1
Q
How does Shakespeare portray King Duncan?
A
- Duncan epitomises good kingship: he trusts his nobles and rewards their loyalty with honour and titles.
- However, Shakespeare also makes him naïve: he is unable to detect the deceit - ‘the mind’s construction’ - in either Macdonald or Macbeth.
2
Q
How is King Duncan’s death portrayed in the play?
A
- Duncan’s unsuspecting nature serves to increase the pathos of his brutal murder - further enhanced by his being asleep and in Macbeth’s ‘double trust’ - as well as Macbeth’s own feelings of guilt.
- His regicide symbolises the perversion of the natural order, which cannot be restored until the rightful heir - Malcolm - is crowned.
3
Q
What are some key Quotations from King Duncan
A
- He [Cawdor] was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust. (1:4)
- We will establish our estate upon / Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter, / The Prince of Cumberland. (1:4)
- There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. (1:4)
- This Duncan / Hath borne his faculties so meek. (Macbeth, 1:7)
- Here lay Duncan / His silver skin laced with his golden blood / And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature. (Macbeth, 2:3)
4
Q
How are the Wierd Sisters portrayed in the play?
A
- The Weird Sisters embody contemporary doubts about whether or not the ultimate fate of the soul was decided before birth - called ‘predestination’
- “weird’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘wyrd’, meaning fate; their number corresponds to that of the Fates of Greek and Roman mythology. Yet they do not directly compel Macbeth to do anything.
- The ‘all-hail’ greeting is an allusion to Judas’ betrayal of Christ, familiar to audiences through the Bible
- they face no punishment at the end of the play - curious given James I’s own interest in witch hunting.
5
Q
Quotes: Wierd Sisters. From Act 1 Scene 1
A
- When shall we three meet again? / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
- Fair is foul, and foul is fair, / Hover through the fog and filthy air.
6
Q
Quotes: Wierd Sisters. From Act 1 Scene 3
A
- What are these, / So withered and wild in their attire, / That look not like the inhabitants o’th’earth, / And yet are on’t? (Banquo)
- You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so. (Banquo)
- All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.
- Thou [Banquo] shalt get kings, though thou be none.
- Into the air; and what seemed corporal, / Melted, as breath into the wind. / Would they have stayed. (Macbeth)
- And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray in deepest consequence. (Banquo)
7
Q
Quotes: Wierd Sisters. From Act 4 Scene 1
A
- Double, double, toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
- By the pricking of my thumb, / Something wicked this way comes.
- How now, you secret, black and midnight hags? (Macbeth)
- Tell me, thou unknown power. (Macbeth)
- He [Macbeth] will not be commanded. Here’s another [apparition], / More potent than the first.
- Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth. Beware Macduff.
- For none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.
8
Q
How does Shakespeare portray Macbeth
A
- Macbeth begins the play as a loyal thane, however his violent nature is described in ominous terms, foreshadowing what is to follow.
- Shakespeare contrasts his traditional masculine aspect with the perceived feminine weakness of his indecisiveness and lack of will to resist temptation - this inversion of gender highlights corruption of the natural order.
- Shakespeare’s decision to immediately have him expresses guilt for the regicide, encourages us to empathise with him.
- while he reasserts a perverse masculinity through his tyrannical behavior, his contrasting nihilistic breakdown and steely determination in Act Five - renders him an object of pity as much as hateful fear and scorn, like a ‘bear’ that has been ‘tied […] to a stake’
9
Q
Quotes: Macbeth. From Act 1
A
- So fair and foul a day have I not seen. (1:3)
- If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me. (1:3)
- Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires. (1:4)
- He’s here in double trust: / First, as I am his kinsman, and his subject, / Strong both against the deed. / Then as his host. (1:7)
- We will proceed no further in this business. (1:7)
- I dare do all that may become a man, / Who dares do more, is none. (1:7)
- Away, and mock the time with the fairest show: / False face must hide what the false heart doth know. (1:7)
- Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other. (1:7)
10
Q
Quotes: Macbeth. From Act 2
A
- Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? (2:1)
- I heard a voice cry, ‘sleep no more. /Macbeth doth murder sleep.’ (2:2)
- Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? (2:2)
11
Q
Quotes: Macbeth. From Act 3
A
- Our fears in Banquo stick deep. (3:1)
- They hailed him [Banquo] father to a line of kings: / Upon my head they placed a fruitless
crown. (3:1) - We [Macbeth and wife] have scorched the snake, not killed it: (3:2)
- Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck. (3:2)
- O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife: Thou knowst that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives. (3:2)
- But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined [on Fleance’s escape]. (3:4)
- There the grown serpent lies; the worm that’s fled [Fleance] Hath nature that in time will venom breed. (3:4)
- Thou canst not say I did it: never shake / Thy gory locks at me. (3:4)
12
Q
Quotes: Macbeth. From Act 5
A
- I’ll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked. (5:3)
- I have almost forgot the taste of fears. (5:5)
- Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day (5:5)
- Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow. (5:5)
- [metaphor for life] It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing. (5:5)
- Why should I play the Roman fool, and die / On mine own sword?(5:8)
- [to Macduff] get thee back, my soul is too much charg’d / With blood of thine already.
