| All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter. | Everyone hail Macbeth, Thane of Glamis! Witch #1 Everyone hail Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor! Witch #2 Everyone hail Macbeth, future king! Witch #3 1.3 -The witches are saying this to Macbeth, and Banquo, trying to start a commotion (in a subtle way) |
| If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings; My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical [imagined], Shakes so my single state of man that function | why do I find myself thinking about murdering King Duncan, a thought so horrifying that it makes my hair stand on end and my heart pound inside my chest? Macbeth 1.3 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_20.html) -He sees that what the witches said about him becoming Thane of Cawdor was true, so him becoming king must also be-Macbeth is wondering whether this supernatural temptation by the witches is a good or bad thing -It shows what horrifying things the temptation has put into his head (murdering Duncan) and how he is, to horrified by the thought. |
| Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under ‘t. | Greet the king with a welcoming expression in your eyes, your hands, and your words. You should look like an innocent flower, but be like the snake that hides underneath the flower. Lady Macbeth 1.5 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_34.html) -This shows Lady Macbeth scheming Duncan’s murder, telling Macbeth, Duncan will not be leaving the next day-Shows how they are deceitful |
| I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only 28Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself And falls on the other. | I can’t spur myself to ACTION. The only thing motivating me is ambition, which makes people rush ahead of themselves toward disaster. Macbeth 1.7 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_40.html)-Macbeth is saying how if he could murder Duncan, without any consequences or catches he would-Also he says ambition makes people act to quickly, without really thinking about the consequences |
| We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon. | We can’t go on with this plan. The king has just honored me, and I have EARNED the good opinion of all sorts of people. I want to enjoy these honors while the feeling is fresh and not throw them away so soon. Macbeth 1.7 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_42.html)-Macbeth is doubting the plan to kill Duncan, as he likes how life is at the moment-He doesn’t want the feeling of honor to be thrown away from him |
| Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, 48And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ | Are you afraid to act the way you desire? Will you take the crown you want so badly, or will you live as a coward, always saying “I can’t” after you say “I want to”? Lady Macbeth 1.7 (http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_42.html)-Lady Macbeth is angry at Macbeth for not wanting to follow through with their murder scheme-She’s almost threatening him by saying this is now how I think of your love-She wants to be in power, so she’s goating him on |
| What beast was’t, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? 56When you durst do it then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both: 60[Nor time . . . both: Earlier, we did not have a time and place to murder Duncan. But you were ready to plan and execute the deed.]They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, 64Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this. | If you weren’t a man, then what kind of animal were you when you first told me you wanted to do this? When you dared to do it, that’s when you were a man. And if you go one step further by doing what you dared to do before, you’ll be that much more the man. The time and place weren’t right before, but you would have gone ahead with the murder anyhow. Now the time and place are just right, but they’re almost too good for you. I have suckled a baby, and I know how sweet it is to love the baby at my breast. But even as the baby was smiling up at me, I would have plucked my nipple out of its mouth and smashed its brains out against a wall if I had sworn to do that the same way you have sworn to do this. Lady Macbeth 1.7 (http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_42.html) |
| (If we should fail,) We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep, Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey 72Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains [bodyguards] Will I with wine and wassail [drinking toast, such as “to your health”] so convince That memory, the warder [guard; doorkeeper; watcher] of the brain, Shall be a fume [Lady Macbeth will turn their memories into fumes so that they cannot recall what happened], and the receipt of reason 76A limbeck [that which distills] only; when in swinish sleep Their drenched natures lie, as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon [lay blame upon] 80His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell [murder of Duncan]? | We, fail? If you get your courage up, we can’t fail. When Duncan is asleep—the day’s hard journey has definitely made him tired—I’ll get his two servants so drunk that their memory will go up in smoke through the chimneys of their brains. When they lie asleep like pigs, so drunk they’ll be dead to the world, what won’t you and I be able to do to the unguarded Duncan? And whatever we do, we can lay all the blame on the drunken servants. Lady Macbeth 1.7 ( No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_44.html) |
