Macbeth-_Important_Quotes_Analysed

Macbeth- Quotes Macbeth “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me” No sooner do three witches proclaim Macbeth future king of Scotland than Macbeth starts thinking up bloody business. While his ambition gets ahead of his conscience, Macbeth is still frightened by his own "imaginings" of murdering the present king, Duncan (who's a relative, no less). The murder is as yet merely a fantasy ("fantastical"), but the fantasy is powerful enough to "smother" Macbeth's "function"—his normal grip on reality. For Macbeth, "nothing is/ But what is not": nothing is real to him but what is imaginary. Macbeth's weak defence against his imagination is the hope that if destiny ("chance") will have him to be king, then destiny will do the dirty work, and he won't have to lift a finger. Chance may crown him without his stirring in his own service. But notice the subjunctive mood of "may": chance may take care of the business, but then again, Macbeth may still have to do it himself. “I have no spur, To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on th'other. . . .” Macbeth, trying to rationalize his impending murder of King Duncan, continues his great "If it were done" soliloquy. Unfortunately, as Macbeth has just explained to himself, there's no real justification for the crime—Duncan is his relative, a meek and pious man, a good king, and, furthermore, a guest at his castle. All this argues against so bloody a deed, which will appear unjustifiable to mortal and divine eyes alike. Therefore, Macbeth has no "spur" to prick on his intent,—no motivation to inspire the murder. Continuing the horse metaphor, he can only draw on "vaulting ambition": an intense desire for power. His desire vaults even beyond its intrinsic limits ("o'erleaps itself") to land on "th'other" (the other side)—probably, to land somewhere unknown and beyond reason. “If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly. If th' assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease, success: that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all—here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come”. Macbeth ponders assassinating King Duncan of Scotland, whose shoes he intends to fill. If simply killing the king were all there was to it, he tells himself, there'd be no problem. But there are bound to be unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences, both in this life ("upon this bank and shoal of time") and in the "life to come." Yet he'd "jump" (risk) the spiritual penalties if he could be sure of immediate success here and now. Trammel up the consequence- Macbeth doubting the act of killing Duncan will catch up in itself the consequences of that action.Be all and end all- Macbeth wonders if that action will be all that is required and end all that he must go through to be king. Lady Macbeth “Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil”. As Macbeth returns from murdering King Duncan, Lady Macbeth upbraids him for bringing back incriminating evidence. She thinks that planting the murder weapon on the king's unconsious grooms and smearing them with Duncan's blood will clear her and her husband of any suspicion. This ploy doesn't work, but nevertheless she and Macbeth are not immediately discovered. When Lady Macbeth calls her husband "infirm of purpose," she refers back to the root meaning of "infirm": unsteady, "not firm." Macbeth's resolve ("purpose") is weak; he fears the deed he's done, and thus he's also "infirm" in the modern sense: his will is crippled. “Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard' What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow'r to accompt'—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him'” Lady Macbeth, as has become her wont, sleepwalks through the royal castle. As her waiting-woman and her doctor listen in, she mutters fragments of an imaginary conversation that recalls the night she and her husband conspired to murder King Duncan. The hour is two o'clock; she upbraids her husband for his bad conscience; she insists that there will be nothing to fear once they've grabbed the crown; she marvels at how much blood Duncan had to shed. As Lady Macbeth replays this scene for the eavesdroppers, she not only incriminates herself, but also reveals the pangs of conscience she had ridiculed in her husband. One motif of Macbeth is how tough it is to wash, scrub, or soak out nasty bloodstains. Macbeth had said that even the ocean couldn't wash his hands clean of Duncan's blood; Lady Macbeth, who scorned him then, now finds the blood dyed into her conscience. “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be What thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear thy nature, It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way”. Lady Macbeth is ambitious, and fears that her milky husband lacks the mettle to grab the Scottish crown in the most expeditious manner. "The nearest way," as she sees it, is to murder King Duncan. She hatches this plot—which had independently occurred to Macbeth as well—when he writes home that three witches have prophesied that he would be created "thane" (lord) of Cawdor, and later would ascend the throne. The first half of the prophecy has already come true, and Lady Macbeth is in a hurry to make sure the second half comes true too. As fluids go, Lady Macbeth is more inclined to murderous blood than nurturing milk. Later, goading the hesitant Macbeth, she insists that, if she had sworn to do it, she wouldn't have hesitated to take her own baby "while it was smiling in my face”. “Unsex me here”- strip her of her femineity and replace it with masculine resolve to murder Duncan Macduff “He has no children.—All my pretty ones' Did you say all'—O hell-kite!—All' What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop'” King Macbeth, who knows that Macduff is conspiring to overthrow him, had ordered the murder of Macduff's wife, children, and servants. This is the "fell swoop": Macduff likens Macbeth to a "hell-kite" (the kite is a vicious bird of prey in the falcon family) This fuels Macduff’s personal and right reasons for revenge. “Not in the legions of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd in evils to top Macbeth”. Macduff referring to Macbeths tyrant reign, depicting him as a devil for all the horrible acts he has committed, none more personal then killing his family.