Macbeth: Key quotes and deeper meanings

Macbeth: Key quotes and deeper meanings

1. “O, full of scorpions is my mind!”

   • Macbeth describes his guilty thoughts as poisonous creatures scuttling through his mind.
     • Here, the audience sees how mad the two Macbeth's become.

2. "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”

   • Here, the witches recognise that Macbeth is no longer human and is no longer the good and valiant war hero they met previously.
     • This shows the audience the drastic shift in Macbeth's personality between the acts, and the shift in how the other characters recognise him.

3. "Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

   • In this quote, Macbeth is cynical and full of existential dread, he is not saddened by his wife's death but, instead jealous of her, for now she is free of guilt.
     • Macbeth doesn't even fight in the end and this really impacts on the way the audience views him, he starts on a battlefield and ends on a battlefield.

4. "“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

   • Macbeth is wary of killing Duncan, and does not want anyone looking upon him while he commits a treacherous crime.
     • This quote conveys the mass of guilt Macbeth feels and the way he initially questions the act.