Macbeth Themes

Macbeth Themes

1. Paradox

   • "Fair is foul, and foul is fair!" - Witches 1.1.11
     • "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." - Macbeth 1.3.38
   • "Nothing is but what is not" - Macbeth 1.3.142
   • "Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires!" - Macbeth 1.4.50
     • The eye wink at the hand! - Yet let that be, which th eye fears, when it is done, to see." - Macbeth 1.4.52
   • "Lesser than Macbeth, and greater." "Not so happy, yet much happier." "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none" - Witches 1.3.66
   • "What though wouldst highly, that wouldst though holily - wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win" Lady Macbeth 1.5.19
   • "Nought's had, all's spent.... 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy." - Lady Macbeth 3.2.4
   • "Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry 'Hold Hold'" Lady Macbeth 1.5.52
   • "Make our faces vizards to our hearts" - Macbeth 3.2.34
   • "Come, seeling night, scarf up the tender eye of the pitiful day" - Macbeth 3.2.46

2. Clothes

   • "New honours come upon him like our strange garments - cleave not to their mould but with the aid of use" - Banquo 1.3.145
   • "Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?" - Macbeth 1.3.108
   • "I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss" - Macbeth 1.7.32

3. Deception

   • "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face" - Duncan 1.4.12
   • "Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires!" - Macbeth 1.4.50
   • "This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses" - Duncan 1.6.1
   • "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" - Lady Mcbeth 1.5.64
   • "Where we are there's daggers in men's smiles" - Donalbain 2.3.136
   • "And be these juggling fiends no more believed that palter with us in adouble sense -" - Macbeth 5.8.19

4. Sleep

   • "(we) sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly." - Macbeth 3.2.17
     • "Better be with the dead... than on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy"
       • "Duncan is in his grave. After life's fitful fever he sleeps well"
   • "'Sleep no more!- Macbeth does murder sleep!' - the innocent sleep - sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, balm of hurt minds..." - Macbeth 2.2.32

5. Sickness

   • "Things without all remedy should be without regard" - Lady Macbeth 3.2.12
   • "If though couldst, doctor, cast the water of my land, find her disease, and purge it to a sound and pristine health" - Macbeth 5.3.50
   • "You do unbend your noble strength , to think so brainsickly of things." - Lady Macbeth 2.2.42
   • "These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so, it will make us mad." - Lady Macbeth 2.2.30
   • "The earth was feverous, and did shake." - Lennox 2.3.57
   • "who wear our health but sickly in (Banquo's) life, which in his death were perfect" - Macbeth 3.1.106
   • "O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife" - Macbeth 3.2.36
   • "Canst though not minister to a mind diseased? Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow..."" - Macbeth 5.3.40

6. Kingship

   • "If though couldst, doctor cast the water of my land, find her disease, and purge it to a sound and pristine health" - Macbeth 5.3.50
   • "(Duncan's) virtues will plead like angels" - Macbeth 1.7.18
   • "(Duncan) was a most sainted king" - Macduff 4.3.109
   • "The king becoming graces - as justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness, bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude-" - Malcolm 4.3.92

7. Guilt

   • "Good sir, why do you start" - Banquo 1.3.50
   • "This is a sorry sight" - Macbeth 2.2.20
   • "He's here in double trust" - Macbeth 1.7.12
   • " Of all men else I have avoided thee" - Macbeth 5.6.43
   • "My soul is too much charged with the blood of thine already" - Macbeth 5.6.44
   • he cannot "wash this blood clean from (his) hand" - Macbeth 2.2.60
   • "A little water clears us of this deed" -Lady Macbeth 2.2.67
   • "Who would of thought the old man to have so much blood in him" - Lady Macbeth 5.1.38
   • Even death cannot bring "sweat relief" for he cannot "jump the life to come" - 1.7.7 Macbeth

8. Manhood

   • "Thy undaunted metal should compose nothing but males" - Macbeth 1.7.74
   • "I dare do all that may become a man - who dares do more is none." - Macbeth 1.7.46
   • "To be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man." - Lady Macbeth 1.7.50