Macbeth Act 2 Important Quotes

Banquo There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, and yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers, Restrain me in the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose. Act 2 Scene 1.Banquo is tired. He is afraid of his thoughts of the prophecy. Metaphor= Stars&Candles. Apostrophe=calling on merciful powers, this is different from Lady Macbeth.
Macbeth A friend.Act 2 Scene 1.Macbeth&Banquo=Trust. Ironic since he is about to kill the king, and it is foreshadow.
Macbeth Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.Act 2 Scene 1Appearance vs. Reality.
Macbeth I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.Act 2 Scene 1Talking to the vision of the dagger=apostrophe.
Macbeth A dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-opressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which I now draw. Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going, and such an instrument I want to use.Act 2 Scene 1Macbeth has the opportunity to kill Duncan, as the vision of the dagger leads Macbeth to him.
Macbeth Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses of else worth all the rest.Act 2 Scene 1Either his eyesight is bad or superior
Macbeth Now o’er the one-half world nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep. Witchcrahf celebrates Pale Hecate’s off’rings, and withered murder, alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, with Tarquin’s ravashing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost.Act 2 Scene 1Motif the first two lines. Withered murder is personified. Tarquin alludes to poem. Moves like a ghost is a simile.
Macbeth Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way the walk, for fear thy very stones prate of my whereabouts and take the present horror from the time, which now suits with it. Whiles I threat he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. Act 2 Scene 1Apostrophe when he talks to the earth, as he wants it to make his steps unheard so he can sneak around. The stones are personified. He is wasting time here instead of going to kill Duncan.
Lady Macbeth That hath made them drunk hath made me bold. What hath quenched them hath given me fire.Act 2 Scene 2The wine she drank has given her a sense of boldness, and has stirred her will to do the deed.
Lady Macbeth It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman.Act 2 Scene 2Lady Macbeth hears an owl shrieking, which represents death. This is similar to the raven. She compares the owl to a crier.
Lady Macbeth Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, And ’tis not done. Th’attempt and not the deed confounds us.Act 2 Scene 2Lady Macbeth worries that Macbeth did not kill Duncan and has been caught red handed.
Lady Macbeth I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t.Act 2 Scene 2Duncan resembles Lady Macbeth’s when he sleeps, therefore she couldn’t kill him herself.
Macbeth But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’? I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ stuck in my throat.Act 2 Scene 2Macbeth can’t say “amen” to the prayers because he feels guilty about the murder. He also feels he needs a blessing.
Macbeth Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’ – the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second voice, chief nourisher in life’s feast.Act 2 Scene 2Macbeth lists metaphors about sleep, a motif of the play.
Macbeth Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.Act 2 Scene 2This is a metaphor for his guilt. Uses apostrophe in the first line and alludes to Neptune. “seas incarnadine” is a hyperbole.
Macbeth To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.Act 2 Scene 2Macbeth knows he is a murderer. He assumes a new persona: a cold-blooded killer. This is his turning point.
Lennox The night has been unruly. Were we lay, our chimneys were blown down and, as they say, lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death, and prophesying, with accents terrible, of dire combustion and confused events new hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird clamored the livelong night. Some say the earth was feverous and did shake.Act 2 Scene 3There is an upset in natural order, which the reader knows Macbeth has caused. Lennox recognizes something is wrong. “The obscure bird” is referring to the owl
Macduff Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence the life o’ th’ building.Act 2 Scene 3Confusion is personified. Metaphor for Duncan’s body.
Macduff O gentle lady, ’tis not for you to hear what I can speak. The repetition in a woman’s ear would murder as it fell.Act 2 Scene 3This is ironic as Macduff is saying that the news of Duncan’s murder is too much for Lady Macbeth to hear, when she is the one who planned his murder.
Macbeth Had I but dies an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant there’s nothingt serious in mortality. All is but toys. renown and grace is dead. The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees is left this vault to brag of.Act 2 Scene 3This has a double meaning. The other characters thinks he means that if he had died he would not know of the terrible news, but Macbeth means that if he had died, he would not have killed Duncan and felt guilt. The last two lines are a metaphor for blood.
Macbeth You are,and do not know ‘t. The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.Act 2 Scene 3Referring to Duncan. Progeny.
Macbeth Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood, and his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance; there the murderers, steeped in colors of their trade, their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.Act 2 Scene 3Relates to the end of his dagger soliloquy.
Malcolm To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does say.Act 2 Scene 3 Relates to appearance vs. reality.
Ross Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day, and yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp. Is ‘t night’s predominance of the day’s shame that darkness does the face of earch entomb when living should kiss it?Act 2 Scene 4″Bloody stage” is the earth. “the traveling lamp” is a metaphor for the the sun. Ross is asking if night is stronger or is the day guilty.
Old Man ‘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.Act 2 Scene 4Examples of breaches in nature. Macbeth=owl, Duncan=Falcon.
July 16, 2019