quotes

• fair is foul, and foul is fair (1.1)


  speaker? The three witches

  
  

  meaning/significance? things aren't always what they seem

  theme: appearance/reality
• If chance will have me King, why

  Chance may crown me,

  Without my stir. (1.3)


  Speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  Meaning/significance? Macbeth is hoping he will not have to do anything to become king, that fate will take care of it

  theme: fate
• Yet do I fear thy nature.

  It is too full o' the milk of human kindness

  To catch the nearest way. (1.5)

  speaker? Lady Macbeth (to herself)

  
  

  Meaning/significance? L. Macbeth is worried about her husband's wishwashiness... shows gender bending (shes crueler)

  theme:gender bending
• 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! (1.5)


  speaker? Lady Macbeth

  
  

  Meaning/significance? shows L.Macbeth siding with evil forces

  themes: unnatural, gender bending
• Look like the innocent flower,

  But be the serpent under't. (I.5)


  speaker? Lady Macbeth (to Macbeth)

  
  

  meaning/significance? L.Macbeth is telling her husband to lie and act innocent

  themes: appearance/reality
• I do all that may become a man

  Who dares do more is none. (1.7)

  
  

  When you durst do it, then you were a man; (1.7)

  speaker(s)? Macbeth->lady macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? Lady Macbeth is convincing her to husband to "be a man"... shows macbeths hesitance/humaness

  theme: gender bending
• Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!

  Macbeth does murder sleep"—the innocent sleep,

  Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care. (2.2)

  speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? Shows Macbeth is feeling guilty (for killing Duncan) and also jumpy

  themes? sleep/dreams, clothes motif
• Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

  Clean from my hand? (2.2)


  speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/signficance? showing his guilt, how he feels he will never be clean, evil will spread as a result (dominoes effect)

  themes? order/disorder, guilt, great chaine of being
• A little water clears us of this deed,

  How easy is it then! (2.2)


  speaker? Lady Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? saying it will be easy to shake this off/be clean/guilt-free, contrasts towards Macbeth who says the opposite

  themes? deception
• there's daggers in men's smiles. (2.3)


  speaker? Donlbaine (to malcom)

  
  

  Meaning/significance? Donlbaine saying you cannot trust anyone

  theme? appearance v. reality
• Thou hast it now—King, Cawdor, Glamis, all

  As the Weird Women promised, and I fear

  Thou played'st most foully for't. (3.1)

  speaker? Banquo (about Macbeth)

  
  

  meaning/significance? Banquo suspects that Macbeth killed Duncan for the crown

  themes? ambition, unnatural evil
• ...To be thus is nothing,

  But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo

  Stick deep. (3.1)


  speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? shows his growing ambition and paranoia, shows he is still worried about the prophecy of Banquo's decendents

  theme: ambition
• ...Naught's had, all's spent,

  Where our desire is got without content.

  'Tis safer to be that which we destroy

  Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. (3.2)


  speaker? lady macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? she reveals regret/doubt, shows the hedonists paradox, shows her insecurity and fearfullness

  themes: guilt
• Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. (3.2)


  speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significance? represents how one bad things leads to another (snowball/dominoe) effects of evil

  themes:evil
• For mine own good

  All causes shall give way. I am in blood

  Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

  Returning were as tedious as go o'er. (3.4)

  speaker? Macbeth

  
  

  meaning/significane? I don't care about anything but my own good anymore...I'm in to far, it's to late for me to go back (no turning back)

  theme: ambition
• Be bloody, bold and resolute. Laugh to scorn

  The power of man, for none of woman born

  Shall harm Macbeth. (4.1)

  speaker? Bloody child (2nd apperation) (to macbeth)

  
  

  meaning/significance? encourages false sense of security

  theme: fate
• Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

  Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill

  Shall come against him. (4.1)


  speaker? 3rd apperation (crowned child w/ tree)

  
  

  meaning/significance? shows how evil fouls us, lures Macgeth into a false sense of security

  themes: fate, temptation
• All my pretty ones?

  Did you say 'all'? O hell-kite! All?

  What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

  At one fell swoop? (4.3)


  speaker? Macduff (when he learns his household was murdered)

  
  

  meaning/significance: shows his shock and grief, example of how Macbeth's cruetly is effecting other people
• Out, damned spot, out I say! (5.1)


  speaker? Lady Macbeth (when she is sleep walking)

  
  

  meaning/signifcance? shows her guilt and how she is haunted by it

  themes: supernatural, unnatural
• Of all men else I have avoided thee.

  But get thee back. My soul is too much charged

  With blood of thine already. (5.8)

  Speaker? Macbeth (to malcom)

  
  

  meaning/significance? saying I don't want to kill you because I've already killed your family, shows a more human side, shows he feels guilty

  theme: guilt