Macbeth Quotes

‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair.’ All Witches, Act 1

This paradox suggests the chaos of the time and how hard it is to tell good from bad. Alliteration makes the line memorable. Trochaic tetrameter divides the witches from the other noble characters who speak in iambic pentameter, enoforcing their supernatural nature.

‘brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name’ Captain, Act 1

This epithet contrasts with Macbeths end, highlights how he was perceived and emphasises the question of whether he is good or evil.

‘All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! / All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! / All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!’ First Witch/Second Witch/Third Witch, Act 1

The witch’s prophecy to Macbeth (uses repetition).

‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. / Not so happy, yet much happier. / Thou shalt get kings, thou be none.’ First Witch/Second Witch/Third Witch, Act 1

The witch’s prophecy to Banquo (uses paradox).

‘If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me / Without my stir.’ Macbeth, Act 1

This personification of fate, highlights one of the questions at the core of this piece does fate choose decide your acts? Did fate make Macbeth king? Or was it his own choices?

‘Stars hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires,’ Macbeth, Act 1

Response to Macbeth’s thoughts of the Prince of Cumberland being in his way. This paradox of light and dark, illustrates Macbeth’s evil intent and highlights his awareness of the villainy of his actions.

‘fill me… Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, / Stop th’ access and passage to remorse’ Lady Macbeth, Act 1

This highlights the intent behind Lady Macbeth’s actions and her ruthless and unwavering ambition.

‘Look like th’ innocent flower, / But be the serpent under ’t.’ Lady Macbeth, Act 1

This paradox and metaphor reflects the deception and mixing of good and evil in this play and that Macbeth was acting, using falsehoods. It is also a biblical allusion to the snake that tempted Eve to eat an apple in the Garden of Eden.

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?’ Macbeth, Act 2

This quote marks the beginning of the guilty hallucinations and a metaphor for the way Macbeth feels destined to commit Duncan’s murder.

‘I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more: / Macbeth does murder sleep.”’ Macbeth, Act 2

This is an interesting line and reflects on the way Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s dreams and rest are troubled.

‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No: this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnidine.’ Macbeth, Act 2

This extended metaphor reveals the deep guilt of the murder and the way the evil act polluted Macbeth’s soul, he could never be pure or clean again. (incarnidine: to make incarnidine/bloodred)

‘There's daggers in men's smiles.’ Donaldbain, Act 2

This metaphor connects to Macbeth’s hallucinations and the theme of deception; someone pretending to be friendly secretly holds a weapon made for murder.

‘O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!’ ‘My worthy Cawdor’ Duncan, Act 1

The king’s praise to Macbeth highlights his trust and the honour Macbeth initially held.

‘his virtues / Will plead like angels’ Macbeth, Act 1

Macbeth explains that Duncan is so great and praised by the heavens (using a biblical or mythical allusion here) his murder will not go unpunished.

'There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face. / He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust.’ Duncan, Act 1

Here the king reflects on deception and how it is hard to see who you can place your trust in. This is also quite reflective of Duncan’s misplaced trust.

‘These deeds must not be thought / After these ways; so it will make us mad.’ Lady Macbeth, Act 2

After Macbeth murders King Duncan he feels he has defied the will of God that he is cursed and evil. This advice is given to him, foreshadowing the giver’s own demise.

‘When you durst do it, then you were a man.’ Lady Macbeth, Act 1

well what does this mean? from scene 7

‘Are you a man?’ Lady Macbeth, Act 3

Repetition from the earlier act, questions Macbeth’s manliness, tying into the question of his strength and gender roles. It may also ask the audience whether Macbeth human.

‘I fear / Thou played’st most foully for’t’ Banquo, Act 3

Macbeth’s friend sees through is mask of lies and has his suspicions.

‘If he had been forgotten, / It had been as a gap in our great feast / And all-thing unbecoming.’ Lady Macbeth, Act 3

This example of Lady Macbeth’s lies foreshadows the effect of Banquo’s absence at the feast.

‘Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown.’ Macbeth, Act 3

This symbolises Macbeth’s royal line and how he will have no heirs, indicating his faith in the prophecy, the pointless nature of his reign and his inability to enjoy kingship.

‘To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus.’ Macbeth, Act 3

This paradox that it is easy to become king but difficult to be safely king reflects the way Macbeth cannot enjoy his power because of the fears brought on due to the powerful evil of his acts - you will never be rewarded for evil.

