“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”(The 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) | 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) | 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 spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-fullOf 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.” (Lady Macbeth, referring to Duncan) | 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. |
“But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’? I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ stuck in my throat.”(Macbeth) | He has done something so unholy that he can no longer observe the traditions of religion |
“These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad”(Lady Macbeth) | Foreshadows what is going to come later in the play. Lady Macbeth naively thinks that not thinking of the deeds will stop them from feeling guilty. |
“‘Tis unnatural,Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last a falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed”(Old Man) | The Old Man observes that unnatural things happened the night of Duncan’s death. Macbeth has ruined the natural order and this is reflected in the environment. |
“Thou canst not say I did it: never shake thy gory locks at me” [Macbeth, to Banquo’s ghost] | We begin to see the beginning of Macbeth’s guilt playing with his mind. He imagines Banquo’s ghost after he has had him killed. |
“…I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more” returning were as tedious as go o’er”(Macbeth) | Macbeth knows that he has gone too far but knows it will be harder to go back to the way he was. |
“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”(Lady Macbeth) | Shows her guilt over the killings. She washed her hands clean in the real world but she cannot escape the guilt at night. |
When was Macbeth written? | 1606 |
King James I was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting company. What does that mean? | He gave financial support to the company |
Why was Shakespeare inspired by the Gunpowder Plot of 1604? | The Gunpowder plot attempted to blow up King James I and the Houses of Parliament. Shakespeare uses his play to warn his audience of the consequences of overthrowing the monarchy and disturbing the divine right/chain of being. |
Names two ways in which Shakespeare was trying to impress King James I | 1. King James I believed he was descended from Banquo. This is why Banquo is painted in a very positive, brave and loyal way.2. Shakespeare knew King James I was fascinated with superstitions and witches. |
What is the ‘chain of being’? | A hierarchy of people’s places in society. |
Who was at the top of the ‘chain of being’? | God |
What was believed to happen if the ‘chain of being’ was disrupted? | Chaos! |
Why were people in the Elizabethan era fascinated with witches? | Witches were a way of explaining why the unexpected happened |
Macbeth Quotes
August 27, 2019