Show:
Who Said it?
Speaking to Whom?
Context
Significance
True or False?
100
"So fair and foul a day I have not seen"
Who is Macbeth
100
"And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths."
Who is Banquo to Macbeth
100
So fair and foul a day I have not seen. - Macbeth
Context: First line Macbeth speaks as he and Banquo are walking off the battlefield before meeting the three witches. It is a fair day because he has won a battle and it is foul because he has lost fellow soldiers and the weather is bad
100
Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires; the eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see -Macbeth
Significance: Macbeth is ashamed to be in the light for having these evil thoughts, which shows he still has a moral compass, yet he calls on the darkness to hide him and his shame, because he still wants the murder to happen. This contrasts Lady Macbeth, who calls on the darkness and spirits to make herself evil.
100
Lady Macbeth is the driving force for Macbeth
What is true
200
"Fair is foul and foul is fair"
Who are the three Witches or Weird Sisters
200
"False face must hide what the false heart doth know"
Who is Macbeth to Lady Macbeth
200
But screw your courage to the sticking place and we shall not fail -Lady Macbeth
Context: Macbeth expresses worry that they might fail. Lady Macbeth chastises him and says that if he focuses himself on the task at hand, they will succeed.
200
Is this not a dagger which I see before me? The handle toward my hand? -Macbeth
Significance: Macbeth has a vision of what he must do and it guides him to complete the task even as he has one last moment of doubt. This shows us that Macbeth's character has shifted from the conflicted individual of earlier into one that commits to the act. The vision leads him to this decision to finally kill Duncan.
200
Macbeth believes he is in "borrowed robes" when he is hailed as thane of Cawdor
What is True
300
"There's daggers in men's smiles"
Who is Donalbain
300
"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t"
Who is Lady Macbeth to Macbeth
300
Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t. -Lady Macbeth
Context: Follows the argument where Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he isn't going to kill Duncan. She convinces him and she is telling her husband to be the perfect host to conceal their plan of murdering Duncan.
300
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it. - Lady Macbeth
Significance: Lady Macbeth believes that Macbeth has the ambition but not the nerve to do what must be done. Luckily she has enough for both of them as she is a manipulative and evil character. We see this through her summoning of the evil spirits to give her the strength to complete the task at hand. She also becomes the driving force behind Macbeth's actions.
300
Lady Macbeth kills Duncan
What is False
400
"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 on red"
Who is Macbeth
400
"O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge. O slave!"
Who is Banquo to Fleance as he is killed
400
Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal For it must seem their guilt -Lady Macbeth
Context: Macbeth comes back from killing Duncan but feels guilty and Lady Macbeth chastises him for not finishing the job. She tells him to be a man and finishes the job for him.
400
Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done, is done -Lady Macbeth
Significance: Lady Macbeth chides Macbeth for still thinking about Duncan's murder and urges him to put it past him because he is king now. It also tells us that she is able to put things behind her and has no guilt for her or her husband's actions, which contributes to her manipulative nature.
400
Macbeth has to convince Lady Macbeth that killing Duncan is a good idea
What is False
500
"Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, As the weird women promised, and, I fear, Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said It should not stand in thy posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings. If there come truth from them— As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine— Why, by the verities on thee made good, May they not be my oracles as well, And set me up in hope? But hush! no more."
Who is Banquo
500
"Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair?"
What is Banquo to Macbeth
500
Knock, knock who's there? - Porter
Context: Comedic relief. The porter is roused from sleep and is talking to himself and made up people. He is pretending to open the gates of Hell. The knocking follows behind the knocking that Macbeth hears after killing Duncan. The people knocking on the door are Macduff and Lennox. They are here to meet King Duncan.
500
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. Make thick my blood. Stop up th' access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th' effect and it. Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry "Hold, hold!" -Lady Macbeth
Significance: This speech follows behind Macbeth's speech and contrasts it by using similar imagery of darkness. Where Macbeth wants to hide, Lady Macbeth is calling the darkness to her. She also wants to cast off her femininity because, in this context, it is seen as a sign of weakness. She is effectively trying to make herself into the man her husband isn't. This also shows that she is much more evil and nasty than her husband is.
500
Macbeth arranges to have Banquo and Fleance killed by a gang of murderers
What is true