| (reading) “They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it came missives from the king, who all-hailed me ‘Thane of Cawdor,’ by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time with ‘Hail, king that shalt be!’ This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell.”Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt beWhat thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindnessTo catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,Art not without ambition, but withoutThe illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,And yet wouldst wrongly WIN. Thou’ld’st have, great Glamis,That which cries, “Thus thou must do,” if thou have it,And that which rather thou dost fear to do,Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,That I may pour my spirits in thine earAnd chastise with the valor of my tongueAll that impedes thee from the golden round,Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seemTo have thee crowned withal. | “The witches met me on the day of my victory in battle, and I have since learned that they have supernatural knowledge. When I tried desperately to question them further, they vanished into thin air. While I stood spellbound, messengers from the king arrived and greeted me as the thane of Cawdor, which is precisely how the weird sisters had saluted me before calling me ‘the future king!’ I thought I should tell you this news, my dearest partner in greatness, so that you could rejoice along with me about the greatness that is promised to us. Keep it secret, and farewell.”(she looks up from the letter) You are thane of Glamis and Cawdor, and you’re going to be king, just like you were promised. But I worry about whether or not you have what it takes to seize the crown. You are too full of the milk of human kindness to strike aggressively at your first OPPORTUNITY. You want to be powerful, and you don’t lack ambition, but you don’t have the mean streak that these things call for. The things you want to do, you want to do like a good man. You don’t want to cheat, yet you want what doesn’t belong to you. There’s something you want, but you’re afraid to do what you need to do to get it. You want it to be done for you. Hurry home so I can persuade you and talk you out of whatever’s keeping you from going after the crown. After all, fate and witchcraft both seem to want you to be king. Lady Macbeth 1.5 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_30.html)-She’s reading the letter Macbeth sent here about the supernatural encounter-It shows her worrying about whether or not Macbeth has the guts to murder Duncan. -It shows how she wants to persuade, and encourage Macbeth to kill Duncan, so he can obtain the royal power |
| I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show.False face must hide what the false heart doth know. | Now I’m decided, and I will exert every MUSCLE in my body to commit this crime. Go now, and pretend to be a friendly hostess. Hide with a false pleasant face what you know in your false, evil heart. Macbeth 1.7 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_46.html) |
| Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? Or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw.Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going,And such an instrument I was to use.Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses,Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.It is the bloody BUSINESS which informsThus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-worldNature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuseThe curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebratesPale Hecate’s OFFERINGS, and withered murder,Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his designMoves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearThy very stones prate of my whereabout,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.I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven or to hell. | Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? Or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw.Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going,And such an instrument I was to use.Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses,Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,Which was not so before. There’s no such thing.It is the bloody BUSINESS which informsThus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-worldNature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuseThe curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebratesPale Hecate’s OFFERINGS, and withered murder,Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his designMoves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearThy very stones prate of my whereabout,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. ‘m going now. The murder is as good as done. The bell is telling me to do it. Don’t listen to the bell, Duncan, because it summons you either to heaven or to hell. Macbeth 2.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_50.html) |
| I’ll go no more:I am afraid to think what I have done;Look on ‘t again I dare not. | I can’t go back. I’m afraid even to think about what I’ve done. I can’t stand to look at it AGAIN. Macbeth 2.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_58.html) |
| To be thus is nothing,But to be safely thus. Our fears in BanquoStick deep, and in his royalty of natureReigns that which would be feared. ‘Tis much he dares,And to that dauntless temper of his mindHe hath a wisdom that doth guide his valorTo act in safety. There is none but heWhose being I do fear, and under himMy genius is rebuked, as it is saidMark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sistersWhen first they put the name of king upon meAnd bade them speak to him. Then, prophetlike,They hailed him father to a line of kings.Upon my head they placed a fruitless crownAnd put a barren scepter in my grip,Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,No son of mine succeeding. If ‘t be so,For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered;Put rancors in the vessel of my peaceOnly for them; and mine eternal jewelGiven to the common enemy of man,To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!Rather than so, come fate into the list,And champion me to th’ utterance. Who’s there? | To be the king is nothing if I’m not safe as the king. I’m very afraid of Banquo. There’s something noble about him that makes me fear