Macbeth

• "I do fear thy nature is too full o' th' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" - Lady Macbeth


  -Macbeth is too kind to go after the crown

  -She doesn't think he is capable

  -Comment on milk = femininity
• "Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valour of my tongue" - Lady Macbeth

  -Lady Macbeth will try to persuade Macbeth to go after the crown

  -She is manipulative

  -Comment on spirits, that she believes, and continues supernatural theme
• "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty" - Lady Macbeth

  -She wants to become less like a woman and more like a man

  -She thinks she is capable/wants to be

  -Hates that gender makes her less powerful. Defying gender stereotypes

  -Comment on gender and masculinity here; spirits; manhood = cruelty
• "Look like th' innocent flower but be the serpent under it" - Lady Macbeth

  -Come across as innocent, then betray him secretly

  -She is willing to be sly and deceitful

  -Serpent suggestions; appearance vs reality theme
• "Only look up clear; to alter favour ever is to fear, leave all the rest to me" - Lady Macbeth

  -Act normal because if you don't it will be suspicious. Leave the rest to me

  -She is clever and scheming. Able to take charge

  - 'Leave...me' dynamic between two. Parallel when

  'Be...chuck
• "Art not without ambition but without the illness should attend it." - Lady Macbeth

  -Macbeth is ambitious but not mean enough to succeed

  -She doesn't trust her husband & damns him for his nobility

  -Theme of ambition; dynamic between Macbeths
• "Fair is foul and foul is fair" - The Witches

  -The witches warn the audience that things are not always what they appear to be

  -Paradox

  -Theme of supernatural/ appearance vs reality

  -Connection to Macbeth's "So...seen"
• "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't"

  -Lady Macbeth

  -I would have killed the king myself if he didn't look so much like my dad

  -First time LM seems more human, and feminine.

  -Sleep = motif for innocence
• "Be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck"-Macbeth


  -Stay out of it/ Let me handle it. "Dearest chuck" speaking down to her

  -Macbeth rejection of wife's help, showing new independence and no need for persuasion

  -More typical dynamic as treats his wife like a typical woman

  -LM now powerless as not controlling Macbeth; Roles changed
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me, handle towards my hand?" - Macbeth

  -Psychological effect on Macbeth, as he feels so guilty. He is hallucinating and questioning the actual presence of the knife

  -Could also be a real dagger which ties in with theme of supernatural

  -Representing Macbeth's inner debate on whether to kill king or not

  -'Handle' encouraging his action
• "O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear" - Macbeth


  -His own head is torturing him; guilt is eating him up
• a cry within of women

  - Stage direction-Lady Macbeth dies offstage

  -Such an important character at the beginning isn't even afforded a death on stage

  -LM has no power at the end, so is not given a death scene

  -Macbeth is tragic hero, so Shakespeare wants the emotional focus to be forhisdeath
• "So foul and fair a day, I have not seen" - Macbeth

  -Sounds like something the witches would say. Macbeth is using similar language, establishing his personal connection with them

  -Like the witches, here is a hint that Macbeth could be an evil character too
• "Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen" - Malcolm

  -Summarises how all of Scotland viewed the Macbeths

  -'Butcher' and 'fiend' represent their roles in tyranny i.e. butcher = Graphic word. brutal and mindless

  fiend = reserved word. sinister and manipulative

  -Satisfying summary to encapsulate their tyranny
• "As his host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself"-Macbeth


  -He is welcoming the king into his home, and so should be protecting him instead of being the one putting him in danger.

  -Here Macbeth is facing inner trouble as he feels he is not doing the honourable thing.
• "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition" - Macbeth

  -His own ambitions are his only motivation to kill

  -His reasons to kill are suddenly unjustified to him

  -He seems to decide against the murder, but this only lasts until his wife returns

  -Comment on how vaulting connotes jumping in blindly
• "When you durst do it, then you were a man" - Lady Macbeth

  -When Macbeth dared to go ahead with the murder, that's when you were a real man.

  -LM using masculinity to manipulate husband

  -Theme of gender, masculinity, and cruelty
• "He hath been in unusual pleasure, and sent forth great largess to your offices. This diamond he greets your wife withal, by the name of most kind hostess, and shut up in measureless content." - Banquo


  -The king has been unusually happy and given many gifts to the house. This diamond is for your wife who has been very hospitable.

  -Dramatic irony, heightening tension. Audience know the Macbeths' true motives, anticipating what will happen next.

  -'Most kind hostess' ironic as Lady Macbeth isnotthat.
• "Still it cried, 'Sleep no more!' to all the house. 'Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more!'" - Macbeth

  -Macbeth reports back to his wife that he heard a voice criticising him after he killed the king.

  -Sleep = innocence, and so in the way he has murdered sleep he has murdered innocence, making him guilty

  -Suggests that since Macbeth is suffering auditory hallucinations, he subconsciously thinks he deserves to always be guilty
• "Look on't again I dare not." - Macbeth

  -He can't go back to the murder scene, he can't stand to look at it again

  -Cowardice, reaffirming the idea that while he is ambitious he doesn't have the strength to follow through on them
• "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" - Macbeth


  -Will all the water in the ocean wash this blood from my hands?

