Macbeth quotes Flashcards
(22 cards)
First scene - witches introduce the theme of duplicity, things can’t be trusted
Witches: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”
Shakespeare presents Macbeth in an overwhelmingly positive yet violent manner, demonstrating his power and nobility for fighting for the rightful King Duncan. However it could also hint at Macbeth’s capacity for violence and evil.
The Captain: “Brave Macbeth - Well he deserves that name - Confronted him with brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution”
Banquo sees reality of witches intentions. Contrasts Macbeth who is taken in by them
Banquo: “But ‘tis strange,/ And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence”
Shakespeare demonstrates how the corruption from the Witches prophecies’ is influencing Macbeth. His hamartia becomes clear to the audience. Macbeth knows he will have to break the Great Chain of Being as he is hiding from God.
Macbeth asks fate, God to look away as he knows his feelings are evil.
Macbeth: “Stars hide your fires let not light see my black and deep desires”
Occurs after Malcolm is announced heir to the throne
LM fears Macbeth’s weakness
Lady Macbeth: [About Macbeth] “is too full of ‘th’milk of human kindness”
She abandons her femininity in order to further support her husband on his path to greatness, she subverts the traditional role of a Jacobean women and pushes it to the extreme. She has her own ambition as well, also wants to be Queen.
Lady Macbeth: “Come you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/ And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull/ Of direct cruelty”
Image of duplicity, links to fair is foul quote.
Biblical reference, Genesis, devil disguises himself as a snake tricking Eve and getting her to betray God
This is what LM is trying to get M to do, going against Divine Right of Kings
Lady Macbeth: “Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it”
Shakespeare demonstrates that uncontrolled power and ambition is dangerous. It consumes Macbeth completely, foreshadowing that it will lead to his destruction. Macbeth is trying to decide whether or not to kill Duncan. Horse metaphor
Macbeth: “I have no spurs to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’rleaps and falls on th’ other”
Unclear whether the dagger is an image sent by the witches, acting as a symbol for supernatural manipulation, or a psychological projection of his own desires. Therefore, the dagger could be seen as both a symbol for fate and free-will. However, Macbeth’s imperative indicates his free-will
Macbeth: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee”
Shakespeare demonstrates that God will not forgive Macbeth after breaking the Great Chain of Being and going against the Divine Right of Kings. Happens after Duncan is killed
Macbeth: “But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’? / I had the most need of blessing and ‘Amen’/ Stuck in my throat”
Hyperbole to describe his guilt. M turns to a Roman deity rather than Christian God, M has gone against God by disrupting the divine right of kings so can no longer ask him for forgiveness
Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red”
LM+M have got what they thought they wanted, yet still not happy. The way they achieved what they wanted means they will constantly live in a state of paranoia.
Lady Macbeth: “Nought’s had, all’s spent/ Where our desire is got without content”
Corruption of his mind through violence
Shakespeare suggests that gaining power by the wrong means is corruptive and will lead to destruction
Metaphor of poison
Macbeth: “O, full of scorpions is my mind dear wife”
Act of self-deception. M is hallucinating Banquo so admitting that he has committed many sins in his mind, yet he is denying it as he speaks. M is being torn apart by duplicity, he thinks one way yet speaks another.
Macbeth: “Thou canst say I did it: never shake thy gory locks at me!”
Macbeth challenges his wife and doesn’t yield to the suggestion that he is too feminine, which is what he used to do before, indicating that his wife’s influence on him is gradually slipping away
In response to LM asking M “are you a man?”
Macbeth: “Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appall the devil”
Macbeth realises he has no choice but to continue the cycle of evil he is trapped in.
Image of river of blood, turning back to shore of righteous or continuing into the deeper waters of corruption. Downward spiral to irreparable evil
Macbeth: “I am in blood stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go’er”
Malcolm and Macduff about M. Macbeth’s inability to reign successfully caused by his illegitimate manner of gaining the crown. By going against God’s will, Macbeth leads the country into corruption. Macbeth rules by terror, he can’t rule any other way because of the insecurity of his position.
Malcolm: “This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, was once thought honest”
Shakespeare demonstrates that power is corruptive and going against natural order such as Lady Macbeth rejecting her femininity will have consequences.
Lady Macbeth has been consumed by guilt resulting from her and Macbeth’s actions
Hallucination of blood, motif of guilt.
Lady Macbeth - “Out damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why then, ‘tis time to do ‘t. Hell is murky!”
images of traditional femininity which LM is trying to reclaim too late, contrast from when she asked spirits to “unsex [her]”. Now she realises she has sacrificed the goodness in her life for power which has brought her no happiness after all.
Lady Macbeth: “Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”
Shakespeare demonstrates that power seized by the wrong means (breaking Great Chain of Being) is corruptive and will lead to destruction.
Macbeth feels life is meaningless, his power is empty and he is a puppet for fate. He tried to change fate yet fate is taking its course. He has left no legacy, no children, no wife.
Macbeth: “It [life] is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”
connotations of a game, the witches were only playing with him, tricking him. Macbeth realises this too late that he has been a fool to believe that any good could come from trusting the witches. Mirrors Banquo’s quote about “instruments of darkness”
Macbeth: “And be these juggling fiends no more believe’d that palter us in a double sense, that keep the word of promise to our ear and break it to our hope”
Shakespeare suggests that power seized by the wrong means is corruptive.
Malcolm plans to undo everything Macbeth did during his ‘reign of terror’. Macbeth has left no legacy behind. Malcolm will ‘heal’ Scotland.
Contrast from start of play “brave Macbeth” “undid him from the nave to the chops”.
Malcolm: “… Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”
After the death of Macbeth and the restoration of Malcolm as monarch
