Macbeth Quotes

Question 1

Why does Shakespeare contrast Banquo to Macbeth

Answer 1

Banquo is portrayed as Macbeth’s antithesis, suggesting Banquo is a morally strong and virtuous character whi resists evil.

Macbeth is morally weak, inmately flawed and evil character who gives into temptation.

Question 2

How is Banquo Noble

Answer 2

Shakespeare demonstrates the noble qualities and Banquo’s ‘royalty of nature’ - it was phrophecied that “thou shalt get kings”.

He is honourable and virtuous, thus he will disprove of Macbeth’s murder, fight for justice and remind loyal to Duncan - as warned by “keep my bosom franchised”

Question 3

How is Banquo Strategic

Answer 3

Shakespeare allows the debate between Banquo being noble or strategic.

He’s described as “noble Banquo”, “worthy Banquo”, “no less deserv’d”, “wisdom that doth guide his valour”.

Banquo also states he must “keep my allegiance clear”. He speaks in terms of business, and gives the sense of being strategic and non-committal to either Macbeth or Duncan

Question 4

How is Banquo Resistive to Evil

Answer 4

When Banquonis exposed to the witches, he turns to God, asking for help in resisting evil and ultimately doesn’t act on his ambitions as he recognises they are a force of evil.

• This is evident as he is suspicious when he questions “are you aught that man may question?” - recognising the Witches’ supernatural existence
• When he finds the prophecy is coming true he says “what can the devil speak true” - imoles he views the, as agents of the devil. He knows the witches are a route of temptation and therefore sin.

Question 5

How is Banquo Aligned with Jesus

Answer 5

Banquo could be used by Shakespeare to give a ​moral message to the audience about rejecting evil thoughts and the importance of turning to God in times of temptation.

In addition, he is ​less able to resist ambition​ when he sleeps, shown by the comment: “​I dream’d of the three weird sisters last night”​ (showing he subconsciously thinks about the Witches’ prophecy). But instead of trying to hide this, he confesses to God and asks for help in remaining moral and virtuous. This has Biblical connotations​ as Jesus was ​tempted three times​ by the devil and resisted; perhaps Shakespeare is attempting to draw parallels between the Banquo and Jesus.

Question 6

What quote from Banquo suggest suspects Macbeth with the witches

Answer 6

“​I fear thou played’st most foully for’t​”.

Question 7

What does Banquo saying “​I shall be counselled​” to Macbeth suggest?

Answer 7

● He is willing to be advised and tempted by Macbeth, which shows he’s ​franchised – wants to retain the privileges he has gained from loyalty to the king and this may change to new king.
○ States that “​my duties​” are “​forever knit​” to Macbeth
○ He has shifted his​ loyalties and allegiance​ to Macbeth rapidly.

● Therefore, it is clear that his​ loyalty is not fixed ​– to any king, but rather, he is
loyal only to serve himself.

Question 8

What quote signifies Macbeth’s ambition in A1S7

Answer 8

“I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’other.” - Macbeth, (A1S7)

Question 9

How does the Captain describe Macbeth in A1S2

Answer 9

“For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name - / Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution, / Like Valour’s minion carved out his passage / Till he faced the slave, / Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, / Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’chaps / And fixed his head upon our battlements.” - Captain, (A1S2)

Question 10

What quote shows Macbeth wants to hide his wringful thoughts in A1S4

Answer 10

“Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires: / The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, / Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.” - Macbeth (A1S4)

Question 11

What quite from A5S5 shows Macbeth’s Nihilism

Answer 11

“Out, out, brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” - Macbeth (A5S5)

Question 12

What quote show Macduff’s interpretation of a bleak future for Scotland

Answer 12

“​lest our old robes sit easier than our new​”

“thy hope ends here”

“Bleed bleed poor country”

“O Scotland, Scotland”

Question 13

Quote that shows Macduff opposes Macbeth’s rule

Answer 13

“​fit to govern? No not to live!​”

Question 14

How does Ross describe Macduff

Answer 14

“​he is noble, wise, judicious​”.

Question 15

Quote that shows Macduff as a traitir to his family instead of a traitor to Scotland

Answer 15

“​Cruel are the times when we are traitor and do not know ourselves​”

• In doing this, Macduff becomes the​ complete foil​ to Macbeth, who conversely obeys his wife and is a traitor to his country.

Question 16

How does Macduff describe Macbeth’s murder of Duncan

Answer 16

“​Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the lord’s anointed temple​”

Question 17

How is Macbeth described towards the end of the play

Answer 17

“​tyrant​”, “​hellhound”,​ “​bloodier villain​”, “butcher”​, “abhorred tyrant”

Question 18

What quote from the witches suggest Macbeth is easy to read

Answer 18

“your face my thane is like a book”.