‘We have scorched the snake, not killed it.’ Macbeth, Act 3

This is refelctive of the way Macbeth cannot enjoy his power because he is still faced with steps to ‘o’erleap’. It may be connected to his earlier biblical reference and show that he and Lady Macbeth cannot lower their guard yet there is still more deception and evil to be done.

‘O, full of scorpions is my mind’ Macbeth, Act 3

A metaphor for the dark and stinging thoughts Macbeth has about Banquo and Fleance. How it will not rest until they are dead.

‘It will be rain tonight.’ Banquo, Act 3

Pathetic fallacy enforcing the storm and chaos brewing in the heavens and the impending climax or build up to climax at Banquo’s death.

‘Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake / Thy gory locks at me.’ Macbeth, Act 3

This ties into the motifs of blood and hallucination as part of Macbeth’s guilt, reveals the way he feels guilty for Banquo’s murder despite not actually committing the act. It is also part of his first moment of public madness.

‘I am a man again.’ Macbeth, Act 3

This may either be a confirmation of Macbeth’s masculinity, that he is not behaving in a feminine way or it could be highlighting the possessed and inhuman nature he takes on when he hallucinates. This may reflect the effect of supernatural powers on him.

‘at the pit of Acheron / Meet me i’th’morning.’ Hecate, Act 3

This is a mythical allusion to the river in Hades or hell and shows the inherently evil nature of the witches, how they are connected to dark forces. This suggests their acts were intended to trick Macbeth.

'blood will have blood.’ Macbeth, Act 3

What is heard from Banquo’s ghost highlights the vengeance that will occur and signifies the cycle of violence and retribution. This may also be a biblical allusion to what happened to Abel… there’s something about it in a Cambridge essay and the bible (I think, according to online) says ‘Whoever will shed human blood, his blood will be poured out’.

‘black Macbeth’ Malcolm, Act 4

This epithet is a paradox to his earlier sobriquet, outlining his change.

‘Blunt not the heart; enrage it.’ Malcolm, Act 4

In this advice to Macduff is a metonymy for emotion and it is overall a metaphor for the chanelling of anger into vengeance. It also shows two negative emotional approaches to loss.

‘Bleed, bleed poor country!’ Macduff, Act 4

An extended metaphor that relates Scotland to a wounded woman, building on Malcolm’s earlier description of ‘her wounds’.

‘Howe’er you come to know it, answer me.’ Macbeth, Act 4

This show that Macbeth no longer cares about good and evil and his reliance on prophecy - he will hear his fate no matter what evil measures the witches use to glean it.

First Apparation: ‘Beware Macduff! / Beware the Thane of Fife!’ Second Apparation: ‘Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.’ Third Apparation: ‘Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care…Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him.’ (A show of eight kings… and Banquo last.) Act 4

the second prophecy (the supernatural forces essentially tell Macbeth here to be overconfident enforcing how he is very easily manipulated)

‘I have done no harm. But… to do harm / Is often laudable, to do good sometime / Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas, / Do I put up that womanly defense / To say I have done no harm?’ Lady Macduff, Act 4

This connects to the idea of the forces of good and evil being in chaos suggesting that evil is often worth of praise and to be good is sometimes a foolish mistake. She indicates that it is pointless to claim that she is innocent - a feminine trait. This may mean that in this time many have been unjustly condemned or she could be reflecting on Lady Macbeth’s lack of innocence.

‘Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, / They presently amend.’ Doctor, Act 4

This is a paradox to Macbeth. The English king is a good king and thus blessed by God so much that he can instantly cure his people of a disease known as ‘the evil’.

‘I’ll make assurance double sure / And take a bond of fate. Thou shalt not live’ Macbeth, Act 4

Even though he no longer thinks Macduff is a threat, he again acts on the words of the prophecy and vows to kill him resulting in his ‘Savagely slaughtered’ as reported by Ross.

‘When our actions do not, / Our fears do make us traitors.’ Lady Macduff, Act 4

While she is actually describing her husband here, this could also apply to Macbeth who was not only scared of his wife, of missing opportunity and of not being masculine enough and chose to kill King Duncan but also feared Banquo taking his crown and betrayed him even though it was not he who did the killing.

‘Be innnocent of the knowledge’ Macbeth, Act 3

Now Lady Macbeth is innocent. She plays no part in Macbeth’s later deeds.

‘there grows… A stanchless avarice that, were I king… my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more’ Malcolm, Act 4

Although Macduff claims this can be overlooked for the heir’s good qualities, it shows that Malcolm will make a bad king. Is Shakespear pardoning any greed from King James? Or is he suggesting that the cycle of greedy kings will continue. That it will not stop at Macbeth. Is this why Banquo’s line takes over?