macbeth

• Disdaining fortune smoked with bloody execution


  Smoked could connote heat and hell which foreshadows his evil and the phrase disdaining fortune shows a disregard for his fate and his attempt to manipulate the natural order
• In time will venom breed no teeth for the present

  He acknowledges his tumultuous fortune as a result of his violent nature yet his hubris blinds him into a false sense of security suggesting that danger is not yet imminent
• I am in blood studded in so far that should I was no more returning were as tedious


  Blood was merely on his hands yet it now has enrobed his entire body and by extension his entire sense of being , he feels he has no choice but to further indulge in his heinous acts
• His wife and babes and all unfortunate souls


  Their murders are emblematic of macbeths excessive bloodthirst , they presented no threat yet he is now an unstoppable trajectory of murder . Macbeth takes on the godly role of deciding who has the right to live
• before my body I throw my warlike shield


  A shield connotes protection and it shows Macbeth desperately wants to protect and preserve his former noble image of him being worthy and valiant. As his last words contain a violent semantic field it shows how his ambitions and violent nature has directly cause his fall from grace
• Valour's minion


  Strongly abides to codes of honour , alternatively the noun minion could foreshadow his susceptibility to manipulation and how he will soon be a marionette of the witches
• Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself

  The verb vaulting shows macbeths mammoth ego - his ambition is his hamartia. The personification makes his ambition seem like a human force controlling and plaguing his innocent mind. The metaphor likens Macbeth to a jockey riding his ambition - his ambition is akin to a barbaric animal
• With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design


  Macbeth ambitiously wants to emulate tarquin ,a Roman tyrant who raped his wife, so he will become a barbaric tyrant who feels no pity - his ambition obstructs his moral compass . He sees power synonymously with brutality and being a tyrant
• he hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor to act in safety


  Banquo is a foil to Macbeth as Macbeth embodies reckless power whereas banquo has self constraint and control . Macbeth is envious of banquos ability to restrain his ambition and refrain from over indulgence into deep desires
• Life is but a walking shadow it is a tale signifying nothing

  Understands the futility of his ambition , moreover the noun tale extends the idea that the witches influence was like an ominous nursery rhyme- they speak in trochaic tetrameter and rhyming couplets which almost parody their dialogue
• So foul and fair a day I have not seen


  Echo the witches paradox which shows he is slowly becoming a mouthpiece of the witches evil as he is a vessel for their misconduct
• Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

  Suggests he had been awarded a title that doesnt belong to him. It shows that through the play as he moves through the hierarchal ranking it is superficial and transient ,much like clothes. Significant as he had been awarded this title by the supernatural
• Tell me and call them


  He speaks with imperative phrases which shows he is driven by greed and hunger for power he intentionally approaches the witches highlighting how he has embraced his new tyrannical demeanour
• threatens the witches with an "eternal curse"


  Ironic as we have seen their overt supernatural power, he believes he can supersede this . His ego is prevalent as the witches ambiguous apparitions provide him and ephemera, sense of security and invincibility
• Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires


  Paradoxes continue to plague his speech with black and fire juxtaposing one another . Fire creates irreversible damage , foreshadowing how his duplicitous facade will create irreversible damage
• "I think not of them


  Banquo is honest , characterising his as moral in order to amplify macbeths dishonesty and deception
• And make our faces vizards to our hearts"


  Vizards suggests they should wear masks to conceal their true evil nature . Closely resembles look like the innocent flower which shows he is a marionette of evil influence
• Is this a dagger which is see before me the handle toward my hand come let me clutch the


  This suggests he is riding himself of responsibility over the murder he will commit . Even before committing the treacherous act of regicide he understands that it will palabure his conscience so he poses that it has been put towards him - he has involuntarily been subject to his inner turmoil
• Calls the dagger an "instrument"


  Alluding to how the instruments of darkness ( witches ) with their dark musicality have brought his to this point of sheer inner turmoil
• "I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!/Macbeth does murder sleep'"


  He is so perturbed by guilt that he is imprisoned within a state of restlessness. The motif of sleep being synonymous with innocence - his lack of sleep his complete loss of innocence
• The gory locks at me


  Gory is suggestive that banquos ghost is a physical manifestation of his violence . Structurally the murders enter the banquet before Macbeth exacerbating how his kingship is unnatural as he is disrupted by the divine right of kings
• O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

  Scorpions are poisonous representing how Macbeths ambition has poisoned his mind and he is consequently plagued with remorse . As it is full it highlights that he had been completely engulfed with guilt and mercy. Moreover the metaphor of a creature festering in his mind shows that his tyrannical nature has been so omnipotent , he now resembles that of a savage creature more than a moral human
• "My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already"


  His guilt begins to surface as he maintains his sense of humanity this reiterates the notion that Macbeth must remain somewhat redeemable to be characterised as a tragic hero , he is not merely a villain
• his "face" is "a book where men may read strange matters"


  Mock the candidness of his expression and portrays him as weak and vulnerable , these were qualities that fail to align with the ideal masculine archetype of the era
• Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself?

  A rhetorical question is calculated , she wants to exploit his emotions of embarrassment or shame
• Coward


  Epithet which threatens his entire sense of being as a soldier , not only is she questioning his masculinity but also his livelihood
• Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck


  It is ironic that Macbeth has now overpowered lady Macbeth through feminine epithets which belittle her much as she previously did to him