"Macbeth" quotes and context Flashcards
In King Duncan’s camp near Forres, a wounded captain describes how Macbeth personally slaughtered the traitorous Macdonald. In response to this King Duncan says:
“O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman.”
Act 1 Scene 2
After Banquo and Fleance leave, Macbeth hallucinates a blood stained dagger just before he is about to murder King Duncan:
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?”
Act 2 Scene 2
At the banquet, Macbeth is told that the murder of Banquo has been successful but that Fleance escaped. He hallucinates that a bloody Banquo is sitting in his seat and commands him away:
“Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!”
Act 3 Scene 4
Outside Dunsinane Castle, Macbeth boasts to Macduff of the witches prophecy until Macduff reveals that he was “from his mother’s womb Untimely ripped.” Accepting his fate Macbeth’s courage wavers:
“Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man!”
Act 5 Scene 8
Although she knows that Macbeth shares her desire for power, Lady Macbeth is concerned that he is too afflicted with “th’ milk of human kindness” to carry out the necessary deed. When Macbeth declares that he does not want to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of being a coward:
“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”
Act 1 Scene 7
The witches meet with Hecate, goddess of witchcraft who scolds them for the way they have handled Macbeth. She orders that they summon
apparitions whose messages will lure Macbeth into a false sense of security:
“As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.”
Act 3 Scene 5
After receiving Macbeth’s letter detailing his promotion as Thane of Cawdor and the encounter with the Witches, Lady Macbeth waits for her husbands return. In her dramatic soliloquy she cries out:
“Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here”
Act 1 Scene 5
At the climax of the play the English army is advancing in on Dunsinane using boughs cut from Birnam Wood as shield. Despite half of the witches prophecy being fulfilled Macbeth insists that he is invincible until his opponent reveals:
“Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.”
Shortly after receiving news that Duncan will be staying at Inverness, Lady Macbeth immediately begins plotting Duncan’s murder. She advises Macbeth to:
“Look like th’ innocent flower,
But be the serpent under ’t”
Towards the end of the play, like her husband Lady Macbeth has fully descended into madness. She sleepwalks and begins to hallucinate blood on her hands which she claims doesn’t wash away:
“Out, damned spot; out, I say!”