him. He’s willing to take risks, and his mind never stops working. He has the wisdom to act bravely but also safely. I’m not afraid of anyone but him. Around him, my guardian angel is frightened, just as Mark Antony’s angel supposedly feared Octavius Caesar. Banquo chided the witches when they first called me king, asking them to tell him his own future. Then, like prophets, they named him the father to a line of kings. They gave me a crown and a scepter that I can’t pass on. Someone outside my family will take these things away from me, since no son of mine will take my place as king. If this is true, then I’ve tortured my conscience and murdered the gracious Duncan for Banquo’s sons. I’ve ruined my own peace for their benefit. I’ve handed over my everlasting soul to the devil so that they could be kings. Banquo’s sons, kings! Instead of watching that happen, I will challenge fate to battle and fight to the death. Who’s there! Macbeth 3.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_88.html) |
| We have scorched the snake, not killed it.She’ll close and be herself whilst our poor maliceRemains in danger of her former tooth.But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleepIn the affliction of these terrible dreamsThat shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,Than on the torture of the mind to lieIn restless ecstasy. | We have slashed the snake but not killed it. It will heal and be as good as new, and we’ll be threatened by its fangs once again. But the universe can fall apart, and heaven and earth crumble, before I’ll eat my meals in fear and spend my nights tossing and turning with these nightmares I’ve been having. I’d rather be dead than endure this endless mental torture and harrowing sleep deprivation. Macbeth 3.2 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_96.html) |
| Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff.Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scornThe power of man, for none of woman bornShall harm Macbeth.Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no careWho chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.Macbeth shall never vanquished be untilGreat Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane HillShall come against him. | Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff. Beware the thane of Fife. Let me go. Enough. Apparation #1Be violent, bold, and firm. Laugh at the power of other men, because nobody born from a woman will ever harm Macbeth.Apparation #2Be brave like the lion and proud. Don’t even worry about who hates you, who resents you, and who conspires against you. Macbeth will never be defeated until Birnam Wood marches to fight you at Dunsinane Hill.Apparation #3 (Witches) 4.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_138.html)-These are the apparations, brought forth to Macbeth by the witches, causing Macbeth to regard himself as invincible- not worried about the thought of him getting killed |
| Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits.The flighty purpose never is o’ertookUnless the deed go with it. From this momentThe very firstlings of my heart shall beThe firstlings of my hand. | Time, you thwart my dreadful plans. Unless a person does something the second he thinks of it, he’ll never get a chance to do it. From now on, as soon as I decide to do something I’m going to act immediately. Macbeth 4.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_144.html)-This is Macbeth, deciding he will act upon whatever decisions come to mind-This leads to him getting all of Macduff’s family killed, making him even more angry at Macbeth, guaranteeing Malcolm and Macduff’s plan to overthrow him to happen |
| What, will these hands ne’er be clean? | What, will my hands never be clean?Lady Macbeth 5.1(No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_180.html)-This line shows what has happened to Lady Macbeth after the murder of Duncan-She pictures his blood, stained on her hands, unwashable-Her insanity because of the murder, lead to her downfall |
| Thou losest labor. As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman bored. | Your wasting your time trying to wound me. You might as well try to stab the air with your sword. Go fight someone who can be harmed. I lead a charmed life, which can’t be ended by anyone born from a woman.Macbeth 5.8(No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_212.html)-Macbeth has become cocky, and over indulged in himself after the words of the witches-He looks at himself as invincible |
| Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vap’rous drop profound.I’ll catch it ere it come to ground.And that distilled by magic sleightsShall raise such artificial spritesAs by the strength of their illusionShall draw him on to his confusions.He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bearHis hopes ‘bove wisdom grace and fear. | An important droplet is hanging from the corner of the moon. Ill catch it before it falls to the ground. When I work over it with magic spells, the drop will produce magical spirits that will trick Macbeth with illusions. He will be fooled into thinking he is greater than fate, he will mock death, and he will think he is above wisdom, grace and fear.Hecate (witches) 3.5(No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_125.html) |
| The castle of Macduff I will surprise,Seize upon Fife, give to th’ edge o’ th’ swordHis wife, his babies, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. | I’ll raid Macduff’s castle, seize the town of Fife, and kill his wife, his children, and anyone else unfortunate enough to stand in line for his inheritance.Macbeth 4.1(No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_145.html)- This doing is what sets off Macduff, now eager to seize the crown back from Macbeth |
| Come fate into the list,And champion me to th’ utterance. | I will challenge fate to battle and fight to the deathMacbeth 3.1 (No Fear Shakespeare http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/page_145.html) |
Ryan-Macbeth-Quotations
August 10, 2019