Flashcards
Macbeth
Cards in this deck (13)
- 1“False faith must hide what the false heart doth know.” MacbethContext: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth form the plan to kill Duncan
Meaning: Macbeth and Lady Macbeth must hide their feelings behind a facade - 2“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 the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering 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” Lady MacbethContext: Lady Macbeth doesn’t think Macbeth will have the courage to kill Duncan so she asks the spirits to give her the masculine qualities to do so
- 3“too full o' th' human kindness”Context: Lady Macbeth thinks that Macbeth is too nice, loyal and kind.
- 4“Tis to love the babe that kills me: I would while it was smiling in my face. Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums and dash’d the brains out, had I sworn so as you have done to this.”Context: Lady Macbeth is calling Macbeth cowardly as dishonest because he has backed out of killing Duncan.
- 5“As cannons over-charged with double cracks.”Context: the sergeant gives his report on the battle that has just occurred
- 6”Look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t”Context: Lady Macbeth and Macbeth talking about how to hide their murder of duncan
- 7”is this a dagger which I see before me”Context: Macbeth is feeling guilty about the plan to kill Duncan when he sees a fictional dagger
- 8”A little water clears us of this deed”Context: Lady Macbeth has to become more ruthless as Macbeth’s courage begins to fade.
- 9”The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. 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.”Context: Uh-oh. Once he learns that King Duncan has named Malcolm the Prince of Cumberland and heir to the crown of Scotland, Macbeth isn't content to wait around for "chance" to intervene. He decides that he must take action, or "o'erleap" the obstacles in his path to the throne. By murder. Well, this seems pretty willful to us.
- 10”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 peace Only for them, and mine eternal jewel Given 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”Context: Well, this is interesting. Here, Macbeth is calling fate to his aid, asking it to "champion" him, or fight for him, in the "lists," or the tournament grounds. This doesn't sound like a fate-or-free-will situation; it sounds like a fate-and-free-will deal.
- 11”Shakes so my single state of man That function is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is but what is not”Slow down there, Macbeth, because these ladies haven't said a word about murder. The fact that his first thought is about killing the king is mighty suspicious—almost as though they've just awoken a murderous ambition that's been there all along.
- 12” For mine own good All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er”In case we still had some lingering doubts, Macbeth clears that up for us: he's doing all this "For mine own good." Great. We'll be sure not to ask him for any favors, then.
- 13”Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off”Even Macbeth admits that Duncan's done a good job being king: he's been "clear in his great office. But is "meek" really a quality that you want from the most powerful man in your kingdom?