Macbeth Key Quotations

Define perfunctory

(of an action) carried out without any real interest, feeling, or effort

Define Machiavellian

Using clever but often dishonest methods of deceit to win power and control

Define usurper

Someone who takes a position of importance or power illegally or by force

Define pathos

A quality that evokes pity or sadness

Define vacillating

Wavering between different opinions or actions

"Till he unseam'd him

from the nave to th'chaps" (W1.2)

Zoomorphic imagery in 1.2 about Banquo and Macbeth

"Yes, as sparrows, eagles, or the hare, the lion"

Macbeth's opening line in 1.3

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."

"The Thane of Cawdor lives.

Why do you dress me in borrow'd robes?" (M1.3)

"If chance will have me king,

why chance may crown me without my stir" (M1.3)

A second quote in 1.3 relating to imagery of Macbeth wearing clothes that are not designed for him

"New honours come upon him / Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, / But with the aid of use" (B1.3)

"Stars, hide your fires

Let not light see my black and deep desires" (M1.4)

"It is too full

o'th'milk of human kindness" (LM1.5)

"Come, you spirits

that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here / And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty" (LM1.5)

"Come to my woman's breasts

and take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers" (LM1.5)

"Come, thick night / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell

that my knife see not the wound it makes / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark / To cry 'Hold, hold'." (LM1.5)

LM1.5 ending quote from soliloquy about juxtaposition

"look like th'innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't"

"Vaulting ambition

which o'erleap's itself and falls on th'other" (M1.7)

LM1.7 quote referencing the cardinal sin of infanticide (long quote)

"How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck'd my nipple from its bonless gums and dash'd the brains out"

Banquo to Fleance in 2.1 referencing Macbeth in 1.5 ("stars, hide your fires")

"There's husbandry in heaven, / Their candles are all out"

Macbeth before killing Duncan in 2.1

"Is this a dagger which I see before me ... come, let me clutch thee"

"Nature seems dead,

and the wicked dreams abuse / The curtain'd sleep" (M2.1)

LM 2.2 on intoxication with power

"That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold"

"Go get some water

and wash this filthy witness from your hand / Why did you bring these daggers from the place?" (LM2.2)

"Will all great Neptune's ocean

wash this blood / clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather / the multitudinous seas incarnadine / Making the green one red" (M2.2)

"A falcon tow'ring

in her pride of place / was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd" (Old Man 2.4)