- I must not yield [my life] / To one of woman born. (5:8)
- Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough! (5:8)
13
Q
How does Shakespeare portray Lady Macbeth
A
- Shakespeare has her subvert contemporary ideals of womanhood through the violent language she uses in pursuit of power.
- This is juxtaposed with Macbeth’s effeminate vacillation. However, we may question what is revealed by her reluctance to commit the murder herself.
- Unlike Macbeth, she remains calm in the aftermath of the regicide, seemingly a force of reason.
- Shakespeare chooses to make her completely absent from Act Four, enhancing the shock we experience at her complete mental breakdown which opens Act Five.
- Her subsequent suicide was seen as a mortal sin by contemporaries, and contrasts with Macbeth’s determined final stand.
14
Q
What is significant about Lady Macbeths first words in the play.
A
- Like Macbeth, the first words Shakespeare gives Lady Macbeth are not her own: she reads Macbeth’s letter about the prophecies
- This immediately implies she is under their influence.
15
Q
Quotes: Lady Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 5
A
- I do fear thy nature, / It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness.
- The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
- Hie thee Hither / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, / And chastise with the valour of my tongue.
- Come you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty.
- Come to my woman’s breasts, / And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.
- Come thick night, /And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell.
- O never / Shall sun that morrow see [Duncan].
- Make thick my blood, / Stop up the access and passage to remorse.
- Look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t.
- You shall put / this night’s great business into my dispatch.
- Leave all the rest to me.
16
Q
Quotes: Lady Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 7
A
- From this time / Such I account thy love.
- What beast was’t then / That made you break this enterprise to me?
- I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have plucked the nipple from his boneless gums, And dashed the brains out.
- His two chamberlains / Will I with wine and wassail so convince, / That memory, the warder of the brain, / Shall be a fume.
- Bring forth men children only, / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males. (Macbeth)
17
Q
Quotes: Lady Macbeth. Act 2
A
- That which hath made them drunk [Duncan’s gaurds] hath made me bold. (2:2)
- Had he [Duncan] not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t. (2:2)
- These deeds must not be thought / After these ways; so, it will make us mad. (2:2)
- A little water clears us of this deed. (2:2)
18
Q
Quotes: Lady Macbeth. Act 3
A
- Naught’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content. (3:2)
- What’s done is done. (3:2)
19
Q
Quotes: Lady Macbeth. Act 5
A
- Out, damned spot: out, I say. (5:1)
- Who would have thought the old man / To have had so much blood in him? (5:1)
- The Thane of Fife [Macduff] had a wife. Where is she now? (5:1)
- Here’s the smell of the blood still: / All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
this little hand. (5:1) - What’s done cannot be undone. (5:1)
- To bed, to bed, to bed. (5:1)
20
Q
How does shakespeare portray Banquo
A
- Banquo is also ambitious like Macbeth and, at first, seems more eager to hear what the Witches can offer him, and is less affected by their foresight than the ‘rapt’ Macbeth.
- However, he is more cautious and recognises the Sisters as ‘instruments of darkness’ to be feared, although he remains intrigued by their prophecies and retains some ‘hope’ in their truth.
- However, he entertains no thoughts of murder to speed the prophecies to their conclusion
- Shakespeare used him as an antithetical foil to Macbeth, underscoring the corruptive influence of his ‘vaulting ambition’ and Lady Macbeth’s machinations.