Question 19

How are the witches described by Macbeth and Banquo

Answer 19

The Witches are described as: ​”​imperfect speakers”​

Question 20

Quote from the witches at the very start of the play that suggest chaos will break loose

Answer 20

“Fair is foul and foul is fair”

Question 21

How are the Witches described as supernatural by Banquo

Answer 21

“look not like the inhabitants of the earth, / And yet are on it”

Question 22

What quote shows Lady Macbeth’s ambition, as well as her being against human kindness in A1S5

Answer 22

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thou art promised; yet do I fear thy nature, / It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way.” (A1S5)

Question 23

What quote from Lady Macbeth shows she wants to subvert the traditional gender roles in A1S5

Answer 23

“Hie thee hither, / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear / And chastise with the valour of my tongue / All that impedes thee from the golden round.” - Lady Macbeth, (A1S5)

Question 24

What quote from Lady Macbeth shows she wants to be unsexed (while saying things like the Witches do) in A1S5

Answer 24

“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here / And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull / Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, / Stop up th’access and passage to remorse / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between / Th’effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts / And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers.” (A1S5)

Question 25

What quote from Lady Macbeth shows she wants to deceptive and duplicitous in A1S5

Answer 25

Your hand, your tongue; look like th’innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t.” (A1S5)

Question 26

What quote from A3S2 shows Lady Macbeth is becoming paranoid

Answer 26

“Nought’s had, all’s spent / Where our desire is got without content. ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” (A3S2)

Question 27

Quote from A1S4 showing Duncan is a benevolent ruler

Answer 27

Signs of nobleness like stars shall shine / On all deservers,” (1.4)​

Question 28

Quote from A1S4 showing Duncan is dedicated to self improvement and improvement of others

Answer 28

​“I have begun to plant thee and will labour / To make thee full of growing,”​

“There if I grow, / The harvest is your own,” (1.4)​

Question 29

What quote from A1S7 from Macbeth shows Duncan is a good king

Answer 29

“So clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against” A1S7

Question 30

What shows Duncan is fair in A1S4

Answer 30

Shakespeare shows how Duncan governs ​fairly ​to do what is best for his country.

➔ He rewards those who do good, telling Macbeth, ​“More is thy due than more than all can pay,” (1.4)​.

➔ At the same time, he ​punishes traitors​, ordering the execution of the Thane of Cawdor for his acts of ​treason​:​ “Go pronounce his present death / And with his former title greet Macbeth,” (1.2)​.

Question 31

What quote describes Macbeths relationship with Duncan in A1S2

Answer 31

“valiant cousin, worthy gentleman” (1.2)

Question 32

What quite in A5S4 shows nobody wants to fight for Macbeth

Answer 32

​“those he commands, move only in command, / Nothing in love” (5.2),​ and ​“none serve him but constrained things / Whose hearts are absent too” (5.4)

Question 33

What quote from after Duncan’s death shows that the Great Chain of Being has been disturbed

Answer 33

“‘Tis unnatural, / Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last, / A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed,” (2.4).​ ​“Like the deed that’s done”

Question 34

What quote from A2S4 shows Duncan’s death has had a permanent affect on the weather (+prompts Dark v Light)

Answer 34

​“By th’clock ‘tis day / And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. / Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, / That darkness does the face of earth entomb / When living light should kiss it?” (2.4).​

Question 35

How are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth described in A5S8 and A5S9

Answer 35

“hell-hound” (5.8)​ and a ​“dead butcher and his fiend-like queen” (5.9).​

These all connote the ​Devil​.

Question 36

What quote shows Macduff opinion in Scotlands future in A4S3

Answer 36

​“I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; / It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash / Is added to her wounds,” (4.3).​

Question 37

What does Macbeth want to hide in A1S4

Answer 37

His “black and deep desires” (A1.S4)

Question 38

What quote from Macbeth in A1S3 shows murder is on his mind

Answer 38

“My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical // Shakes so my single state of man // That function is smother’d in surmise // and nothing is but what is not” (A1.S3).

Question 39

What quote from Macbeth about the dagger in A2S1 shows he’s starting to become mad

Answer 39

“a dagger of the mind, a false creation” (A2.S1)

Question 40

What quote from Ross in A2S4 shows shows the murder of Duncan is against Nature

Answer 40

“Gainst nature still! // Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up // Thine own lives’ means!” (A2.S4).

Question 41

What quote from Macbeth in A2S2 shows he thinks his sin/guilt/blood of killing Duncan won’t go away

Answer 41

“Will all great // Neptune’s ocean wash this blood // Clean from my hand? // No, this my hand will rather // The multitudinous seas incarnadine” A2S2

Question 42

What quote from the witches from A1S1 shows there’s two sides to every story

Answer 42

“When the battle’s lost, and won,”

Question 43

What quote from Lady Macbeth in A1S5 shows she want her and Macbeth to be deceptive/duplicitous

Answer 43

​ “Look like th’innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t,” (1.5)​

Question 44

What quote from A1S5 shows that Lady Macbeth wants to blind people to her actions

Answer 44

“Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,” (1.5)​

Question 45

What quote from Macbeth in A1S3 signals how his​ fate ​is tied to the ​confusion of contradiction

Answer 45

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen,” (1.3)​

Question 46

What quote from Macbeth in A1S7 to Lady Macbeth shows he wants to hide their intentions

Answer 46

“Away, and mock the time with fairest show, / False face must hide what the false heart doth know,” (1.7)

Question 47

What does Banquo observe about heaven just before Duncan’s muder

Answer 47

“There’s husbandry in heaven, / Their candles are all out,” (2.1)​

(Play changes from Light to Dark)

Question 48

What does Macbeth say that suggest manlihood is tied with honour

Answer 48

“I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none”

Question 49

What does Macbeth reply with in A3S4 when Lady Macbeth asks ​“Are you a man?”

