| Horrid image | Macbeth physically tormented between his ambition and conscience (Regicide goes against divine right of kings) |
| Stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires | Appearance & Reality (rhyming couplet shows decisiveness and purpose) |
| I fear thy nature, It is too full o’er the milk of human kindness | Lady Macbeth takes control over Macbeth, who is not committed to murdering Duncan |
| My keen knife see not the wound it makes | Lady Macbeth intends to do the murder herself, distancing herself away from the deed as she thinks she can get away with it |
| I have […] only vaulting ambition | Macbeth has no motivation besides ambition but it not persuaded enough to commit the deed |
| Hear not my steps, which way they walk | Macbeth doesn’t want God to know about it act of regicide as it is considered a sin against God |
| My bosom franchis’d and allegiance clear | Banquo’s loyalty to the King is more important than his ambition |
| What hath quench’d them, hath given me fire | Lady Macbeth is angry and aggressive (not a Jacobean woman) |
| Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? | Hyperbole represents the scale of his guilt (poetic language to distance Macbeth from the large deed) |
| O, full of scorpions is my mind | Macbeth’s inter-turmoil, has a poisoned mind and experiencing foreign and unusual thoughts (animalistic response) |
| I am in blood stepp’d in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er. | Macbeth knows he has gone to far but cannot turn back |
| The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. | Macbeth acts decisively. Contrasts hesitation to murdering Duncan in (1,7) |
| Come you spirits […] unsex me here […] full me […] top full of direst cruelty | Lady Macbeth invites the spirit, Macbeth meets the witches. She is prepared to do all to get what she wants – removes her femininity |
| Whilst it was smiling in my face […] dashed the brains out | Strong imagery – mother murdering her innocent child (Lady Macbeth is not nurturing but evil) |
| Nature seems dead and wicked dreams abuse the curtain’d sleep | Macbeth may be seeing the consequences of his deep thoughts through lack of sleep and hallucinating |
| Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep […] Macbeth shall sleep no more | Repetition – sleep is meant to be restorative and peaceful but will never sleep properly again (Duncan murdered in his sleep) Macbeth has an unfocused mind |
| Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers! | Imperative verb – Lady Macbeth is in control and takes all the responsibility |
| What’s done is done | Reference to ‘what is done cannot be undone’ |
| Be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck | Macbeth isolates Lady Macbeth from his plans of murder |
| Foul whispering unnatural deeds do bring unnatural troubles | Physiological state of Lady Macbeth (distrupting The Great Chain of Being) |
| Instruments of darkness | Metaphor that refers to the evil within the witches |
| Out dammed spot! Out I say! | Lady Macbeth speaks in prose to show her disturbed mind and breakdown in language, contrasts ‘a little water clears of this deed’ (2,2) |
| If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir | Macbeth initially allows fate to take its course |
| Come fate […] and champion me th’utterance | Macbeth challenges fate, contrasts ‘distaining fortune’ (1,2) |
| He shall spurn fate […] and you know, security is mortal’s chiefest enemy. | Macbeth thinks he can control his own destiny by murdering Duncan and Banquo (security means over-confidence) |
| valiant fury | Macbeth is described a tyrant that no one trusts (reigns through fear instead of the respect) |
| To leave his wife, to leave his babes […] he loves us not | Macduff abandons his family to go to England (leaves Lady Macduff feeling betrayed and vulnerable) |
| Fair is foul and foul is fair | Witches equivocate using ambiguous and unclear language |
| So foul and fair a day I have not seen | Macbeth is linked to the witches through repetition (audience questions if Macbeth’s fate is aligned to the witches) |
| rapt withal | Macbeth is eager to hear more of the witches’ prophecy (shocked that the witches already know of his thoughts of regicide) |
| borrow’d robes | Clothing motif (Macbeth looks like a king but isn’t a truly one) |
| Let our old robes sit easier than our new! | Macbeth puts on something that he is not |
| Look like th’innocent flower but be the serpent under’t | Lady Macbeth encourages her husband to deceive Duncan by pretending to be something that he is not |
| False face must hide what false heart doth know | Macbeth must hide his evil intentions |
| Is this a dagger which I see before me? | Macbeth hallucinates due to the pressure he is under |
| A dagger of the mind, a false creation, processing from the heat-oppressed brain? | Macbeth’s suffering due to the build up of pressure causing him to hallucinate (metaphor) |
| A little water clears us of this deed | Lady Macbeth foreshadows her own guilt in 5,1 (‘these hands will n’er be clean’) |
| There’s daggers in men’s smiles | Dagger makes reference to Macbeth’s soliloquy and a metaphor for hidden intentions |
| And make our faces vizards to our hearts, disguising what they are | Macbeth and Lady Macbeth swap roles in order for Macbeth to conceal his true intentions (‘look like the flower…’) |
| Come seeling night | Macbeth believes that darkness can conceal his evil actions, in murdering Banquo (‘stars hide your fires’) |
| Now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief | Macbeth is not righteous of having the title of being king (clothing motif) |
| Duncan hath born facilities so meek | Duncan is represented as a good king, to emphasise Macbeth’s guilt (Duncan’s righteousness) |
| He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour | Macbeth worries about Banquo being suspicious about him becoming king. (Banquo would have been a good king) |
| Most pious Edward with such grace […] holy king | Tyrannical Macbeth is contrasted to saintly King Edward of England |
| justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, bounty (generosity), perseverance (forgiving), mercy, lowliness (modesty), devotion (religious), patience, courage, fortitude (strength) | Qualities of a good king, represented by Duncan |
Macbeth Quotations (by theme)
December 16, 2019