Macbeth quotes Flashcards
fair is
foul and foul is fair
(the fairness of Scotland goes bad with Macbeth & evil becomes accepted as normal. Their will be a conspiracy against Macbeth)
Brave
Noble and greet Macbeth
(he could have been good or bad- had the potential to be both)
so foul and fair
a day I have not seen
(talking about weather and that they won)
choppy fingers,
skinny lips, beards
(the witches description, saying they look almost dead, are unearthly)
Witches greet him with his 3 titles
that he seems
rapt withal
(he is obsessed with the prediction)
Not so happy
yet much happier, lower than Macbeth and greater
(lower ranking but a better person)
(this is because he dies but his descendants will be king)
Thou shalt get kings,
though thou be none. So all hail Macbeth and Banquo
Stay you
imperfect speakers
(wants to command the witches, uses bossy verbs when addressing the witches)
can the devils
speak true
(Banquo is still sceptic about them)
why do you dress
me in borrow’d robes
(feels the title doesn’t belong to him)
to win to our harm the
instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betrays in deepest consequence.
(The witches aren’t lying but they shouldn’t trust them what they said might be true but they might have said it to hurt him.)
Against the
use of nature. Horrible imaginings. ‘Murder’ and ‘is smother’d in surmise’ (speech is murdered) (this is the beginning of Macbeths corruption) (saying his thoughts should be murdered and that they are against the rule of G-d because he is thinking about murdering the king)
state of
man
(refences the difference of being a man from being a woman, upholding male values- references humanity)
the service
and the loyalty
(the values that bind all men to the king - divine right of kings)
stars hide your
fires let not light see my black and deep desires
(contarts between light and dark vs heaven and hell, the other thames or G-d, divine right of kings, shouldn’t see his desires to kill the king )
The eye wink at the
hand
( he has to go against what he knows is wrong because he has to ignore the eye and let the hand be in control and do what he wants - kill the king)
My dearest
partner of greatness
(he sees her as his equal - they are a strong couple and he values her opinion - this is A typical for the time period)
Yet I do fear thy
nature It is too full of the milk of human kindness
(saying he does not have the cruelty within him to kill the king - and she is saying this as if it is a bad thing - shows her evil tendency’s - saying he is to innocent like a baby - reversal of gender roles because she is the woman)
That I may pour
my spirits into thine ear
(metaphor - she wants to give him her wickedness - reversal of gender roles)
unsex me
here
(calling evil spirits to turn her into a man to remove her womanly emotions and weaknesses)
of dirtiest
cruelty; make thick my blood
(She wants to be cruel and lack remorse )
Come to my
woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall
(inviting evil - represents innocence and purity through children being taken from her)
come thick night
smoke of hell, blanket of darkness (she is inviting hell to shroud her actions from the pure and from G-d because she is encouraging treason)(this shows that lady Macbeth does not realize what she is doing is wrong - she has no depth of character, no awareness of inner conflict)
Never shall sun see
that morrow, your face my thane is as a book where men may read strange matters
(He looks shaken, still has inner conflict against killing the king - by killing the king it is as if the sun will never rise again as they would be letting evil loose and evil = darkness)
Look like th’innocent flower
but be the serpent in under’t (represents hidden evil - also reference to Adam and eve and the bible and the devil - saying he should welcome being a servant of the devil)
He’s here
in double trust
Vaulting
ambition
(metaphor and foreshading of Macbeth)
I dare all that may become
a man; who dares do more is none
(theme = gender roles)
How tender tis to love the babe that
milks me, I would while it was smiling in my face have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dash’d the brains out had I so sworn as you have to do this
Bring forth men
children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males
(gender roles theme - talks about courage being linked to masculinity, Macbeth is manly, says Lady Macbeth will only produce male children because of how brave she is)
Is this a
dagger which I see before me
(Image of death - hallucination)
and on thy blade
and dudgeon gouts of blood, which was not so before
knell that summons thee to
heaven or to hell
(Duncans death is a )
sorry sight
sleep no more
Macbeth does murder sleep
(Duncans sleep is now death, he has committed regicide so he will never be at peace again therefore he wont be able to sleep again)
go get some water and wash this
filthy witness from your hands
(a motif of blood personified)
the sleeping and the
dead are but as pictures
will all great Neptune’s ocean
wash this blood from my hands […] making the green one red
(Lady macbeth says ‘some’ water would clean it, he says an ocean couldn’t even clean it- blood motif - gong mad)
My hands are
of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white
(she isn’t sorry for what they’ve done, she feels ashamed she did so little to help to kill the king!)
