Act I
"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!"
Who said it?
Lady Macbeth (I.5)
"Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still."
1) Who says it? 2) Who or what is he talking to?
Macbeth, hallucinating a dagger on his way to kill Duncan (II.1)
"Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and I fear
Thou played'st most foully for it"
Who said it?
Banquo (III.1)
"________, ________ toil and trouble,
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!"
1) Fill in the blanks
2) Identify at least one rhetorical device in these lines.
"Double, Double" (IV.1),
Rhyme
Repetition
Verbal irony (the doubling of the word double)
"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"
1) Who is talking?
2) Who is listening?
Lady Macbeth (sleepwalking, V.1); the doctor and the gentlewoman are observing her
"The Prince of Cumberland: that is a step/ On which I must fall down or else o’er-leap,/ For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;/ Let not light see my black and deep desires."
1) Who's speaking? 2) What does it mean?
Macbeth; Malcolm stands in his way to the throne after Duncan; he wants his murderous thoughts to be hidden. (I.4)
Who is the speaker, and what is the "it" they would have done?
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't."
Lady Macbeth, killed Duncan herself (II.2)
"Our fears in _______ stick deep, and in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared."
1) Fill in the blank
2) Explain at least one aspect of wordplay/ verbal irony here.
Macbeth is talking about Banquo;
His fears "sticking deep" imply that his fear is tenacious and pervasive, but also sounds like a dagger sticking into someone's body.
Banquo's "royalty of nature" could refer to his personal integrity or to his children becoming kings; likely both.
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
Who or what is the "something wicked" that is approaching?
Macbeth! (IV.2)
Macbeth says that instead of "honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," he has "Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath."
What is "mouth-honour"?
Flattery, lip service (V.3)
“Look the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under it.”
1) Who says it? 2) To whom?
Lady Macbeth talking to Macbeth (I.6)
Fill in the blanks:
Methought I heard a voice cry, "_______ no more; Macbeth does murder ______"
Sleep, sleep (Macbeth after he kills Duncan), II.2
"Things without all remedy / Should be done without regard: what's done, is done."
1) Who said it? 2) What is the context?
Lady Macbeth (III.2); Context: Macbeth was brooding about murders and his conscience. She wants to convince him not to worry about it - You shouldn’t think about things that can’t be fixed.
"Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,/
His mansion, and his titles in a place/
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not."
1) Who says it?
2) What are they talking about?
Lady Macduff, lamenting that Macduff fled to England leaving his family behind.
"___________, and __________, and ___________
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day."
1) Fill in the blank!
2) Give one example of something that life is compared to in this speech.
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" (V.5)
Life is compared to a creeping animal or creature, to a "brief candle," to a "poor player" (bad actor), and to a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
"When 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."
1) Who says it? 2) Explain what it means.
Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth that he was a "man" when he "dared" to kill Duncan, and he could be even more of a "man" by becoming king. (I.7)
"A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy it is then!"
1) Who says it? 2) Why is it ironic?
Lady Macbeth (II.2); later in Act 5 she can't stop hallucinating blood on her hands as she sleepwalks.
"Tis better thee without, than he within."
1) Who says it? 2) What does it mean?
Macbeth (to murderer, III.4); It is better that the blood is on the outside of you than on the inside of Banquo
"I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash/
is added to her wounds."
1) Who says it? 2) What country are they talking about? 3) What country are they currently in?
Malcolm, lamenting Scotland, speaking from England (IV.3)
"Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped."
1) Who says it? 2) To whom? 3) What does it mean?
Macduff to Macbeth (V.8); He was born by C-section not "of woman born" and therefore Macbeth is not protected from him as per the witches' prophecy.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
1) Who said it?
2) Give two specific examples of the "fair is foul" motif in the play.
The witches; examples include:
"So foul and fair a day I have not seen."
"Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what false heart doth know"
Macbeth is proclaimed Thane of Cawdor (who was a traitor) because of his apparent loyalty
LM asks the "spirits" to make her unable to feel guilty of murder, and then subsequently becomes unraveled/insane due to her guilt.
The witches' prophecies turn out to come true based on equivocations
Malcolm is a "good guy" but not at all likable
"Where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles; the nea'er in blood,
The nearer bloody."
1) Who says it?
2) Explain the wordplay (i.e. verbal irony)
Donaldbain to his brother Malcolm (II.3); being nearer in blood-relation to the murdered king (i.e., his sons) puts them nearer to danger.
"What, quite unmanned in folly?.... Fie, for shame."
1) Who said it? 2) To whom? 3) Explain the meaning.
Lady Macbeth to Macbeth (III.4), trying to shame him for acting so strange in front of his dinner guests
"Dispute it like a man."
"I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man."
1) Who are the two people talking? 2) What is "it"?
Malcolm and Macduff; "It" = the slaughter of Macduff's wife and children back in Scotland (IV.3)
"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written trouble of the brain?"
1) Who says it? 2) To whom? 3) Who are they talking about?
Macbeth to the doctor, talking about Lady Macbeth's psychological collapse (V.3); there's irony here because Macbeth is also evidently suffering from "a mind diseased" and "written trouble of the brain"