

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 - like madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre and Lucy's inability to sleep in Dracula

Beware Macduff

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

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

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 - 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

When the battle's lost and won (1.1.4)

second witch to all witches

fair is foul, foul is fair- one winner and one loser

fair is foul, and foul is fair (1.1.12)

all witches to all witches

major theme- appearances vs. reality. something good is bad, something bad is good

For brave Macbeth...which he ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, till he unsealed him from the nave to th' chops, and fixed his head upon our battlements. (1.2.18-25)

Captain to Duncan and Malcolm

Macbeth killed the traitor Macdonwald

but the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage, with furnished arms and new supplies of men, began a fresh assault. (1.2.34-36)

Captain to Duncan

fair is foul - small victory but another enemy

As cannons overcharge with double cracks, so they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe. (1.2.41-42)

Captain to Duncan

kept fighting, even stronger, not giving up

assisted by that most disloyal traitor, the Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict...the victory fell on us. (1.2.60-66)

Ross to Duncan

Thane of Cawdor is traitor to Duncan but they still win

what he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. (1.2.78)

Duncan to Ross

Thane of Cawdor will die, Macbeth will replace him

fair is foul

and, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do. (1.3.10-11)

first witch to all witches

going to torture sailor because woman didnt give her nuts, witches have power. torturing because they can

I'll drain him dry as hay. sleep shall neither night nor day. hang upon his penthouse lid. he shall live a man forbid. weary sev'nnights, nine times nine, shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. (1.3.19-24)

first witch to other witches

the woman's husband is tortured

so foul and fair a day i have not seen. (1.3.39)

Macbeth to Banquo

bad weather, won but many losses

you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so. (1.3.47-49)

Banquo to witches

they dont look like women

all hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! all hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shall be king thereafter! (1.3.51-53)

all witches to Macbeth and Banquo

Macbeth knows he is Thane of Glamis, he doesnt know that he is going to be Thane of Cawdor but we do, king is foreshadowing

why do you start and seem to fear things that do sound so fair? (1.3.54-55)

Banquo to Macbeth

Macbeth is freaking out about the titles the witches said

speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear your favors nor your hate. (1.3.63-64)

Banquo to witches

predict stuff for him, he doesnt beg for their favors or fear their hate

lesser than Macbeth and greater. not so happy, yet much happier. thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. (1.3.68-70)

witches to banquo

Banquo wont be king, he will be happier than Macbeth, Banquo's kids will be king and his line will carry on

the Thane of Cawdor lives, why do you dress me in borrowed robes? (1.3.114-115)

Macbeth to Ross, Angus, Banquo

he is unaware that the thane of cawdor has died/was a traitor. doesnt understand why he would just take his "robes" if they still belong to cawdor.

But 'tis strange. and oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness to tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray 's in deepest consequence. (1.3.134-138)

Banquo to Macbeth