Macbeth - Certified Expert Knowledge (Year 11)

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "the fountain of your blood is stopped"

Accentuates Duncan's legitimacy ('golden blood', 'silver skin', 'Lord's anointed temple'). The fountain was a Jacobean symbol of Kingship impacting the nation's health (life source, or spreading contagion if poisoned). Macbeth subconsciously acknowledges the wider consequences of regicide. Propaganda for James I: stopping the fountain leads to tyranny, cured only by a legitimate heir.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Every soldier hew him down a bough…"

Contrasts Macbeth's tyrannical disease ("It weeps, it bleeds…") with Malcolm as the hereditary heir who restores health. Hiding in Birnam Wood shows Malcolm's wisdom and alludes to the 'golden bough' carried by Aeneas into hell in Virgil's Aeneid—establishing Macbeth's reign as hell on Earth and Malcolm as a nurturing figure like Duncan who 'purges' Scotland.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "…Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapped in proof…" (Act 1, Scene 2)

Ross compares Macbeth's battlefield bravery to the husband of Bellona (Roman Goddess of War). Connects to chivalry, brutality, and gender. Making him the 'bridegroom' of a female goddess rather than a male warrior foreshadows his emasculation later on, with Bellona symbolically representing Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Pluck out mine eyes" (Act 2, Scene 2)

Eyesight symbolises seeing 'the truth'. Alludes to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (Oedipus gouges out his eyes in self-flagellation after killing his father/marrying his mother) and Mark 9:47 ("if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out"). Exemplifies Macbeth's barbarity and torturous conscience after sinning against God.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Why should I play the Roman fool and die / On mine own sword?" (Act 5, Scene 8)

References Cato, a Roman statesman who committed suicide rather than live under Julius Caesar's rule. Macbeth disdains suicide to fight to the bitter end, showing his lack of honour/dignity compared to 'brave Macbeth' at the start. Propaganda for James I: there is no honourable death for a traitor.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" (Act 5, Scene 1)

Bloody hands motif derives from Matthew 27:24 (Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Jesus' blood), symbolising guilt. 'Perfumes of Arabia' links treasonous Lady Macbeth with the mysterious, 'barbaric' East and expensive/exotic luxury, revealing a character who obsessively craves ambitious and finer things.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Turn, hellhound, Turn!" (Act 5, Scene 8)

'Hellhound' alludes to Cerberus, the supernatural dog guarding the gates of hell. Macduff implies Macbeth has aligned himself with the devil through betrayal. Suggests regicide is an act against God, violating the Divine Right of Kings and the Great Chain of Being.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "In a sieve I'll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail, I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do."

Caters to King James I's obsession with witchcraft (4,000 executed in Scotland). In 1589, storms battered James's fleet while sailing with his bride Anne of Denmark; James blamed witches, believing they sailed across the sea in sieves.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "He has almost supped." (Act 1, Scene 7)

Lady Macbeth plans to murder Duncan after his final meal, reminding the Jacobean audience of the Last Supper where Judas betrayed Jesus. Duncan assumes the allegorical role of Jesus (reaffirming his divine right to rule), while Macbeth fulfills the role of Judas, betraying God.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Tell thee, Macduff, was from his mother's womb, untimely ripped." (Act 5, Scene 7)

Macduff's caesarean birth allusions Asclepius, Greek god of medicine cut from his mother's womb, who could resurrect the dead (feared by Zeus just as Macbeth fears Macduff). Macduff acts as a foil to Macbeth and the 'medicine' to a diseased Scotland, restoring the Divine Right of Kings.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage…" (Act 5, Scene 5)

Spoken after Lady Macbeth's death, illustrating Macbeth's nihilism and the brevity of mortality. Metaphors of 'walking shadow' and 'poor player' (actor) show life is fleeting and meaningless. Macbeth acknowledges his pitiful existence was destroyed by reckless ambition.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed."

Bird imagery shows the natural order inverted after Duncan's murder. The falcon (monarch of birds = King Duncan) is killed by a lower, nocturnal mousing owl (= Macbeth). Evokes how Macbeth inverted the Great Chain of Being through regicide.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "…or memorise another Golgotha" (Act 1, Scene 2)

Golgotha ('place of a skull', Matthew 27:33) is Mount Calvary where Christ was crucified. The Captain wonders if Macbeth's violent, remorseless army is trying to make the bloody battlefield as famous as Golgotha. Foreshadows Macbeth's later brutality and aligns Duncan's murder as an act against God.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't" (Act 1, Scene 5)

After the Gunpowder Plot failed, King James I commissioned a coin featuring a serpent wrapped around a flower. Links Macbeth's duplicitous acts with the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, serving as constitutional propaganda and a morality play.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell" (Act 1, Scene 5)

References Job 24:13 ("they that abhor the light") and Revelation 14:11 ("smoke of their torment"). Lady Macbeth calls on darkness to hide her evil deed, contrasting with Act 5 where she demands light at all times. Foreshadows her deterioration and awareness of religious damnation.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "…with Tarquin's ravishing strides" (Act 2, Scene 1)

Alludes to Roman figure Tarquin, famous for raping Lucrece (and Shakespeare's poem 'The Rape of Lucrece'). Shows Macbeth recognises his crime is comparable to Tarquin's immorality, framing regicide as the ultimate crime and linking Duncan to Lucrece to emphasise his pure innocence.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "destroy your sight With a new Gorgon" (Act 2, Scene 3)

In classical mythology, a Gorgon (like Medusa) was so hideous that looking at her caused blindness. Macduff hyperbolises that Duncan's murdered corpse is so horrific it will blind Lennox, emphasising Macduff's allegiance to Duncan and Macbeth's perversion of the Great Chain of Being.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "golden stamp" (Act 4, Scene 3)

Tribute to James I and the 'royal touch' (inherited from Edward the Confessor) used to cure 'scrofula' (the King's Evil) by touching the sick and hanging a gold coin around their neck. Royalist propaganda confirming the legitimacy of James I's divinely appointed rule.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb / T'appease an angry god." (Act 4, Scene 3)

Malcolm fears Macduff might sacrifice him to Macbeth. Compares rightful heir Malcolm to a pure, innocent sacrificial lamb, whilst comparing Macbeth not to the Christian God, but to a barbaric, uncivilised pagan god demanding blood sacrifice.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "It weeps, it bleeds: and each day a new gash is added to her wounds."

Explores how tyrants bring apocalypse. References to 'meat', horses eating each other (Act 2 Scene 4), and conquest for the 'golden round' allude to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (famine, war, conquest, death). Presents Macbeth as a blasphemous false Jesus/harbinger, warning the audience that regicide brings apocalyptic chaos.

Macbeth Expert Knowledge: "…all you have done Hath been but for a wayward son…"

Alludes to the biblical Prodigal Son to symbolise how far Macbeth has strayed from God. Implies Macbeth wasted the virtue and honour he earned as a soldier, and wasted the opportunity given by fate, proving regicidal acts end in a frivolous departure from God.