Macbeth Act 5: quotes

“A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching.”

• Doctor

• When they are watching Lady Macbeth start sleepwalking

• Shakespeare emphasizes how unnatural and disturbing the actions of this husband and wife are, and because this tragedy is a psychological examination of guilt

• No literary devices

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“It is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this quarter of an hour.”

• Gentlewoman to doctor

• When Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking

• The gentlewomen states that she seen Lady Macbeth was her hands before and she done it for up to 15 minutes

• No literary devices

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“Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

• Lady Macbeth

• This as Lady Macbeth sleepwalks through Macbeth's castle

• She is so overridden by guilt that she is going crazy

• No literary devices

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“The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that.”

• Lady Macbeth

• Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking

• Lady Macbeth seems to be a tragic heroine. Because of her flaw, unbridled ambition, she has reached this tragic point where her conscience has caught up with her

• No literary devices

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“Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” 

• Lady Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking
• Lady Macbeth is washing her hands as she sleepwalks and is ridden with guilt because she knows that her hands will never be clean.
• Allusion to Arabia

“Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ’s grave.”

• Lady Macbeth

• Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking

• Lady Macbeth starts listing things here to specify what she wants the other characters to do.

• No literary devices

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“What’s done cannot be undone.”

• Lady Macbeth

• Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking

• She sleepwalks, continuously trying to wash the imaginary blood from her hands. As she walks, she mutters, "what's done cannot be undone" 

• No literary devices

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“Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician.”

• Doctor

• After Lady Macbeth says things that implicate her in the murder of King Duncan

• Speaking of Lady Macbeth, he says that she needs more help by a priest than by a doctor

• No literary devices

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“Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands. Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach. Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe Upon a dwarfish thief.”

• Angus
• Angus is suggesting here perhaps Macbeth's men will easily turn on him and that he is unfit to be king. 
• Motif of clothing

 “Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all. Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus: “Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman Shall e’er have power upon thee.” Then fly, false thanes, And mingle with the English epicures.”

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• Macbeth

• It’s when Macbeth is talking to the doctors and the attendants

• The reports he has heard can have no consequence, given the prophecies of the three apparitions of Act IV

• Characterization of Macbeth as invincible

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“I have lived long enough. My way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf, And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have, but in their stead Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.” 

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• Macbeth

•  Macbeth realizes that what he has done has left him with nothing to live for, and is ready to die, as he has nothing which others do to accompany him in old age.

• catharsis - unleashing of emotion

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“I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked. Give me my armor.”

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• Macbeth
• Macbeth talking to Seyton (Macbeth’s servant)
• Macbeth says he will fight till from his bones his flesh will be hacked when he finds out that there is an army coming to overthrow him. What Macbeth means is that he will fight to his death.
• No literary devices

 “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?”

• Macbeth

• Macbeth is talking to Seyton and telling him orders

• Freud's method is exactly what the doctor states; it states the heart of psychoanalytic practice: the patient, by talking through his or her problems with an analyst, effectively finds his or her own cure.

• No literary devices

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“I will not be afraid of death and bane Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.”

• Macbeth

• Before the war

• He's not going to move or go anywhere. He's gonna fight till he's dead. He won't be afraid until the forest moves.

• No literary devices

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 “Let every soldier hew him down a bough And bear ’t before him. Thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host and make discovery Err in report of us.”

• Malcolm

• Malcolm is talking to the soldiers in Birnam wood

• This fulfills the prophecy because Malcolm wants each soldier to take a branch and hide behind it so it acts like a camouflage, the prophecy said Burnam Woods marches to Dunsinane hill

• No literary devices

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 “And none serve with him but constrainèd things Whose hearts are absent too.”

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• Malcolm

• They are in Birnam woods

• Only those who are forced to fight for Macbeth do and they may easily turn on him 

• No literary devices

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“I have almost forgot the taste of fears.”

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• Macbeth
• Before the War
• It has been a long time since he has felt scared, worried or in danger. Macbeth says this as he hears a woman crying and jumps at the sound of it.
• Characterization of Macbeth being invincible

“She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

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• Macbeth

• When Lady Macbeth dies

• He is sad because he thinks that she should have lived longer. He feels his life is bleak and meaningless

• Catharsis 

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 “I looked toward Birnam, and anon thought The Wood began to move.”

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• Messenger
• He is talking to Macbeth about the forest moving
• The messenger looked toward Birnam and he saw that the forest began moving
• No literary devices

“Ring the alarum bell!—Blow wind, come wrack, At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”

• Macbeth
• Macbeth is about to fight
• Macbeth realizes his fate and starts to accept what is certain to happen. However, he resolves to go out with a bang before he dies.
• No literary devices

“They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course. What’s he That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.””

• Macbeth

• Macbeth is talking to himself

• "They" refers to Malcolm's forces, and "bear-like" refers to an extremely cruel sport that was popular at the time.

• No literary devices

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“The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.”

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• Young Siward

• He is talking to Macbeth

• He fight itself is preceded by a combat of words in which Siward appropriately taunts Macbeth with the words "devil" and "lie," words that have particular significance for his opponent. 

• No literary devices

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“My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.”

• Macduff
• Before fighting Macbeth
• He is saying that if someone else other than him kills Macbeth, then the ghost of his wife and children’s ghost will haunt him
• No literary devices

 “Why should I play the Roman fool and die On mine own sword?”

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• Macbeth

• About to fight Macduff

• why he should commit suicide whilst he can still see people in which he wishes to lay 'gashes

• No literary devices

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“My soul is too much charged With blood of thine already.”

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• Macbeth

• This is during Macbeth's final battle

•  He has already had Macduff's wife and children killed ("blood of thine"), and he has no desire to continue the bloodshed against him.

• No literary devices

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 “I have no words; My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out.”

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• Macduff

• During Macbeth’s final battle

• He is through talking to him and wasting time, he'll let the sword hold and finish the conversation between the two of them shows how desperately Macduff wants to murder him.

• No literary devices

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 “I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield To one of woman born.”

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• Macbeth

• During Macbeth’s final battle

• We know Macbeth is not invincible but he feels that he is. 

• Dramatic irony

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“Despair thy charm, And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripped.”

• Macbeth
• During Macbeth’s final battle
• Macbeth's last hope is destroyed by this revelation. Because Macduff's mother died, he was delivered by the equivalent of a cesarean section. He is able to kill Macbeth.
• No literary devices

“Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time. We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit “Here may you see the tyrant.”

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• Macduff

• Talking to Macbeth

• Macduff is saying to Macbeth to give up and surrender.

• No literary devices

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“I will not yield To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet And to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries “Hold! Enough!”

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• Macbeth

• When he is about to die

• its the last words that Macbeth says to Macduff. 

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“Which would be planted newly with the time, As calling home our exiled friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny, Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen (Who, as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands, Took off her life)—this, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of grace, We will perform in measure, time, and place. So thanks to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.”

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• Malcolm
• at the end of the story
• Malcolm is being crowned king of Scotland / restore the order
• No literary devices