Themes in Act 1 and 2

Themes in Act 1 and 2

1. Ambition

   • I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on th’other –
   • "we will go to hell for this"" and when we do we will rule it too"
   • My noble partner You greet with present grace and great prediction Of noble having and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate

2. Appearance and reality

   • Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse The curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s off’rings, and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.
   • There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.
   • I am settled and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth    know.

3. Violence

   • Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
   • Till he unseamed him for the nave to th'chaps
   • I am in blood Stepped so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er

4. Loyalty

   • Let your highness command upon me, to which my duties are with a most indissoluble tie forever knit.
   • The service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself
   • I am his kinsman and his subject

5. Deception

   • False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
   • 'look like the innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under't/'
   • What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won