MACBETH Flashcards
‘When shall we three meet again in thunder, lighting or rain’
Thunder, lighting, and rain symbolize terror and darkness and is the basic setting in the entire play. Dark disturbing tone.
‘Fair is foul, foul is fair’
The witches chant in an odd rhythm. Macbeth echoes this line later. Macbeth’s first words mimic the Witches linking him to them and foreshadowing the harmful effects of their prophecy.
‘Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’
LM instructs her M to hide his evil so that none suspect him after killing Duncan. ‘flower’ = purity, ‘serpent’ = evil and deception, (the snake in Garden of Eden. juxtaposition cements the degree of his deception.
“Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”
M blinded by ambition & desire to keep the throne misinterpreted the witches prophecy. The adjective ‘charmed’ indicates his confidence in the prophecies that propel through the play until he’s a tyrant.
‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know’
Macbeth now puts on the mantle of murderer: monosyllabic words overturns his earlier vacillation. He must become heartless within while remaining a facade of nobility to the public.
‘It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman’
LM hears an owl shriek, in folklore, this foretold an imminent death. bellman- announcements. man is “fatal” as he announced deaths. Owl’s shriek is a stern, cruel, goodnight to Duncan as it forecasts his death.
‘There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face’
Duncan means that one can’t read someone’s mind by looking at their face. no way to predict betrayal. Duncan speaks the line, Shakespeare seals the irony by having Macbeth enter the court room.
‘It is too full o the milk of human kindness’
LM fears M doesn’t have the evil required to seize crown in the most expeditious manner. Note how she uses “milk” as a metaphor for the feminine quality of nurturing kindness– ironic implication being that she is far less full of that milk than M.
‘If you can look into the seeds of time and say which one will grow , then speak’
looking at a group of seeds & predicting which will sprout, and which won’t is like predicting fate. provides insight into M & Banquo’s characters: M is influenced by witches, B isn’t convinced.
“Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
No man can harm him since every man is born from a woman. an exception - Macduff, who was born via c-section. convinces M to be ruthless & act tyrannically murdering many
“A falcon, towering in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.”
falcon, Duncan, was killed by owl, M. owl= dark & death. symbolism of Owl killing high-flying falcon= M’s soaring ambition breaks Great Chain of Being. disruption of food chain used as a macrocosm of chaos that occurs to natural law of monarchy.
“Things without all remedy, Should be without regard: What’s done is done.”
LM merely trying to treat M’s guilty hallucinations with the blandest possible palliative. believes things that evidently can’t be undone just forget them to live peacefully.
“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell; Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so.”
Shakespeare reference Lucifer, who was corrupted by power. Lucifer was the brightest angel before he betrayed God. By extension then, if Macbeth was the bright angel, he is now the Devil.
“To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.”
M doesn’t wish to face what he’s done. He wishes he was a stranger to himself so as to not know what he’s just done. M’s guilty conscience is strong making him humane while LM is opposite right now
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?”
Panicking after the murder, he imagines that all Neptune’s ocean can’t cleanse him (Neptune= Roman god of sea.) In other words, he imagines the guilt will stay with him until his death
“O, full of scorpions is my mind!”
M confesses near insanity metaphor that links his ‘mind’ to one of the most poisonous creatures. metaphor sheds light on toxic effects of witches’ intervention & foreshadows downfall of M. exclamation= M’s anguish. M irrevocably lost mental equilibrium.
“Here’s the smell of blood. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
LM loses grip & weakens. remorse weighs heavily upon her. Weak-mindedly she sleepwalks & suffers from acute depression. recalls D’s death realizes her role in murder can’t wash away/ hide crime. HYPERBOLE
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?”
M wracked with guilt over what he’s to do, mind races with thoughts of such evil. Sees a dagger then sees it bloody. Comments on wickedness of world, before LM rings bell. Though guilt was weighing him down, M kills D.
“I am in blood stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
M walked so far in river of blood that if he changed to alter trajectory of murder it would be just as difficult to live good life as it’s to kill. M’s decision to obey ambition & kill D led him down destructively. M knows he’s a tyrant & concedes there’s no use in turning back.
“Wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’? I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen ‘Stuck in my throat.”
M tries to say “Amen” in the hope of obtaining blessing, but can’t. Could be said inability to say “Amen” shows he’s eternally damned. Once he has accepted damnation, he becomes a monster of tyranny because M has nothing to lose.
