Macbeth quotes

• 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

  
• The theme of fate vs. free will is prominent in Macbeth, as characters struggle with the idea of predestination versus their own choices.
• "Out damned spot! out i say!" - Act 5 Scene 1
• The theme of appearance vs. reality is explored in Macbeth, highlighting how things are not always as they seem.
• Ambition is a major theme in Macbeth, driving the actions of the main characters and leading to their downfall.
• "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition" - Act 1 Scene 7
• "O full of scorpions is my mind dear wife!" - Act 3 Scene 2
• "Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd." - Act 1 Scene 7