Macbeth

• "Out damned spot! Out I say!" - Lady Macbeth
• "O full of scorpions is my mind dear wife!" - Macbeth
• "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself" - Macbeth
• "Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here" - Lady Macbeth
• "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't" - Lady Macbeth
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand?" - Macbeth
• "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?" - Macbeth
• Banquo


  Represents the route that Macbeth chose not to take - the path where ambition doesn't lead to betrayal and murder
• Banquo

  • Constructs of Macbeth and Banquo show how men can react when shown temptation
  • Symbolic of man's ability to resist temptation - Macbeth's Foil
• Banquo

  • Morally strong and virtuous - resists evil (moral superior)
  • Views witches as agents of the devils - supports James's View in Daemonologie that witches are controlled by the devil
• Banquo: '"What, can the devil speak true"'
• Banquo was originally going to be the villain
• Changes it to flatter James I (descendant of Banquo), showing support and praise for James to help gain support for his play company
• Banquo


  • Noble, strategic
  • Resistive to evil -> witches are route of temptation to sin
  • Aligned with God -> loyal to God and Duncan
• Banquo: '"Our fears in Banquo/stick deep, and in his royalty of nature"'
• Banquo: '"The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betray's in deepest consequence"'
• Witches: 'Predict Banquo being "lesser than Macbeth and greater"'
• Banquo: 'Responds to witches with "neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate"'
• Banquo's response to witches

  Contrasts with Macbeth's response "neither beg nor gear your favours nor your hate"
• " a little water clears us of this deed" Lady Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth

  • too full o'th milk of human kindness
  • take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers
  • of direst cruelty, make thick my blood
• Macduff

  • new widows howl, new orphans cry
  • lest our old robes sit easier than our new (his perception of a future scotland under macbeth) = chaos and no peace
• Witches

  • fair is foul and foul is fair
  • oxymoronic and paradoxical phrase - foreshadows the play = Macbeth who was fair become foul himself
  • "hail to thee, thane of glamis...hail to thee, thane of cawdor, hail Macbeth, tho shalt be king hereafter"
  • Thou shalt get kings, thoough tho be none"
  • "None of women born shall harm Macbeth" "Beware Macduff"
  • "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood shall come against him"
• Macbeth 


  " so foul and fair a day I have not seen" = fate is tied to confusion"

  "full of scorpions is my mind"

  " Is this a dagger I see before me... Come, let me clutch thee"

  "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but vaulting ambition o'er leaps itself"