English Literature

‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’

Bad is good and good is bad. Reflects the confusion and chaos at the start of the play.

‘brave’ ‘noble’ ‘valiant’

Describing Macbeth as courageous and loyal. Contrasts to end of the play where he is the opposite.

‘Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires’

‘Black and deep desires’ are his dark, evil ambitions to become King. Asks the stars to hide their light so the darkness can hide his thoughts from being seen.

‘Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty’

Wants to become genderless because both genders have flaws. Not like the usual expectations of women in the Jacobean era ‘passive pure and pious’.

‘Look like the innocent flower / But be the serpent under’t’

LM telling Macbeth to look good an innocent but him actually being evil and treacherous. Context - the medal after the gunpowder plot towards King James.

‘I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself.’

He has no motivation or desire to kill the King, other than reckless ambition that is so excessive that it will lead to his downfall (hamartia).

‘Will all Great Neptune’s oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?’

He wants a Roman God to clean the blood from his hands and make him innocent again, because he feels guilty. Turning to a different God than his Christian one as he has angered his God.

‘O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!’

His mind is tormented by guilt and fear. Uses the metaphor of scorpions to represent how his guilty conscience is attacking and poisoning him.

‘Never shake thy gory locks at me!’

Feels guilty about the killing of Banquo. Important moment that reveals Macbeths deteriorating mental state due to his outburst at the royal banquet. Causes people to become suspicious of him.