Answer 49

“Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that / Which might appal the devil,” (3.4)​

Question 50

What quote from Macbeth in A5S3 shows he’ll fight to end and due honourably

Answer 50

​“I’ll fight till from my flesh be hacked,” (5.3)

Question 51

What does Malcom associate masculinity with when he tests Macduff

Answer 51

He warns Macduff of ​“the cistern of [his] lust”​, his ​“desire”​, his “stanchless avarice”​, and his ​“voluptuousness” (4.3)​, associating masculinity with unstoppable sexual desire​. His fabricated personality is the ​epitome​ of the ​aggressive lust​ society encourages in men.

Question 52

How does Macduff show that ​repressing his grief would be a denial of his love​ to Malcom and all audiences

Answer 52

​“I shall do so; / But I must also feel it as a man; / I cannot but remember such things were / That were most precious to me,”

Question 53

What dies Malcom say to suggest an appropriate ​manly response would be to wage war on his enemy in A4S3

Answer 53

“Dispute it like a man,” (4.3)

“make us med’cines of our great revenge / To cure this deadly grief,” (4.3)

Question 54

What can we infer out of Lady Macbeth saying “may pour [her] spirits in [his] ear”?

Answer 54

The reference to “spirits”​ connotes the ​occult​, as if she wants to ​possess ​Macbeth. Shakespeare links ​witchcraft​ with a woman’s dominance over her husband, implying that it is unnatural​ for women to have power over men.

An alternative interpretation is that Shakespeare is ​criticising ​how society denies women their own freedom ​and ​autonomy​. Lady Macbeth only has to manipulate and possess Macbeth because her power and status are ​directly tied to his​. ​“Pour[ing]”​ her ​“spirits”​ into ​his ​“ear” m​ ay be a metaphor for how her desires can only be fulfilled by a male form. Macbeth is her ​puppet because she cannot do it herself, instead she has to ​rely on her husband for everything​. Shakespeare could be showing that men bring their downfalls ​on themselves​ by denying women power.

Question 55

What quote from Lady M in A1S5 shows she wants to be ‘unsexed’ with ‘spirits’

Answer 55

“Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,” (1.5).

Question 56

What does Macbeth say in A1S7 to do with going to heaven when he ponders killing Duncan

Answer 56

​“We’d jump the life to come,” (1.7)​

Question 57

What does Macbeth say in A2S2 when he’s scared he’s been denied God forgiveness after he’s killed Duncan and gone against the Great Chain of Being

Answer 57

​“But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’? / I had most need of blessing and ‘Amen’ / Stuck in my throat,” (2.2)

Question 58

What quote about Macbeth not wanting to know himself in A2S2 shows he wants to distance himself from Duncan’s murder and his own guilt?

Answer 58

“To know my deed, ‘twere best not know my self,” (2.2)​.

Question 59

What does Lady Macbeth say in A2S2 about washing of hands clearing guilt

Answer 59

“Go get some water / And wash this filthy witness from your hand,” (2.2)​, echoing this later,​ “A
little water clears us of this deed,” (2.2)​.

Question 60

What does Macbeth say about the dagger that he sees before him in A2S1 showing he can’t tells what he sees is real or fake?

Answer 60

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” (2.1)​.

Question 61

What does Lady Macbeth say in A2S2 and A3S4 that are dismissive of Macbeth’s hallucinations

Answer 61

“‘Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil,” (2.2)​ and his​ “flaws and starts”​ are merely “impostors to true fear” (3.4)​

Question 62

What moment in the play can we tell Lady Macbeth is now tormented with her own guilt

Answer 62

she is ​tormented ​by her own visions. She cries, ​“Out, damned spot!” (5.1)​ , showing she is trying to wash her hands of an invisible spot of blood. Its invisibility reflects how ​guilt doesn’t have to be visible or known by others for it to be real​: she knows her own guilt and cannot unlearn it.

Question 63

What quote from Macbeth shows he slightly envies Duncan ans the dead in A3S2

Answer 63

​“Better be with the dead / Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, / Than on the torture of the mind to lie / In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave. / After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well,” (3.2)

Question 64

What quote from Macbeth in A1S4 show Macbeth wants to operate in the dark and not been seen when planning to muder Duncan

Answer 64

“Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires, / The eye wink at the hand. Yet let that be, / Which the eye fears when it is done to see,” (1.4)​.

Question 65

What quote from Lady Macbeth in A1S5 show Macbeth wants to operate in the dark and not been seen when planning to muder Duncan

Answer 65

“Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, / That my keen knife sees not the wound it makes, / Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,” (1.5)