Macbeth Other Quotes Flashcards
‘Art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation’
‘Fair is foul and foul is fair hover through the fog
and filthy air’
- confusing/paradoxical nature of witches’ equivocation establishes that play will be about moral confusion + subversions in nature + deception, will make audience question appearances + notions of what is real/false
- verb ‘hover’ supernatural influence of witches which will be omnipresent + inescapable throughout. - fricative pathetic fallacy ‘fog and filthy’ establishes that play will blur/distort truth leading characters to murkiest depths of evil
- rhyme gives words a spell-like bewitching quality
Appearance vs. Reality
* Duality: nothing’s as it seems, trust nothing
* Duncan: “there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face” → explains why he keeps employing traitors
Fate
* Duncan’s murder may be inevitable
* Unlike Greek tragedy (hero fights fate), Macbeth rushes to it
Witches
* fricative ‘f’ sounds → aggressive, powerful (bares teeth)
OR
* trochaic pentameter, childlike speech → not powerful; can’t make Macbeth kill King, he’s fully responsible; witches never command regicide
‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’
Biblical Allusion
* Devil as serpent influencing Eve
Original Sin
* Women seen as root of problems
Misogyny
* View favoured by King James
King James’ Medal
* Serpent + flowers reference; reminder Catholics failed in Gunpowder Plot, future ones will too
‘If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me’
‘Thou play’dst most foully for ’t’
‘fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge’
‘O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee!’
‘All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?’
‘Turn, hell-hound, turn!’
