Macbeth Quotes

• the night has been unruly. where we lay, our chimneys were blown down...the obscure bird clamored the livelong night. some say the earth was feverous and did shake. (2.3.61-69)


  Lennox to macbethnature is weird/strange. the obscure bird is the owl, referencing duncan's death
• But this place is too cold for hell. (2.3.16)

  porter to selfits worse than hell
• here's a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty... here's an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake yet could not equivocate to heaven...an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hose...(2.3.4-14)


  porter to selffarmer hoards crops, equivocator knows what to say to get what he wants, tailor steals from people he shouldnt be stealing from, all are greedy like macbeth.foreshadowing
• wake duncan with thy knocking. i would thou couldst. (2.2.94-95)


  macbeth to lady macbethhe would take it all back
• a little water clears us of this deed. (2.2.86)

  lady macbeth to macbethwater will cleanse us, repeated
• my hands are of your color, but i shame to wear a heart so white. (2.2.83-84)


  lady macbeth to macbethnot bothered by the death, white=pure
• 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. (2.2.78-81)


  macbeth to selfwater will not wash it all away
• infirm of purpose! give me the daggers. the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures. 'tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. if he do bleed i'll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt. (2.2.68-73)


  lady macbeth to macbethmacbeth is stupid and cant do anything right, lady is going to frame the guardsmen
• Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand. (2.2.60-61)


  lady macbeth to macbethwater will clear us of this deed
• 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." (2.2.54-57)


  macbeth to lady macbethhaunted by guilt, can never sleep again
• Methought i heard a voice cry "sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep" - the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast. (2.2.47-52)


  macbeth to lady macbethMENTAL BREAKDOWN OVER HERE. haunted by guilt, will never have peaceful nights, he will be sleepless
• One cried "god bless us" and "amen" the other...i could not say "amen" when they did say "god bless us"..."i had most need of blessing, and "amen" stuck in my throat. (2.2.37-44)


  macbeth to lady macbethalready feeling the guilt, so strong cant even ask for god's blessing
• that which hath made them drunk hath made me bold. what hath quenched them hath given me fire...it was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman (2.2.1-5)


  lady macbeth to selfdrugged guardsmen, fair is foul foul is fair- what made their lives suck is giving her powerthe owl is death, death has occurred
• i go, and it is done. the bell invites me. hear it not, duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell. (2.1.75-77)


  macbeth to selfready to do the deed. he prays it will go w/out notice, cant handle the pressure
• is this a dagger which i see before me, the handle toward my hand? come, let me clutch thee...or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppresséd brain? (2.1.44-51)


  macbeth to selfimagining the dagger, freaking out about murder, guilt already in his heart, only killing for lady macbeth
• My bosom franchised and allegiance clear, i shall be counseled. (2.1.38-39)


  Banquo to macbethhe will be loyal as long as things are fine
• if you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, it shall make honor for you. (2.1.34-35)


  macbeth to banquomacbeth is figuring out who is loyal to him
• there's husbandry in heaven; their candles are all out. take thee that too. a heavy summons lies like lead upon me, and yet i would not sleep. merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose. (2.1.6-11)

  Banquo to Fleancehe is suspicious. something isnt right,nature foreshadowing
• I am settled and bend up each coporal agent to this terrible feat. away, and mock the time with fairest show. false face must hide what the false heart doth know. (1.7.92-96)


  macbeth to lady macbethhide under a friendly face, hide evil heartappearances vs reality
• when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and used their very daggers, that they have done 't? (1.7.86-88)


  Macbeth to lady macbethframe the servants
• I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me. i would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed his brains out, had i so sworn as you have done to this. (1.7.62-67)


  lady macbeth to macbethshe would kill her baby if she said that she would. SHE IS ONE CRAZY BITCH.
• when you durst do it, then you were a man (1.7.56)

  Lady macbeth to macbethtesting macbeth's manliness. she is such a bitch.
• I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares to do more is none. (1.7.51-52)


  Macbeth to lady macbethhe will do what a man is meant to dodoing more=not a man
• which thou esteem'st the ornament of life and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would," like the poor cat i' th' adage? (1.7.46-49)


  Lady Macbeth to Macbethshe is questioning his manliness, will he become king or be a coward
• If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. if th' assassination could trammel up the consequence and catch with his surcease success, that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we'd jump the life to come. But in these cases we still have judgement here, that we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th' inventor. This even-handed justice commends th' ingredience of our poisoned chalice to our own lips. he's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed; then, as his host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself...(1.7.1-16)


  Macbeth to selfcrimes have consequences, looking at reasons why he shouldn't kill duncan. he should be protecting duncan
• See, see our honored hostess! (1.6.13)Fair and noble hostess, (1.6.30)


  Duncan to Lady Macbethhe is too trusting
• O' never shall sun that morrow see! Your face, my thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters. To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under't. He that's coming must be provided for; and you shall put this night's great business into my dispatch, which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (1.5.71-82)


  Lady Macbeth to MacbethDuncan is not going to see tomorrow, he is going to be killed. Appear innocent and hide the evil, she is going to plan everything for the murder that will happen in the night
• 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. Make thick my blood. Stop up th' access and passage to remorse, that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between th' effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, wherever in your slightless substances you wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry "Hold, hold!" (1.5.47-61)


  Lady Macbeth to selfshe calls upon evil so that she can kill duncan without guilt or sadness/emotion
• The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements. (1.5.45-47)


  Lady Macbeth to selfDUNCAN WILL DIE.
• Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem to have thee crowned withal. (1.5.32-33)

  Lady Macbeth to selfFate and witchcraft want Macbeth to be king
• That I may pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valor of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round (1.5.29-31)


  Lady Macbeth to selfShe is going to persuade macbeth to act
• Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised. Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o' th' milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, art not with ambition...(1.5.15-19)


  Lady Macbeth to selfwants macbeth to be king but thinks he is too kind to act manly and do what it takes to be king. Macbeth wants to be a good man, doesnt want to cheat to get what he wants
• the Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see. (1.4.55-60)


  Macbeth to selfmacbeth doesnt want others to know of what he desires, fair and foul
• Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter the Prince of Cumberland; which honor must not unaccompanied invest him only (1.4.44-46)


  Duncan to Macbeth and BanquoDuncan's son Malcolm will be named prince, in the way of Macbeth
• there, if I grow, the harvest is your own. (1.4.37-38)


  Banquo to Duncanif he has big accomplishments, it is because of Duncan
• if chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir. (1.3.157-159)


  Macbeth to selflet chance take its course, not going to interfere/try anything
• present fears are less than horrible imaginings. (1.3.150-151)


  Macbeth to selfpresent fears are bad. imagines stuff that have to happen to become king. isnt thinking of crazy ass stuff like murder yet
• this supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good... I am Thane of Cawdor. If good, why do i yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair... Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not.


  Macbeth to selfwitches never say anyone will die, belief in supernatural powers, fair is foul- he wants to be king but doesnt want others to die
• But 'tis strange. and oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness to tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray 's in deepest consequence. (1.3.134-138)


  Banquo to Macbethidea that info is fair, but something foul in how it will play out/to good to be true fair is foul, foul is fairdark instruments= witches, they be tellin the truth!
• the Thane of Cawdor lives, why do you dress me in borrowed robes? (1.3.114-115)

  Macbeth to Ross, Angus, Banquohe is unaware that the thane of cawdor has died/was a traitor. doesnt understand why he would just take his "robes" if they still belong to cawdor.