  -Blood = guilt, saying that nothing will get rid of his guilt

  -Mirroring LM's 'perfumes of Arabia'

  -Suggesting Macbeth is already suffering the psychological effects
• "The night has been unruly" -Lennox

  "'Twas a rough night" - Macbeth


  -Weather symbolising both supernatural/witch involvement as well as Macbeth's troublesome night
• "Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence the life o' th' building!" - Macduff


  -A murderer has broken into God's temple and stolen the life out of it

  -Comparison of Duncan to God/Of utmost holiness, highlighting the seriousness and disrespect of his death

  -Contrast of a very honourable king vs Macbeth's dishonourable eventual tyranny
• "O gentle lady, tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman's ear, would murder as it fell." - Macduff

  -Gentle LM, my news isn't fit for your ears. If I told you, it would kill you as soon as you heard it.

  -Dramatic irony, as Lady Macbeth is the cruel one who caused the death, but is playing the innocent woman

  -This is a typical male response to female involvement at the time, showing that LM can manipulate husband but is still powerless with other men.
• "Had I died but an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant, there's nothing serious in mortality" - Macbeth

  -If I had only died an hour before this event I could say I had lived a happy life. But from then on, there's nothing worth living for

  -Here Macbeth has gone straight into his deceit, clearly comfortable in acting surprised and playing the victim
• "And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature" - Macbeth

  -Macbeth acknowledges how wrong the king's murder is

  -This perhaps suggests that Macbeth himself believes this too, even though he is the one who caused this crime against nature

  -Talking out of paranoia and nervousness, perhaps overcompensating
• "Who could refrain, that had a heart to love, and in that heart courage to make's love known?" - Macbeth

  -Macbeth justifies his killing of the servants i.e. for someone who truly loves the king, surely you would kill the people who killed him?

  -Talking out of paranoia and nervousness, perhaps overcompensating. Making sure there is no doubt that Macbeth did the right thing
• "In the great hand of God I stand, and thence against the undivulged pretense I fight of treasonous malice" - Banquo


  -I'm putting myself in God's hands and with his help I plan to fight against the secret plot that caused this treasonous murder

  -Foreshadowing Banquo suspecting Macbeth
• "Let's not consort with them. To show unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy" - Malcolm

  -Let's not stay here with them. It's easy for a liar to pretend to feel sadness when he feels none

  -He starts to suspect shady stuff. They are already starting to suspect Macbeth
• "The near in blood, the nearer the bloody" - Donalbain

  -Our closest relatives are the ones most likely to murder us

  -Motif of blood as guilt continued, hinting that the killer is still in their midst
• "Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act, threatens his bloody stage" - Ross

  -You can see the skies, they look like they're upset with what mankind is doing, and threatening the Earth with storms

  -The storms symbolise the connection between political, moral, and natural aspects

  -The unnatural weather fits Macbeth's dark ascension
• "And Duncan's horses - a thing most strange and uncertain - beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make war with mankind" - Ross

  -Strangely, Duncan's horses, which are the best of their breed, suddenly turned wild and broke out their stalls. Refusing to be obedient anymore, it was as if they were at war with mankind

  -Supernatural suggestions, reminding us of the witches
• "Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all as the weird women promised, and I fear thou played'st most foully for't" - Banquo

  -Macbeth has all the things that the witches promised him. But I wonder if you cheated to win these titles.

  -The beginning of Banquo's suspicion. The noble man he once knew has become corrupt.
• "We hear our bloody cousins are bestowed in England and in Ireland, not confessing their cruel parricade, filling their hearers with strange invention." - Macbeth

  -Apparently the king's sons, who murdered their father, have fled to England and Ireland. They haven't confessed, and are probably lying to the people they are with

  -Macbeth is accusing Malcolm and Donalbain and spreading lies about them, in a desperate attempt to pass the blame from him, although some may be seeing through his lies
• "Our fears in Banquo stick deep, and in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared" - Macbeth

  -I'm very afraid of Banquo, because he is so noble and willing to do the right thing

  -Banquo is a threat because he is suspicious, and a good man

  -Insecurity by Macbeth
• "Rather than so, come fate into the list, and champion me to th' utterance" - Macbeth

  -Instead of letting things take course, I will challenge fate and fight against it.

  -Theme of destiny/fate/supernatural

  -He is more confident in taking fate into his own hands
• "Know that it was he, in the times past, which held you so under fortune" - Macbeth

  
  

  "Do you find your patience so predominant in your nature that you can let this go?" - Macbeth

  -You should know it was Banquo that made your life hell for so long, which you always thought was my fault/Are you so forgiving that you'll let him off the hook?

  -Macbeth is keeping the murderers turned against Banquo, desperate to get them in with his plan

  -He is becoming more similar to his wife in terms of his inclination to manipulate
• "So he is mine; and in such bloody distance that every minute of his being thrusts against my near'st of life" - Macbeth

  -He's my enemy too, and I hate him so much that every minute he's alive it eats away at my being.

  -Macbeth is so irritated by Banquo's mere existance, suggesting paranoia and doubt in his ability to keep the throne

  -Talk about Banquo's death representing the last link to Macbeth's noble self

  -Pinnacle of Macbeth's madness, guilt, and worry
• "Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy" - Lady Macbeth

  -It's better to be the person who gets murdered than to be the killer and be tormented with anxiety

  -This is the initiation of Lady Macbeth's regret

  -This is interesting as up until this point, she sees no problem with pursuing her ambitions
• "In the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly" - Macbeth

  -I spend my nights tossing and turning with these nightmares I've been having

  -Guilt is affecting Macbeth more than before

  -The fact that he can't sleep well perpetuates the motif of sleep as innocence