21
Q
Quotes: Banquo Act 1 Scene 3
A
- What are these, / So wither’d and so wild in their attire, / That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth / And yet are on’t?
- Look, how our partner’s [Macbeth] rapt.
- Why do you start and seem to fear things that sound so fair?
- Were such things here as we do speak about? / Or have we eaten on the insane root / That takes the reason prisoner?
- That trusted home / Might yet enkindle you [Macbeth] to the crown.
- What, can the devil speak true?
- Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
- And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness [the Weird Sisters] tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s / In deepest consequence.
- New honours come upon him [Macbeth], / Like our strange garments cleave not to their mould, / But with the aid of use.
- There if I grow [in Duncan’s heart], / The harvest is your own.
22
Q
Quotes: Banquo Act 2
A
- A heavy summons lies upon me, / And yet I would not sleep. (2:1)
- I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters. (2:1)
- Too cruel [Duncan’s murder] anywhere / Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself. (2:3)
23
Q
Quotes: Banquo Act 3
A
- Thou [Macbeth] hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, / As the weird women promised, and I fear / Thou played’st most foully for it. (3:1)
- He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour / To act in safety. (Mac, 3:1)
- It will be rain tonight [just before his death]. (3:3)
- Oh treachery! Fly good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! (3:3)
24
Q
How is Macduff portrayed by Shakespeare in the begining of the play?
A
Macduffs role is limited early in the play, but he does perform some important actions:
- he enters ‘the hell-gate’ of Dunsinane
- he is the first to discover Duncan’s body
- he queries Macbeth’s decision to kill Duncan’s guards
- he does not attend the feast.
- The First Apparition summoned by the Weird Sisters counsels Macbeth to ‘beware Macduff’, prompting him to organise the murder of his family, which strengthens Macduff’s resolve.
25
How does Shakespeare portray Macduff in the later part of the play?
- In Act Four, the purity of his patriotism, allied to his emotional and resolute response to the news of the murder of his family, further serves to distance him from the perverted masculinity represented by Macbeth
- This allows Shakespeare to firmly set him up as the tyrant's antagonist for the rest of the play.
- Macduff defeats Macbeth honourably in single combat, highlighting his nobility and fulfilling the Second Apparition's prophecy.
26
Quotes: Macduff. Act 2
- Most sacrilegious murder [Duncan's] has broke ope / The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence / The life o' th' building. (2:3)
- O gentle lady [Lady Macbeth], / "Tis not for you to hear what I can speak. / The repetition in a woman's ear / Would murder as it fell. (2:3)
- Wherefore did you [Macbeth, on why he killed the guards] so? (2:3)
- Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons, / Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them / Suspicion of the deed. (2:4)
- No, cousin [Ross], I'll to Fife [rather than attend the feast]. (2:4)
27
Quotes: Macduff. Act 4
- To leave his wife, to leave his babes, / His mansion and his titles in a place / From whence himself he does fly? He loves us not. (Lady Macduff, 4:2)
- Not in the legions / of horrid hell can come a devil more damned / In evils to top Macbeth. (4:3)
- All my pretty ones? / Did you say "all"? O hell-kite! All? / What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop? (4:3)
- Bring thou this fiend of Scotland [Macbeth] and myself; / Within my sword's length set him. (4:3)
28
Quotes: Macduff. Act 5
- Tyrant, show thy face, / If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, / My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. (5:7)
- Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped. (5:8)
- Turn, hell hound [Macbeth], turn! (5:8)
- Hail, King! For so thou art: behold, where stands / The usurper's cursed head: the time is free. (5:8)
29
Quotes about Macbeth at the start of the play (Act 1 Scene 2)
- "Brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name -" (Captain)
- "his brandish'd steel, / Which smok'd with bloody execution" (Captain)
- "Like Valour's minion carv'd out his passage" (Captain)
- "unseamed him from the nave to th'chaps / And fix'd his head upon our battlements" (Captain)
- "valiant cousin, worthy gentlemen" (Duncan)
- "Bellona's bridegroom" (Ross)
- "What he [Macdonald] hath lost, nobel Macbeth hath won" (Duncan, paradox - link to witches)
30
Quotes: Macbeth. Act 4
- Give to the edge o' the sword His [Macduff's] wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line. (4:1)
- I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane. (4:1)
English - Macbeth
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