A little water
clears us of this dead
To know my deed twere
best not know myself
(he would rather who he is then face what he has become- he is not the person he was - he know the gravitiy of what he has done and knows their is no going back)
Describing Evil scotland:
‘strange scremas of death’
‘accents terrible of dire combustion and confus’d events’
‘obscure bird’
‘earth was fevourous and did shake’
‘dark hour’
O
horror
Breach in
nature
(the death of the king goes against the great chain of being)
There’s warrant in
that theft which steals itself when there’s no mercy left behind
(the people behind the mercy are brutal and have no mercy)
That would make of bad,
and friends and foes
(foreshadowing - G-d will bless people who will in the end restore harmony)
thou played’st
most unfairly for’t
(first explicit refrence to the murder)
upon my head they placed a
fruitless crown and put a barren sceptor in my gripe
(Macbeth wont have a legacy and he will be the end of his line but Banquo won’t be)
Only for them
and mine ETERNAL JEWEL given to the common enemy of man
(he has given the devil his soul - but he does still think his soul is special)
make our faces
vizards to our harts
(helmets need to hide their thoughts - shows he understand his sin)
sorriest fancies and whats done is
done
(saying that Macbeths dark thought should have died whith Duncan and that there was no point in becoming king if he wasn’t going to enjoy it - also Lady Macbeth still feels no remorse, she is unreligious, doesnt repent and doesn’t understand the gravity of the consequences)
full of
scorpions is my mind
(metaphor - he is poisoning himself via bad thoughts)
whiles nights black
agents to their preys do rouse
(evil is created at night)
come seeling night, scarf up the
tender eye of pitiful day and with thy bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me pale
(contrast between day and night - the day is personified because it feels pity for what is happening - pale implies that it makes him sick and afraid of the bond of life)
[he would have been] whole as a marble, founded as a rock [but now he is]
cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d
(shows he could have been secure, solid and stable and perfect but instead he is trapped in a cage of fear - the tricolon and alliteration puts emphasis on his pain and discomfort - juxtoposition of images )
never shake thy gory
locks at me
(revealing his murders)
Are you
a man
(he is acting like a woman- emotional and irrational, she is emasculating him, she talks with authority to him - unnatural)
It will have blood
they say blood will have blood
(violence breeds more violence)
I keep a servant
feed
(shows that he does not trust any of his lords, this is shown because he is not a rightful king and therefore he has not gained the trust of his lords. )
I am in blood, stepp’d in
so far that should I wade no more
(he realises he is so deep in blood he can’t wait any more shows that he has lost his rational perspective)
we are yet
but young in deed
(foreshadowing that they’ll have to create more bloodshed and violence)
that a swift blessing
may soon return to this our suffering country under a hand accurs’d
(talking about the grace of g-d - implies Scotland is no longer blessed by G-d because Duncan is gone and it is ruled by Macbeths evil hand)
By the pricking of my thumbs
something wicked this way comes
(macbeth - he is wicked now)
How now you
secret, black and midnight hags
(symbolizes evil)
none of woman born shall
harm macbeth
(saying no person can kill him - makes him feel invinsible and act overconfident )
The very firstlings of my heart
shall be the firstlings of my hand
(Saying he will be impulsive and rash - this is bad behaiour for a king)
and do not know ourselves when we hold
rumors from what we fear, yet know not what we fear
(they believe rumors but theres unknown fear)
black macbeth
shall seem as pure as snow
(contast between black and white - good and evil - compared to Malcoms actions)
virtues of a king
becoming graces, as justice, verity, temperance, stableness, bounty, preservation, mercy
(all virtues macbeth lacks)
devilish
macbeth
out damned
spot, out I say
(tring to wash blood off of her hands)
here’s the smell of
blood still all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand
(more womanly, she has lost her mind from the grief of killing them)
Foul whisperings are
abroad; unnatrual deeds do breed unnatrual troubles
(murder brings madness)
none serve him but constrained things
whose hearts are absent to
(none chooses to serve with macbeth)
dusty
death
(unholy - not heaven)
Macduff was from
his mothers womb untimley ripped
dead butcher
and his fiend like queen
