Macbeth

• "Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

  ~ witches

  - foreshadowing, setting the mood of the supernatural
• "Let not light see my black and deep desires."


  ~ Macbeth

  - After Duncan announces that he will name his son Malcolm the next king, Macbeth hopes his disappointment doesn't show. He must find a way to prevent Malcolm from becoming king.
• "Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness."


  ~ Lady Macbeth (referring to Macbeth)

  - She fears that Macbeth is too kind to go through with killing Duncan.
• "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't."


  ~ Lady Macbeth (speaking to Macbeth)

  - This is just before King Duncan's arrival at their castle. Macbeth's wife wants him to act nice to Duncan's face, and hide his evil intentions.
• "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

  - calling on the spirits to take away her feminine, weakness and fill her with evil because she wants Duncan dead.
• "But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

  And we'll not fail."


  ~ Lady Macbeth

  - before they kill Duncan, she is reassuring Macbeth that everything will work out if he fixes his courage firmly in place.
• "False face must hide what false heart doth know."


  ~ Macbeth

  - He has decided he will go along with Lady Macbeth's plan to kill Duncan. Telling himself that he must put on a false pleasant face to hide his false, evil heart.
• "Had he not resembled

  My father as he slept, I had done't." (referring to Duncan)


  ~ Lady Macbeth

  - She would've killed Duncan herself but as he was sleeping he looked like her father.
• "What hands are here? Ha: they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?"


  ~ Macbeth

  - looking at his hands after he has just killed Duncan. He wonders if all of the water in the ocean could wash the blood off his hands.
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me,

  The handle toward my hand?"


  ~ Macbeth

  - Hallucinating that he sees a dagger before he kills Duncan.
• "Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

  As the weird women promised, and I fear

  Thou play'dst most foully for't."

  ~ Banquo (referring to Macbeth)

  - meaning: well now you have everything that you were promised by the witches. I just fear that you did something bad to get it.
• "He's here in double trust. First, as I am his kinsman and his subject... then, as his host."


  ~ Macbeth (referring to King Duncan)

  - Listing reasons why he shouldn't kill Duncan. Duncan trusts Macbeth for two reasons: he is his kinsman/subject, and his host.
• "A little water clears us of this deed."


  ~ Lady Macbeth

  - After killing Duncan, she tells Macbeth that all they have to do is wash their hands and they will be cleared of their sin.
• fair is foul and foul is fair


  Act 1, Scene 1 - Witches - paradox - supernatural

  
• O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman


  Act 1, Scene 2 - Duncan - bloodshed is revelled in - brutality a virtue

  
• So foul and fair a day I have not seen


  Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth - opening line - paradox similar to witches - potential for supernaturalness

  
• You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so


  Act 1, Scene 3- Macbeth - Witches = supernatural and transgressive of gender

  
• Thou shalt get Kings, though thou be none


  Act 1, Scene 3 - Third Witch - prophecy - Banquo

  
• Why do you dress me in borrow'd robes?


  Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth to Ross - disbelief of prohpecy becoming true - theatrical imagery

  
• The instruments of darkness tell us truths


  Act 1, Scene 3 - Banquo - less trustworthy of witches - calm and sceptical

  
• Speak, I charge you!


  Act 1, Scene 3 - Macbeth - imperative - witches fail to obey - lack of control? - argues against supernatural powers

  
• Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires


  Act 1, Scene 4 - Macbeth (aside) -

  
• Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here


  Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - similar to witches - supernatural relations - transgression of gender - imperatives - urgency - desperation - recurrence of 'un': cannot undo actions

  
• Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell


  Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - light/dark imagery - Hellish imagery - guilt - shroud for dead bodies - concealment - conspiracy - relates to Macbeth's 'Stars hide your fires...' - femme fatale

  
• Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't


  Act 1, Scene 5 - Lady Macbeth - religious imagery - Adam and Eve - sin against God - regicide - deception - conspiracy -transgressive femme fatale

  
• Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague th'inventor


  Act 1, Scene 7 - Macbeth - fears moral consequences - humility - psychological state

  
• Vaulting ambition


  Act 1, Scene 7 - Gothic ambition - fatal flaw of tragic hero - only motive to kill - realises it is untrustworthy

  
• There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out


  Act 2, Scene 1 - Banquo - Religious imagery - dark imagery

  
• Is this a dagger which I see before me


  Act 2, Scene 1 - Macbeth - visions - horror image - two interpretations: dagger of Macbeth's imagination OR conjured by the Witches to spur on Macbeth to kill Duncan - ambiguity of supernatural

  
• I have thee not, and yet I see thee still


  Act 2, Scene 1 - Macbeth dagger soliloquy - contradictions like the Witches

  
• Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't


  Act 2, Scene 2 - Lady Macbeth - indicates she has some conscience - not purely evil

  
• I could not say 'Amen'


  Act 2, Scene 2 - Macbeth - Amen means 'so be it' in Hebrew - cannot ask for anything given his sin - guilt

  
• Macbeth shall sleep no more


  Act 2, Scene 2 - Macbeth thinks he heard a voice cry 'sleep no more!' - accepts danger of sleep when he is to be king - insomnia - erratic and tyrannical behaviour

  
• The devil himself could not pronounce a title more hateful to mine ear


  Act 5, Scene 7 - Young Siward - religious imagery - hatred for Macbeth publicly known

  
• This dead butcher and his fiend like queen


  Act 5, Scene 8 - Malcolm - butcher: someone who kills with no remorse or regret or reason - fiend - evil and immoral, capable of enchanting victims into a false sense of security

  
• Out damned spot: out I say


  Act 5, Scene 1 - Lady Macbeth - sleepwalking scene - manifestation of Duncan's blood - guilt - madness - like madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre and Lucy's inability to sleep in Dracula

  
• Beware Macduff


  Act 4, Scene 1 - First apparition - possible threat of Macduff

  
• None of woman born shall harm Macbeth


  Act 4, Scene 1 - Second apparition (Bloody child) - comforts Macbeth but has double meaning - Macduff born Caesarean - Macduff can kill him

  
• Mother's womb untimely ripp'd


  Act 5, Scene 8 - Macduff confirming threat

  
• until Great Birnham wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him


  Act 4, Scene 1 - Third apparition (crowned child) - branches cut down and used as camouflage used by the English led by Siward and Malcolm, Duncan's son